Chapter 7
11:03 PM
Isabella Cullen stared at the door that had slammed shut in her face, cutting her off from Edward, frozen by indecision. She wasn't sure which was worse: following Edward into the blackness or making a run for it alone. She wrapped her arms around herself, her heart feeling like it was going to rip apart at any moment. She looked around her surroundings and for the first time since Edward left her nearly a year ago almost to the day, she panicked. She reached down to put her hand on the doorknob and went to turn it, but it was locked.
"Edward!" Bella started pounding on the door but all she got in response were the echoes from beyond.
"You promised me, Edward," her tears flowing freely down her face as she sank against the door. She pulled her knees up to her chest and began to hum the lullaby that she knew by heart, rocking herself, trying to hold it together.
Something was wrong; she had known it the second she heard the can come flying down the chimney. It was this house. She had never in her life been more afraid. Her mind drifted back to the mountaintop as she watched Edward and Seth fight singlehandedly to tear apart Victoria and her sidekick. She had felt helpless then and she felt the same now. She remembered reaching down for the sharp stone, ready to sacrifice herself. And now, here she was in the same predicament, but there was nothing around that she could use.
One dead body is what the can asked for, but would suicide suffice? This was a game where the killer wanted them to kill or hurt each other. That much she knew for sure. But the family was too connected, too involved. There was no way they would turn against each other. Or was there?
Bella snapped her head up when she heard the pounding of heavy boots and the clacking of heels. It sounded so close. She stood up and checked the door that Edward had just gone in and it was still locked. Bella already knew the other door was locked as well. She ran back into the room that had the strange mirror, the only hiding place was to wrap up inside the drapes that hung around it. She pressed her back against the wall and willed her muscles to relax and steady her heavy breathing.
"Don't you dare say I did not warn you, you filthy atheists!" Bella sucked in her breath even more as she heard Betty yell out.
For a moment, the footsteps stopped. They were in the doorway. Bella held her breath. For a moment, the room was completely silent.
"Where are you?" a man's gruff voice yelled out. One that Bella did not recognize. "Shut the door, Betty."
Bella could hear all the doors shut and then the heavy sound of a lock engaging.
"Stewart, do you think they made it to the tunnel?" Betty asked.
Stewart? Bella thought to herself. Who is Stewart?
"Not unless they can walk through locked doors." The voice that must be Stewart said.
"I told you there was something weird about this group. They even said they were vampires," Betty laughed in a high pitch.
"Well, then they are filthy atheists. They don't deserve to be walking on God's green earth."
"You know that they are probably trying to figure their way back upstairs," Betty mused.
"Once down here, the doors will drive them nuts." Bella heard what sounded like the cocking of a gun. "I say we hunt them down ourselves and forget about White. They are trapped like rats now."
"That is not the deal," Betty's heels began to click on the concrete, "We need to live through the night. We are going to have to let him in."
"You open the door. He's not gonna let this slide. I swear, he's gonna filet us like fish. He's gonna slaughter everyone in this basement like he's done a hundred times before. You know how it works, Betty."
There was a pause of silence, then Bella heard a loud sigh.
"Do you think they will find her?" Betty's voice called out, but it was a different tone. Off in a way.
Bella could hear this Stewart guy breathing loudly through his nose. "Not before we do. And if they do find her, no doubt she'll use 'em. She's a sneaky little piece of trash."
Bella's mind began to run so fast, along with her heart. She thought for sure it would have jumped out of her chest by now. If Edward was here, he would be doing something to calm her down. For a while, neither one of the strangers spoke. Then Bella could hear the heavy boots, who she now knew belonged to Stewart, head over to the opposite of the room. Betty's heels followed after him. Keys rattled. A door squeaked open. The door closed behind them. They were gone. Or were they?
Bella counted to ten before peering out behind the heavy curtain. The room was empty. She quickly ran to and checked the doors, testing the locks on each. All locked. The one to the room full of couches, the root cellar, the one Edward was sucked into. Bella looked at the final door, the one in which Betty and this Stewart guy must have gone through. She walked slowly over to it and then pressed her ear up against the heavy wood. Not a sound could be heard.
Bella raised her hand to the doorknob, hovering for just a moment above the brass. Then she placed her hand and turned. Unlocked.
Bella paced the small room. She could go out into the hall and find her way back up to the top of the stairs, or try looking for the others. On the other hand she could stay where she was and hope that Edward came back. Bella walked up to the door again and opened it just far enough to look out into the dimly lit hall and then shut it again.
As far as she knew, everyone was already out. Or hurt. Edward may not even be coming back. Bella bit down on her lower lip. She had learned more in the last five minutes about Betty and the company that she keeps, as well as the basement. Now, if she could just find the rest of her family.
Bella took a deep breath and opened the door. She knew that the chances of dying tonight were good. Though, it would be better to die trying to help or save her family than to die in a basement by a deranged couple.
&:)
Betty and Stewart left and kept the door unlocked just as White had requested. Demanded more like it. A request and a demand were all the same now. After all, everyone who passed through this house was playing his game.
When you played White's game, you had two choices: his way or the dead way. Everyone learned that lesson - or rule as some call it - sooner or later. It just worked out better for all those involved to learn it sooner.
Of course, that meant he had to follow his rules as well. His rules. House rules.
The time had come to enforce those rules. A little discipline to guide them down the crooked path in which they all lived their lives.
White descended the stairs carefully. He straightened his trench coat, took a deep breath, and pushed the door open.
Then White, who was really black, took his first step into his house, to play his game.
Bella was adjacent to the second passage when she heard the front door swing in and the boots step out of the pouring down rain, over the threshold and down onto the concrete landing.
There was no doubt in Bella's mind as to the identity of who those boots belonged to. The memory of him standing on the walkway a few hours earlier, the trench coat wrapped tightly around his body, was etched into her mind forever.
She knew two things saved her from death at that moment. The first was that the killer did not have a direct line of vision down the passageway. The second, Bella had done without thought, but rather on instinct. She had jumped to her left, into yet another passageway, and leaned up against a wall. And it was there, up against the cold wall, that Bella froze. She could have - and probably should have - moved a little farther down the passage and found a place to hide. Somewhere farther away from the killer. But Bella had frozen.
Bella clamped her mouth shut and put her hand over her mouth. Her breathing was getting heavy again. She knew the person that had come down those stairs was not some ordinary person, but the killer. It was his game that she was in and she knew that any sudden noises would certainly get his attention.
White reengaged the latch and squeezed the padlock shut, making no attempt to be quiet.
He stepped down the final stairs, his heavy boots making a thud as he came in contact with the cement flooring, then stopped. Bella did not need to be a mindreader like Edward to guess what White was thinking or doing. White was staring down the hall, thinking he'd heard something out of place. The pattering of a heartbeat. The rush of breath. The seeping of sweat.
For a long time, there was nothing but silence; except for Bella's heart, which she could hear in her ears, banging loudly. Then White's boots moved again; ten, maybe fifteen steps. They stopped again; Bella knew he was looking for something or someone.
Bella's ears picked up when she made out the small sound of water trickling somewhere. In that moment, Bella felt her last reservoirs of strength fall away. She actually began to relax. When she did, a strange kind of resignation – no, peace - began to wash over her. This was her chance. She could end this now, just by stepping out and making an appearance. She could sacrifice herself and save her family. But what if that still did not end his game?
She knew that if she did something like that, Edward would never forgive her. And it would be all for nothing, because he would do whatever he could to follow close behind. Bella knew that she could not do that to Edward. She would have to be strong and find a way to get her family out of this house.
For a seconds, which felt like an eternity, it was quiet; nothing happened. Bella could not hear White breathing, so maybe White could not hear her.
The boots headed toward the study; she could hear the door open and then shut.
Bella's body totally relaxed as she slid against the cold wall, down to the damp cement floor. She was shaking hard and violently, but at least she was alive.
&:)
Her family had disappeared down these halls. She knew that they were still alive, maybe not in one piece, but alive nonetheless. Or were they? The house had been messing with their gifts since the moment they set foot in here and that was the upstairs; there was no telling what it had been doing to them while in this maze of a basement.
Bella heaved herself off the floor and tested the door next to her; locked. She knew that the stairs that exited to the outside was locked and that White had gone into the room with the mirror and locked that one as well.
She looked down the hall and saw another door and made her way over to it as quickly and quietly as humanly possible. She placed her hand on the knob and turned, it was unlocked. Bella looked inside and saw that it was a utility closet. There was yet another door on her right. Every room in the house seemed to have a closet and more doors. She scanned the room and walls. Shovels, buckets, a pitchfork, rakes, a shotgun.
Bella did a double take and looked back to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. She blinked at the shotgun leaning in the corner. She could see that it was a single barrel; Charlie had shown her how to use several different guns. Just in case, he had always said.
Bella walked over to it and picked it up. She was not sure if it would even work; it looked just as old as the house. But right now, she would take anything to make it look like she was not going down without a fight. She cocked the barrel open at its hinges. Two rounds.
Bella let out a sigh then began to dig around the all the jars that lined the shelves, looking for more bullets, but coming up empty.
A door slammed and footsteps sounded in the hall she had just come from. Clack. Clack.
But whose clack, clack?
Bella picked up the gun and moved quietly toward the door on the opposite wall, realizing that she was not as panicked anymore. She knew that those that were in the hall were not her family, too much noisy, which meant that she could now protect herself.
"Stewart?" Betty's voice called out.
Bella yanked the closet open; seeing that the floor inside was a foot lower than the one in which she was standing on, she stepped down.
Was she afraid? Sure. But she had made it this far. She closed the door, thinking that she may not have stepped into a closet after all.
Bella turned around in the space and realized that it was a tunnel of some sort that ran in both directions. The very faint light was casting long shadows all over the walls and the floors.
You think they made it to the tunnel? Betty's voice hummed inside of Bella's mind. Maybe she should reconsider and go back as she looked at the thin crack of light coming from the door in which she just stepped from. Then again, there were people after her on the other side of that door. People who wanted to kill her.
Bella face the tunnel again. Maybe, just maybe, it had an exit, or at least another door. She had noticed that it was raining when White came into the basement – if she found rainwater then maybe she would be able to find a way out, a hatch, something.
She looked down the tunnel in both directions and, seeing no reason to choose one way over the other, she turned left and walked, shotgun posed in front of her.
Bella then realized how faint the light was coming from the door. It was dark in the tunnel ahead of her and behind.
She had taken about twenty steps or so when a loud clang rang down the tunnel. Like a latch opening. Back, way back. She turned suddenly, but it was too dark to see anything.
She heard what sounded like something being dropped into the tunnel, something heavy. And something that could run. Thump. Thump. Thump. Heading right toward her, a steady but heavy breathing chased the echoing footsteps.
Bella whirled around and ran for her life.
