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I still don’t want my dad to go anywhere, let alone the basement. It’s a place I avoid like the plague, always afraid I’ll get to the bottom and the door will close on me.
The two of them walk off, the light flashing off the walls. For a moment I think I see a shadow standing in the corner, its back to us, motionless. Then the light is gone and everything is black again.
I left my phone upstairs but Jacob pulls his out and shines it around the table. Just four of us now. I can hear my dad stumble over something down the hall, Sage asking if he’s all right, then the sound of the basement door opening.
“Why is the power out?” I ask Jacob, leaning forward in my seat until my breasts are practically on the table. There’s this dark cavern of emptiness at my back that feels dense and immeasurable, like a million shadows are lurking, staring at my exposed spine.
“I don’t know,” he says, voice still flat, eyes beady in the darkness. “I’m sure we’ll find out soon though.”
“Day-O,” Jay sings softly under his breath. “Me say daaaay-O.”
“That’s not funny!” I hiss at him, not even bothering to ask when he managed to watch Beetlejuice. I half expect the lamb carcass to reassemble itself and start doing a jig to the Banana Boat song.
“What were you saying earlier?” Dawn asks Jacob. She can’t hide the fear in her voice either and probably isn’t too happy that Sage volunteered to take my dad to the basement.
“I was saying,” Jacob begins. Then he pauses, head cocked. Listening again.
“What is it?” I ask. When Jacob raises his finger to shush me, I turn to Jay. “Jay. What’s going on, what’s happening?”
He’s watching Jacob closely too, gives me a slight shake of his head.
“The power is only off in this house,” Jacob finally says. He looks me dead in the eye, a sly grin twisting his mouth. “This was a bad idea.”
SLAM!
A door slams shut from somewhere in the house, causing us to flinch, even Jacob.
The noise is followed by echoing footsteps.
Shouts.
“Hey!” Sage yells, muffled from the basement stairway.
We all get out of our seats, Jacob with the light which leaves me banging my hip into the edge of the table.
“Motherfucking shitfuck,” I swear, grabbing my side.
Then Jay’s taking my hand and holding on tight.
“Stay with me,” he murmurs in my ear. “There’s something not right here. I can smell it.”
“You mean literally?” I ask as he leads me out of the dining room and down the hall where Jacob is shining a light on the basement door.
He grunts his answer.
“The door won’t open,” Sage says from the other side and the doorknob turns back and forth in vain. He pounds on the door again.
“We’re here,” Jacob says, passing the phone to Dawn and seeing if he can open it. “Are you both all right?”
“Yes,” my father says, his voice sounding weak.
“Why don’t you go back down and try the breaker, I’ll try and fix the door,” Jacob says.
A muffled agreement comes through and the sound of their footsteps as they walk back down into the basement.
Jacob lets go of the knob and looks at us, his face ghostly white in the light Dawn’s holding. I wonder if this is how so many of Perry and Dex’s shows started out. Only they didn’t have two Jacobs with them, which should make me feel safer but it doesn’t at all.
Well actually that’s not true. Jay is still holding my hand and I’m pressed up right against him, afraid to stray from his body heat for even a second.
“It’s trying to separate us,” Jacob says grimly.
“It?” Dawn and I cry out in unison.
Jay squeezes my hand harder, his body stiffening against mine.
Then…
Laughter.
From upstairs.
Cold, sinister, utterly inhuman laughter.
Familiar but not familiar.
Primitive.
Every cell in my body revolts, terror striking my marrow.
“Oh god,” Dawn says softly. “What is that?” She looks back to the door, the phone shaking in her hand. “I have to get to Sage.”
“He’ll be safer in there than out here,” Jacob says. “You know to trust me on this, don’t you, Rusty?” He looks to me. “Ada, stay with Jay.”
I wouldn’t dream of protesting.
Especially when a light from upstairs goes on. The hall light outside my bathroom. It shines down the stairs, illuminating the bottom.
A shadow passes through the beam, someone walking along the upper hallway.
I can’t. Even. Breathe.
Then it goes dark again.
Light to black.
It was just enough to let us know that it’s there, whatever it is.
And it’s waiting.
Jacob starts walking away, down the hall toward the stairs, in slow, controlled movements.
“Don’t you need your phone?” Dawn hisses softly, holding it out to him with a shaking hand.
He only raises his arm in dismissal before he disappears out of reach of the light. I’m pretty sure Jacob can see in the dark. I’m pretty sure Jay can too.
