Insidious(78)

Reese, now pinned in the corner of the hall, remained still and hunkered down, having realized the same as me. The creature relied wholly on its other senses. So long as he didn’t make a sound, it couldn’t pinpoint him. I dug into my pocket and pulled out a pack of gum, hurling it at the lockers on the opposite side of the hallway from where Reese stood. The thud caused the creature to whirl around, and it slashed its deadly set of nails into the metal sheeted lockers. Taking advantage of my distraction, Reese sprang up and darted over to me, but the creature reacted instantly to the sound of his footsteps.

Freddy Kruger’s cousin sliced a hand out once more, and I drove my own blade up for another attempt. The fingernails grazed Reese’s right side, tearing through the fabric of his coat sleeve, but my swing actually managed to deflect the nails from connecting all the way. The blade wedged into the creature’s arm, and I gave a solid heave to free it. Only, the thing wouldn’t budge. The sword sat lodged in decrepit bone, and the handle ripped out of my grasp as the creature wildly hurled its injured arm about. I ducked, narrowly managing to not get a head full of hilt in the process as the butt of the blade swung back in my direction.

My shoulder was practically ripped from its socket as Reese grabbed my arm and yanked me away. We ran down the hall, but once we reached the end of the corridor, Reese stopped me from turning back toward the gymnasium.

“We can’t put that thing towards other people,” he panted. “Regular humans may not be able to see it, but they’ll sure as hell feel it if that creature takes a swipe at them.”

Bones rasped as the ghoul lurched towards us. With no other choice, we went down the converse hall. Though a lot of the students were at the rally, there were still plenty of others loitering the hallways and classrooms. We passed emergency exits, but leading that thing outside wasn’t an option. Alarms were rigged to go off if someone opened any of the doors, which would cause a flood of students to pour out into the hallways and put them right in the path of that thing.

Racing through the maze of corridors, I did my best to get that thing to the other side of the school. There was some halted construction going on in the west wing. With no workers and classes in that section, it was the least populated part of the building and our safest bet. Despite our quickened pace, the creature remained no more than a hall’s length behind us. We came to the dead end of the corridor to the art room. An exit rested on the other side, free of alarms. Our ticket out of here. In all my time going here, never had the door been locked. Today of all days… I twisted the knob to no avail.

The gruesome smell of rotten eggs only grew stronger the closer the creature came. Reese wrenched the knob as hard as he could, but the damned thing wouldn’t give. We both hurled our bodies at the door in a last ditch effort. Still, nothing.

“Come on!” I raced back down the hall, right toward the decaying monster.

“What the hell are you doing?” bellowed Reese, following on my foot heels.

I motioned to the small passageway up ahead, midway down the hall. By just a hair’s breadth, we managed to turn into the dark, ten-foot long corridor before the creature met with us. Our momentum sent us crashing into the heavy steel door. We ignored the WARNING: AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY sign and pried the rusted entrance door open. We snaked inside and slammed the door shut, throwing the metal lever lock into place. The pungent odor of burning oil and mildew greeted us as we trampled down a barely visible flight of steps. Dim fluorescent lights did little to illuminate the vast cellar space. Water pumps and electrical generators eventually came into focus. We were in the boiler room.

I knew the school had one, but I honestly didn’t ever know where it was. There were several maintenance rooms with the same signs around the building, so by logic, it could’ve been behind any one of those doors. Yet, here we were. Trapped in the basement with nothing but a couple of barred windows near the ceiling.

Reese used the flashlight on his phone to help him investigate deeper into the room. “By law, there should be an emergency exit in here somewhere.”

The building was fairly old, and I could see the bars guarding the windows had some rust on them. It was worth a shot. I leapt up, clinging onto them. The glass could be opened, I guessed for air circulation, but the bars were firmly welded in place. I relentlessly clutched my fingers around the metal, wrenching my body down with as much force as I could muster. It wasn’t any use.

“This might not be the best time to mention this, but what does it mean if you see a freakish cloud looming around someone?” I gritted, still yanking at the bars.