Do Not Enter, Part 4
She snapped the phone closed. She cried, hard sobs wracking her body, and the voices, the tortured sounds of agony and abject fear, echoed in her ears. She covered her ears with her palms and screamed again, shook her head, sent tears flying across her face. She turned to flee, legs shaking, heart pulsing rapid-fire.
The shaft opening teased her with its distance, a tiny smudge of white light high overhead.
She reached to scramble out, on all fours if necessary, and froze.
The sounds. The cries, the screams, the pleas for mercy, for help, the desperate voices from the phone … they floated on the air in the cold, cramped staircase. Faint, far off, but growing louder. She whimpered as she forced her body to move, to flee, to get up the stairs, and clawed at the next step despite her leaden limbs and spinning head.
Then another sound froze her.
A loud clang that smashed her heart to smithereens and frosted her veins in an icy flood. A puffing, like the breaking of a long-closed seal, and a rush of air filled the confines of the concrete chamber. Rose turned her head, slow, unable to resist, toward the door.
It was ajar. A flickering orange-yellow light danced and played over the wall beside the crack between the door and the jamb.
She tried to yell, scream, wanted to release the building fear and madness swelling in her, but only a pathetic, puling sob escaped her.
Rose turned to flee, scrambled to her feet, and then the horrified shriek did come, tore her ragged vocal chords to ribbons, shook her vision with its ferocity.
The shaft opening was gone. Only blackness stared back from overhead.
All original content © 2009 J. Dane Tyler
ALL rights reserved.
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