Sshh, Be Quiet

Lisa stood back and listened to the commotion on the other end of the phone, feeling the blood flow from her face. She didn't hear any of the swear words coming from Johnny's mouth as he fought with the door.

“We’re stuck in here I think. Did they find anything?” He paused to look at Lisa, who stood there, looking much more pale than normal. “Lisa?”

“Something happened. We gotta get back upstairs,” she said quietly.

The two of them ran up the stairs back to the living room. Matt was sitting on a chair, head in his hands that were stained with blood, along with his shirt. The others were gathered around him, trying to ask him what happened.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Matt said.

“Let me through,” Lisa said. “Matt, come with me to the kitchen so you can get cleaned up.”

Matt looked up at Lisa. She was shocked at the unusual look of terror in his eyes. He nodded though, and followed Lisa into the kitchen when she told everyone to stay put. She walked him to the sink, turning on the water.

“Matt, talk to me.”

“I could hear the lyrics from our song “Dancing Dead” over the phone. I thought it was you singing it until you told me to get the hell out of there. I headed for the door, calling for her. I saw a shadow moving in the corner, and it was her. I swear she looked like a walking zombie. Stumbling to me, then I saw the stab wounds all over her body. Almost as bad as…well, it was bad. Then she fell towards me, I caught her right around when my phone fell and hung up on you. She died a few seconds later, so I hightailed it back down here before I was next,” he explained as he washed his hands.

He washed the blood off his arms, then took his shirt off, throwing it in the garbage.

“Did you have any luck with finding a way out?” Lisa asked him.

“Nothing. What about you?”

“We found a door that won’t budge. I don’t get it.”

“We’re stuck here. I hate to say it, but I don’t think we’re gonna make it out of here alive.”

“Matt, don’t talk like that. We’re gonna get out of here. We just have to stay put, in one group. Do you think we’d be able to get out on Sunday?”

“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.”

“Well what’s today? Wednesday?”

“That’s a long wait though.”

Lisa sighed, sat at the table and just placed her head down. “I honestly don’t know anymore.”

“Guys?” A voice came from the kitchen entrance.

Lisa and Matt turned to see Jenna standing there, holding her cell phone. It suddenly dawned on both of them to simply call the police, but that thought was about to be thrown out of a window that would actually break.

“We can’t reach anyone outside the house. We tried calling the cops from every cell phone here, and nothing. Just that weird beep thing and it says we’re not in a service area or something, but we were able to contact each other.”

Lisa once again smacked her forehead on the table. “Fucking hell,” she groaned against the table. “We're fucked aren't we?”

Matt looked up as Jenna left the kitchen. “What time is it?” he asked.

Lisa pulled out her phone. “It’s almost two pm,” she said. “Okay, so do we have any idea what we’re gonna do?”

“I guess try to wait it out. Stay together in the living room at night-no, stay together at all times. Trying at anytime to go around seeing if we can find a way out.”

“I guess that’s about all we can do for now,” Lisa said. She hung her head for a moment. “I said the same thing to Brian earlier. I’m sorry about Jimmy. It’s such…fuck, it’s a horrible thing to happen.”

“Thanks,” Matt mumbled.

“No really, it’s terrible. He was so talented, an amazing person. Nobody that great deserves that.”

“I gotcha. Thanks.” The slightly annoyed tone of his voice had told her to not bring it up anymore.

“So, since this is our plan, should we tell everyone?”

“Yeah I think we should.”

The two of them agreed then headed into the living room. The others were sitting around talking silently amongst each other. Matt cleared his throat to call for their attention while Lisa went and sat by Stephanie, hugging her best friend.

“Okay, so Lisa and I pretty much agreed that since we’re having trouble finding a way out of here, we’re going to stay in this room until Sunday. Nobody goes anywhere alone, even the bathroom, and even the shower. We’ll take turns showering in the morning at least two people standing outside the door. We’re going to sleep in here as a group, and if anyone gets up and needs to use the bathroom in the middle of the night, wake someone up, guys, you can wake me, girls you can uhh…”

“You can wake me,” Lisa interrupted.

“Okay wake her. But this is about it.”

“What if on Sunday, we still can’t get out?” Korynn asked.

Matt and Lisa exchanged glances on account of they hadn’t thought of that. It was an excellent question that no one seemed to have an answer for.

“We’ll be out before Sunday,” Matt said, trying to sound as reassuring as he could.

“Emily said something about the seven days thing. What she said made it seem like we will get out on Sunday if it comes down to that. She said ‘we won’t make it till Sunday.’ She seemed to know a lot about the history behind this place, and she seemed really into the supernatural stuff,” Lisa said. “Also, Johnny and I found a door in the basement, we just can’t budge it right now. I was thinking that before it gets dark tonight, or tomorrow, maybe Matt and Brian can go try to budge it.”

“Why us?” Brian asked.

“Why not? You two are buff mother-fuckers,” Steph said.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get out of here, all eight of us,” Matt said, then going silent as he sat in a chair, still trying to erase his memory of what just happened in the attic.

Notes