Alexandra Sokoloff - The Harrowing

Patrick raised the gun and fired three rapid shots, but the shadow spun and darted back into the darkness of a side hall. The shots slammed harmlessly into the wall.

Patrick seized Lisa and pulled her into the stairwell. Robin was left frozen on the balcony. Her heart pounded in her chest, the sound filling her head. She stared down the stairs at Cain’s crumpled body on the landing below.

She jerked forward and scrambled down the stairs, fell to her knees beside him, sobbing.

In the stairwell, Patrick and Lisa huddled together against the door in the dark, choking on their breath.

Above them, a mocking voice boomed. The slithery alien sound of it echoed in the stairwell, through the halls.

“Are the children of light frightened? Are they afraid of the dark?”

Patrick and Lisa spun around, freaked, looking upward.

The voice reverberated around them in the gloom, a hoarse, raw giggling.

Patrick shouted upward, enraged. “You want to play, limp dick? I’ll play a bullet through your lame-ass head.”

“Don’t—” Lisa begged, a frantic whisper. Patrick looked down at her. She was shaking all over, her eyes glazed.

He took her chin, looked down into her face. “Get down to the others. If you don’t hear me yelling I got him, y’all get the hell out.”

Her eyes were wide, terrified. “Pat, no—”

He bent quickly, kissed her roughly. “Go on now.”

Lisa sank, trembling, against the wall. He lifted the gun and started back up the stairs.

Cain’s face was deathly pale. Blue veins stood out in his forehead; blood oozed from a deep gash on the top of his shoulder. Robin touched him carefully, afraid to hope.

He stirred under her fingers. Her heart leapt. He opened his eyes and she gasped out in relief.

“Oh my God…”

“It’s not… so bad,” he managed. “I twisted away.”

Robin pulled off her sweat jacket, wound it tightly around his shoulder. She was shaking, barely able to speak.

“Got to… get you out of here…”

Patrick climbed the stairs. The alien voice floated down to him, around him, bizarre and mocking, a Southern parody in an insect tongue.

“Does the big boy have Daddy’s gun?”

Patrick flinched as if he’d been struck, a look of stunned recognition in his eyes. His gaze darted up the dark stairwell.

The voice dropped lower, gruff and guttural. “Come make Daddy feel good… Do it like Ah taught you…. Do it good, boy, or Ah’ll whup you raw.” The alien laughter rang in the stairwell.

Patrick snarled in rage and ran up the last steps. He burst onto the second floor, spinning wildly, the gun extended in both hands.

The laughter had cut off completely. The hall was dark, silent, just the neon EXIT light above the stairwell and the bluish glow from the snack machine in the laundry room.

Patrick shouted out. “Where are you, shit-licker?” He spat, gripped the gun, moved forward in the hall.

A sound came from the laundry room, a low animal-like whimpering.

Patrick turned and dashed for the laundry room—but stopped still in the doorway, stunned.

Martin was slumped in the shadowed corner, crumpled in half, holding his side. He was drenched in blood, crying. He looked up at Patrick, dazed.

“Patrick? It… got me.” Martin’s hands clutched the handle of a bloody ax sunk into his torso.

“Shit. Martin…” Patrick gasped, sickened.

“I’m hurt… I… think I’m dying.”

Patrick raised the gun, stepped toward Martin.

A floor below on the landing, Robin had Cain propped up against the banister. She tightened her jacket in a tourniquet around his shoulder. Her throat was raw from screaming; she tasted blood in her mouth. But she forced herself to breathe through her panic. All I have to do is help him down the stairs and out. We can go out the door. We’ll be free.

But Martin.

Was there even a Martin anymore? She saw again the mad figure dashing out of the hall, raising the ax.

Her mind rebelled against the picture. But she knew that beyond the black eyes it had been Martin, brandishing the ax with mad glee on his face.

Robin was jerked back to the present as three shots rang through the dorm. She froze with Cain; both of them looking up toward the sound.

There was a terrible silence.

“Oh no…” Robin whispered.

In the stairwell, Lisa twisted around, and shouted up the stairs. “Patrick…”

Silence.

Lisa screamed, “ Patrick! ”

She stared upward in terror, unaware of the door opening slowly behind her…a hand reaching out…

Lisa spun, screaming, at the touch.

Robin grabbed her arm in the dark. “Shh…”

Lisa crumpled. “Oh Jesus—”

Robin dug her fingernails into Lisa’s arm to silence her. She looked up the stairs.

Patrick shouted from above them. “I got the mother.”

Both girls sagged in relief at the sound of his voice; then Robin’s pulse spiked with horror as she registered his words. Did he shoot Martin? Is he dead?

Then something in her mind spoke clearly: Trick .

Lisa was already dashing upstairs. Robin followed madly on her heels, shouting, “Wait—”

She burst into the second-floor hall—and was greeted with silence.

The hall was black, murky with shadows. The blue light from the laundry room glowed faintly. She couldn’t hear a sound.

“Lisa?” Robin gulped. Her eyes focused in the dark passageway. It was completely empty.

She plunged across the hall to the laundry room—and ran into Lisa, who was stopped in the doorway, frozen. Robin stared past her.

Patrick’s body lay on the floor, the ax sunk into his side, blood pooling on the linoleum around him.

Martin crouched over the corpse, his eyes black. He swayed on his haunches, giggling, a mad thing, barely human, vacantly squeezing the trigger of the empty gun.

Robin and Lisa were frozen in horror.

That’s not Martin , Robin’s brain managed, through her terror. It’s something much more than Martin now . She stared in paralyzed fascination. Darkness seemed to roll off it in waves.

The thing that was not Martin reared up, yanked the ax from Patrick’s body.

Lisa screamed as the ax flashed down. The mad thing inside Martin aped her scream, its eyes shining black.

Then Robin sensed a movement on the floor, and Martin’s body jerked backward. The ax blade just missed Lisa’s neck, slicing a thin cut of blood on her shoulder.

Robin seized Lisa, pulling her away from the blade. Martin lunged at them again, snarling, then staggered again.

Patrick lay on the floor, blood pumping from his side, one big hand locked around Martin’s calf.

He opened his eyes and looked up at Robin. “Go,” he whispered.

Martin spun, raised the ax.

Robin and Lisa bolted as the ax flashed down again. They stumbled into the hall, ran into each other, righted themselves, and dashed into the stairwell, both hyperventilating with sobs.

The door slammed against the wall behind them and Martin shoved through, blocking the downstairs route.

In a split second of decision, the girls scrambled up the dark tunnel of stairs, powered by adrenaline, breath rasping in terror. The creature’s laugh echoed in the stairwell. It followed them up with shocking speed.

Robin and Lisa burst out the third-floor door into a long hall of rooms: the boys’ wing. In the narrow corridor, they tugged each other in opposite directions, whispering frantically, terrified.

“Stairwell off the kitchen,” Lisa choked out, her eyes black, pupils dilated to the edge of her irises. Robin could actually see her heart knocking against her chest.

“What if it’s locked?” Robin hedged, but Lisa jerked free and was running down the hall.