A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [7]
“H-he-hello?” She steadied herself.
Every hair on her body stood on end.
A moan, distant, faint, drifted through the speaker.
She swallowed hard, but her bone-dry mouth provided nothing to swallow.
“H-hello?” The moans became wails, cries, voices rising and falling in torment, screams in the background and shrill banshee screeches wafting, blending. A cacophony of horror, terror, anguish.
Her eyes stung with tears, her lips trembling.
“W-who is this?” Her voice broke as the tears fell. “Who’s there?”
The screams grew in strength. The sounds became louder, more numerous. She heard the distinct sound of each voice, yet they melded into a wall of noise. Despair. Total despair, pain.
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 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 slowly turned her head toward the door, unable to resist.
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.
* * * * *
A hot wash of air rushed up from behind Rose.
It raised the hair on her arms and neck and a shudder wracked her body. She heard her breath, thready and whimpering, rasp in the tight confines. She felt the air heat, a layer of gleaming, slick sweat caked her skin. Her eyes flitted in the dark for the eerie dances of light.
The door stood black against the bright, hot edge of orange and yellow which danced on the wall, and from the crack between the door and jamb.
Another gust of hot, arid wind rustled her hair and stung her eyes. She dripped in sweat now. The temperature climbed further with the second wash of heat. She turned back to the stairs.
The opening of the shaft was still gone. She moaned as fear swelled toward panic.
She shut her eyes and tried to control herself.
The phone. She held it in her whitened, fear-clenched fingers.
She snapped it open. The display lit up a cool blue in the dark, amber-lit stairwell.
The blood in her veins iced when she saw the NO SERVICE warning.
Her hands shook so hard she almost dropped the useless phone as she tucked it back into her pocket. She turned toward the door.
It had opened further. The light in the cave-like shaft blazed brighter, hotter.
Rose wiped her brow with the back of her wrist, swallowed hard and tried to calm her throbbing heart. She blinked tears from her eyes and wondered what to do.
The heat cascaded over her like a smothering wave, and she couldn’t stand it anymore. She backed away from the door up one step, then two.
Then her back hit a wall.
She turned and another startled cry raked her throat.
The stairs were gone. A solid, concrete wall blocked the passage.