Do Not Enter, Part 3

But she wanted her money back now. She didn’t think the benefits of a couple of tax breaks could offset the cost of having to have the building revamped from its foundation up if something about that sinister shaft was wrong, or if it made the building unsound. She didn’t have the money to fix it, period, and since she didn’t know the shaft was there when she bought it, and it wasn’t in any of the disclosure forms, she might have a case against the realtor.

Or they could just say they didn’t know anything about it either. And they’d be off the hook too, wouldn’t they?

Rose gasped when she found herself on the top step of the staircase.

She clambered out, stepped away, watching the hole like a viper.

“How?” she asked aloud, and the sudden shift from silence gave her a bad moment. “How do I end up in there without knowing I’m going in?”

Her heart tattooed in her chest, a bunny-quick thump that left a ring in her ears and shook her hands like palsy.

Rose backed away from the hole until she felt her heels hit the baseboards beneath the huge, square windows. However far she moved from it, it wasn’t far enough. Every time she got distracted with other thoughts, she ended up in the stairwell, farther down than she wanted to be.

An hour ago she didn’t even know the shaft was there. Now she couldn’t escape it. It seemed to move beneath her and swallow her when she didn’t stay alert, aware of the shaft.

She shuffled across the floor, strafed so she faced the shaft at all times as she sidled past toward the rear door. She opened it with her back to it, and went to the parking lot backward.

She shut the door, and exhaled. She didn’t realize she’d held her breath.

She collapsed in a quivery mass on the hood of her car.

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