Chapter 11: Nyctophobia

BASEMENT. NO STUDENT ADMITTANCE.

That’s what the sign on the large wooden door said. The door that seemed to tower over Spencer.

She thoroughly examined it from top to bottom. Every square inch of that big hunk of wood passed through her aqua marine eyes and she was perplexed. There was no lock on it. It was as if they actually wanted the students to venture down into the underbelly of the school. Granted that when they built the school kids were better behaved, most likely, than now so they probably didn’t see the need for locks, but in the later years you’d thing they’d pop some on there.

“Weird…” she said to herself.

She inhaled deeply before looking down at the paper she’d unconsciously clenched in her hands to the point of crumpling it.

“Woops!”

She smoothed out the sheet and sighed as she carefully read the instructions.

“Go down to the basement using the flashlight as your only source of light. Search the ground for the wrench that Billy tripped over. When you find it walk ten steps forward, there will be a tall stack of empty boxes resembling the stack that fell. Lay down in front of the stack, holding the bracelet inside your bag inside your hand. It is said that Billy was going to give this to his girlfriend the night he died. Hold the bracelet and call out his name and wait for him to appear. Blah blah blah.”

She took the flashlight out of her bag and grabbed the door knob.

CLICK

On went the flashlight.

“Here we go Carlin…”

She opened the door and peered down into the black abyss. There was absolute stillness. No sound, no movement. It was bone chilling and unnerving, and she was at the top of the stairs.

She shined the tiny beam of light down towards the floor and scanned the landing for any sign of…well anything really. Left to right she moved the beam, and as she was ready to head down the stairs her light hit something. She looked and gasped and stepped back, successfully dropping the flashlight.

Had it really been there? No…it couldn’t have been. There was no way that she’d just seen a pasty white face wickedly grinning at her with dead grey eyes at the right edge of the staircase. Positively not. She was just freaking herself out. Yeah, that was it. Her mind was already playing tricks on her.