I positioned myself so I was closer to where I assumed Dex was and opened my eyes through the spaces between my fingers. It hurt too much to keep them open for more than a second at a time, but I didn’t see him anywhere.
“Dex!” I yelled as loud as I could. I looked around me but all I saw was whiteout. Where was this horrid light coming from? Was I dying?
A movement from the direction of the staircase caught my eye. There was a dark shadow of a man (or creature) wavering in the light. It came closer and closer. My mind instantly conjured up images of alien abduction. Every single X-Files episode started flashing through my mind.
The shadow kept coming. For some reason I thought I should get the cause of my impending death on film, so I pointed my camera at it.
I closed my eyes, made a silent prayer and braced myself.
But…silence.
The noise and vibrations had stopped and the light behind my sore eyelids was quickly fading.
I opened my eyes to complete blackness, with throbbing fuzzy dots filling my vision. It was almost scarier than all white blindness. Someone could have been standing a few feet away from me completely undetected.
Slowly, I got to my feet and flicked on the light of my camera, bracing myself for illuminated terrors and the things that went bump in my night.
There was nothing. The darkness remained. My camera was unresponsive.
“Fuck,” I swore under my breath. I tried to examine it in the dark but all I could figure was that the battery must have died. Great fucking timing.
I took in a deep breath and tried not to let the wild feelings take over, that the blackness was alive and ready to eat me.
“Dex,” I called out. I was still, listening, but heard nothing except my voice echoing across the hallway. Where the hell could he have gone?
“Old Roddy?” I joked, half hoping some decrepit lighthouse keeper would answer me. It was better than this unnerving silence.
There was still some moonlight coming in through the windows and that soft illumination was enough to put the idea in my head of getting downstairs and getting the fuck out of there.
I had inched over to the staircase and was just about to step down on the first step when another light came on below.
What now? I couldn’t take much more of this.
But it wasn’t like the apocalyptic virtual H-bomb going off. It was a weak light, which danced on the staircase walls and then settled in one spot. If I were to head downstairs, I would walk straight into its path.
It reminded me of Dex’s camera light. In fact, I was certain that’s what it was. But in my heightened state of paranoia, I wanted to make sure before I began my descent.
“Dex, is that you?” I asked rather loudly. No answer. “Dex, I can see a light downstairs. Is that coming from you? Dex, answer me!”
Still nothing.
I didn’t know what to do. The fear was palpable; it was physically running up and down my arms in prickly flashes, swarming my body, flaming my racing heart and my throbbing head.
I must have stood there for five minutes just listening for any sounds whatsoever, terrified of what I might find downstairs. My imagination was conjuring up images of kelp come to life, like some kind of monster. Where was Dex then? Where did he go? Why was the camera light on and not moving? One part of me believed he must be playing a cruel joke. The other part thought he was dead. Or worse.
And with that thought in mind, I slowly made my way down the stairs. I winced at the creak of each step, though I’m not sure why I bothered trying to be quiet. The moon disappeared behind the clouds, making the light below look sharper and colder. Sly shadows of creepy crawlies skittered across the sweating walls. I turned at the landing and made my way down the rest of the staircase.
The light was now in front of me on the ground, aimed at my feet. I stopped, wishing I could see beyond the glare.
“Dex?” I whispered. “Please answer me Dex, this isn’t funny.”
If he was trying to freak me out, he succeeded, and I knew he would hear the terror in my cracking voice. But still...there was nothing.
I took a deep breath and bent down to pick up the camera. Only it wasn’t a camera at all. It was a flashlight.
Confused, I turned it over in my hands. Did Dex have a flashlight before? I was wracking my brain trying to remember when I heard a low groan. Not the groans of a person (or a thing) mind you, but the impersonal sound of a door opening on its hinges. It came from the door to the right.
I aimed the flashlight into the blackness. For a split second, I was afraid I was going to see something vaguely horrifying like Dex standing in the corner of the room and staring at the wall (yes, the last scene of the Blair Witch Project came to mind) but instead the hall was empty. Nothing there except the door leading to the circular room, which was now wide open.
I shuffled toward it and stepped inside.
It was a bedroom. At least it had been at one time. Now all that was left was a thick wooden bed frame that looked partially burnt, a side table with a stack of books, and a wardrobe in the corner. On top of the wardrobe was a porcelain washbasin, with a mirror propped up against the wall. The flashlight’s reflection glared sharply in it.
There was a round porthole-type window facing the ocean, coated with a thick layer of grime and salt. Something about the window registered in the back of my overworked brain.
Had I been here before? Was that...possible?
I took a few steps closer to the window when—
BLAM!
The door slammed shut behind me.
I screamed and dropped the flashlight, the light spraying the walls as it landed on the ground with a clunk. I winced and quickly scooped it up. The light wavered and then started to fade. Panicking, I shook it hard but the bulb had been jarred out of place from the fall. There was still light, but it was growing weaker by the minute. That, or the darkness was growing stronger.
That’s when it happened. That’s when it hit me.
A light from the hallway went on.
The edges of the door glowed amber.
The image seared into my head and, like pieces in a puzzle, it slowly fit together with another image that came shooting out of my memory.
My dream. This was my dream. My breath caught in my throat as all the puzzle pieces found each other. The round room, the porthole, the light outside of the door. Sure, I wasn’t standing in a nightgown and barefoot, but it was the same place. It wasn’t possible by any earthly means, and yet…
I wasn’t sure what it meant either. Things were the same but different. Was it going to follow the direction of my dreams? Was the door going to open with some black, shadowy menace enveloping me into certain death? Was the man in my dreams Old Roddy?
Or Dex?
Maybe, I thought quickly, this was a dream. That thought gave me a bit of courage.
I swallowed hard and walked over to the door. I listened. I couldn’t hear a thing from the hallway.
I grabbed the knob and tried to turn it.
It wouldn’t turn. It was stuck.
I yanked on the door, panic rising from the floor. I started throttling the thing, my hands sweaty and slipping. This was my nightmare. My worst nightmare was coming true. I was locked inside. Someone, something, had locked me inside.
“Dex!” I screamed, and started banging on the door. “Please, someone, anyone, let me out, please! Pleeeeeease!” I screamed that last word, loud and shrill, hurting my own ears. Screaming seemed like the only thing I could do.
I screamed again and hurled myself at the door, even though it opened from the inside. My camera swung from my neck and smashed against it but I didn’t care. I had to get out. I put both hands on the knob and pulled until my hands lost their grip and I flew backwards, landing on the hard floor. A pain shot out from my hipbone but I scarcely felt it.
Then everything turned black. The light outside the door disappeared and the door outline faded into the abyss.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up with icy precision. I knew something was on the other side of the door waiting, listening.
I lay on the floor watching breathlessly, my body rigid and braced for action.
The door creaked open, slowly.
At any moment I expected to see a tall, black figure appear in the doorway, make its way over to me, and smother me with its nebulous face.
I waited. The terror was indescribable.
But nothing happened.
I took a few seconds trying to mull the situation over but everything was coming up blank.
And so, propelled more by instinct then consciousness, I leaped to my feet in one go and took off like a shot.
I ran through the door without casting a glance around me. I ran down the stairs until I slipped on the turn and was launched against the slimy, weeping black wall. I had no time to be horrified at the grossness. I regained my footing and leaped over the last few steps and on to the ground floor.
I wheeled towards the open door and burst through.
BLAM!