Surrendering(47)

Sleep was elusive, so she decided to head to the kitchen for a glass of water. Or better yet, a shot of tequila if she could find some. She threw on pajama shorts and tank and headed downstairs.

When she reached the first level, the house was blazing with lights, but there was no one to be found. Strange. Why would all of the lights be on in the middle of the night?

Glancing out the front door, she saw several new vehicles that weren’t there earlier. At least she didn’t think they were. She filled her glass with water in the kitchen. Unfortunately, there was no tequila to be found. She strained to hear any noises in the house. Nothing.

She decided to check out the office. No one was there either, but as luck would have it, a mini bar was tucked in the corner, with an unopened bottle of Patron calling her name. Hello, darling.

Trying to convince herself it wasn’t because she was drowning her sorrows, she helped herself to a couple of shots to help her sleep—hopefully dreamless. While she let the tequila take its effect, she wandered the empty house, ending up in the game room. She’d hoped to get lucky and run into Ren or Manny, but the game room was empty too.

All of a sudden she heard a strange noise, like whooshing. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. Rhythmic. Soothing. It sounded almost like blood pounding in her ears when she’d been in the handstand yoga pose for four or five minutes. She frantically looked around to see if anyone was here. Nope. Nada.

What. The. Hell. Was. Going. On?

She left the game room to search the rest of the house, everywhere except the bedrooms at this late hour, but it was empty. And now she couldn’t stop hearing that damn whooshing noise, even outside of the game room, but it intensified the most when she was there. Every instinct told her the sound was coming from downstairs, but Dev said this was the lowest level of the house. She searched all over again for an entrance to a basement and finding nothing, returned to the game room.

There had to be something here leading to another level. She didn’t know why she had such an overwhelming need to figure this mystery out.

She began inspecting walls, pulling books out of shelves, turning off and on light switches. What the hell did she think she was doing? Starring in an Agatha Christie novel? Frustrated, she sat in one of the leather chairs by the pool table.

Staring in the direction of the pool rack, she noticed a very slight crack, spanning floor to ceiling on the right side of the rack. It looked out of place but not glaringly so. She walked to the rack and tried fiddling with everything and anything, feeling around for a hidden button. Ready to give up, she leaned on one of the pool sticks and voila! The wall holding the pool rack cracked open and a stairway leading into the dark was in front of her.

With the door open, the noise was clearly louder. As she stood there, staring into the black abyss, she’d transitioned from an Agatha Christie novel to Stephen King movie and the audience was screaming, “DON’T GO INTO THE BASEMENT, YOU IDIOT!”

Even though her brain screamed this was a moronic, reckless idea, some unknown force she couldn’t resist was pulling her down the stairs. She faltered. Maybe she should stop and wait until she found Dev. No. No…that was a bad idea for many reasons.

Down she went…slowly, stair after stair. Her heart raced. The light from the game room only spilled so far down the stairwell and soon she was enveloped entirely in blackness. But strangely enough, she could see much better than she thought she’d be able to. Her eyes must have adjusted quickly.

As she reached the bottom, the noise intensified and compelled her forward.

She was getting more freaked out by the minute, and not because she was waiting for Freddy or Jason to jump out and go all slasher on her. No. She was freaked out because of the bizarre things that had been happening to her since she’d arrived at this house.

This unholy attraction to Dev. His whispers in her head. This God awful, but oddly intensely pleasurable whooshing noise. Her keen eyesight in the dark? WTF?

She’d come this far, so pushing all errant thoughts to the back of her head for later examination she kept moving forward. This level looked like a series of underground tunnels with cold, damp limestone walls and concrete floors. The only thing missing were wall torches. On a scale of one to ten, this ranked at least nineteen on the creepy scale and she had no qualms admitting she was scared shitless. Still, an unseen source pulled her toward the noise. She was unable to stop.

Coming to a fork, instinct told her to turn left. She passed several doors, but had enough sense not to open any. After another left turn, she heard voices and the noise intensified further.

Oh crap. Whooshing, Superman eyes and now voices? She had officially lost it.