I shook my head. “Come on. We have to hurry downstairs. We have to tell our parents Scarlet has disappeared.”
I started toward the stairs. Danitia and Cheng were close behind me.
We stopped when we heard shouts. Faint shouts.
I turned back into the room. I saw flashing lights outside the windows. Voices from outside.
“What’s going on?” I cried.
We stampeded to the windows. Carter reached them first. He peered down to the lawn. “Our parents—!” he cried.
I pushed up beside him and squinted into the darting lights down below us. “Hey—!” I uttered a cry when I saw Mom and Dad. They were running across the grass.
I could hear them screaming. I could hear the other parents screaming, too, as they bolted toward the street. Danitia’s parents outran my parents, as if it was a race to get away. Their jackets were flapping behind them.
Cheng’s grandparents were far behind the others. But they were doing their best to run, holding hands as they hobbled awkwardly across the grass and tall weeds.
“They’re running away!” I cried. “They’re all running away!”
I pounded frantically on the window glass, pounded with both fists. “Stop!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. “Stop! Where are you going? Why are you leaving us here? Stop! Hey—stop!”
They couldn’t hear me. The other kids were pounding on the window, too. Shouting and pounding.
But our terrified parents didn’t turn back. Leaning forward into the wind, pumping their hands at their sides, they raced to the street, ran to their cars.
We grew silent. We stopped pounding the windows. We gave up.
Gave up … and watched them all drive away.
I covered my face with my hands. “I … don’t … believe … it,” I whispered.
“They all looked totally freaked,” Carter said. “Like something scared them to death.”
I pulled out my phone. “Maybe our phones will work in this part of the house. I’ll try calling them. I’ll find out what happened,” I said.
Danitia already had her phone pressed to her ear. Carter pulled a phone from his jeans pocket.
I pushed my mom’s number and waited.
Silence.
“Come on. Come on,” I urged. I couldn’t get the picture out of my mind, the picture of them running across the yard, screaming as they ran.
What scared them like that?
What was so frightening that they abandoned us?
“My phone isn’t working.” Danitia’s trembling voice cut into my thoughts.
“Huh?” I lowered the phone from my ear and squinted at it. She was right. No bars in this part of the house, either. No service.
“We can’t call them,” Carter said, sighing. “We can’t call out.”
But then I heard a voice on my phone. A deep voice. “Hello?”
“Dad!” I cried. “Dad—what happened? Why did you leave? Why did everyone run out of here?”
Silence.
A long pause.
And then the laughter started. Deep, cold laughter. Evil laughter that rose higher and higher and grew louder.
I gazed at my friends. Everyone heard it.
The phone slipped from my hand. I caught it before it hit the floor. I raised it back to my ear.
“Who is this?” I screamed. “Who is this?”
I stared at the screen. No bars. The phone couldn’t make a call.
Then who was laughing like that?
I held the phone in front of me—and heard the booming voice: “ARE YOU READY TO FEED THE BEAST?”
“We have to get out of here,” I said. “We have to get help. We have to get help to find Scarlet.”
No one replied. I could see by their faces that they were too frightened to move. I knew the terrifying voice of the Beast was in everyone’s ears.
“We can run to my house,” I said. “It’s only two blocks away.”
Gripping the candle in front of me, I ran out of the room and to the stairway. The wooden steps felt rough under my bare feet. But I didn’t care. I had to get to Mom and Dad. I had to tell them about Scarlet.
The other kids came scrambling down the stairs after me. Candles burned all around the room, just as when we had gone upstairs. The snacks were still there, bags of chips and pretzels, and pizza slices spread out on a table. Cans of soda and water. Everything was as we left it—except the room was empty.
I ran into the entryway and stumbled over a crack in one of the tiles. Pain shot up my leg. I caught my balance against the double front doors. “Let’s go!” I shouted. “We’re outta here!”
I grabbed the doorknob on the right, twisted it, and pulled. The door didn’t budge. I tried again. Nothing doing.
It was stuck shut. I grabbed the other doorknob in both hands—and pulled as hard as I could.
“Owww.” Pain roared down my shoulder and side. The door didn’t open.
“Let me try it,” Carter said, shoving me out of the way.
He grabbed both knobs and pulled. Then he tried pushing the doors. Finally, he gave up with a groan. When he turned back to us, his face had gone pale and his chin trembled.
“Are we locked in?” he murmured. “Our parents wouldn’t lock us in—would they?”
We all burst out talking at once, our voices shrill and frantic.
“Why would they do that?”
“They wouldn’t lock us in. That’s impossible.”
“There are other doors. We have to try them.”
“Our parents would never run out of here and lock the doors behind them.”
“Then who locked them?”
“Shut up. Everyone shut up. If we’re going to get out of here, we have to stay calm!” I shouted.
“How can we stay calm?” Cheng cried. “There’s a terrifying monster in here. Watching us … Waiting for us …”
I shut my eyes and pictured the layout of the mansion. “There are two side doors. Sliding doors in one of the master bedrooms. A hidden door you can reach from the basement … ” I said, thinking hard.
I opened my eyes. Cheng was tapping my shoulder. “Riley … Riley …?”
I pushed his hand away. “What is it? I’m trying to picture the other doors.”
Cheng motioned around the entryway. “Riley, where is Mia? Do you see Mia?”
Danitia gasped. Carter let out a cry.
I turned and gazed all around. “She’s gone, too?”
The four of us shouted her name. No reply.
“One by one,” Cheng muttered, shaking his head. “How is this happening? We’re disappearing one by one. Did the Beast grab Scarlet and Mia?”
The three of them were staring at me, as if I had the answer. “I … I don’t know what’s happening,” I stammered. “This isn’t in the video game.”
Danitia hugged herself tight to stop the trembling chills that shook her body. Tears formed in her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “This … can’t be happening.”
Cheng was bent over, breathing hard, his mouth open, hands pressed on his knees. “I … I think I’m going to be sick,” he said in a hoarse whisper.
“No. Keep it together,” I said. “Please, everyone, keep it together.”
“Riley, help us,” Carter said softly. “You know this place from the game. Help us out of here.”
Again, I pictured the layout of the mansion. I’d been through the halls, through the rooms, battling evil spirits, fighting ghostly monsters of all kinds.
“Follow me,” I said. “I can find a door. I know we can get out of here.”
Boy, was I wrong.
We shielded our candles with our hands as we turned and started to make our way down the hall that led to the back of the house. The trembling orange candlelight guided our way through the deep darkness.
Fighting back my panic, I peered into every room we passed. Perhaps a window would be our way to escape.
But no. Some of the windows had bars over them. Some were b
oarded up. Others were too high on the wall for us to reach.
I led the way down the twisting halls. I thought I knew where I was going. So far, the house matched the game in every way. We passed a large den. I stopped to look at the pool table. Something tall and mossy had grown in the center of the table. Like a shrub. Or was it mold?
A sour aroma floated off the ugly growth. And even in the dim light, I could see dozens of fat black insects crawling over it.
With a shudder, I turned away. My bare feet were frozen and were starting to tingle with a numb feeling. We turned the corner and stepped into another narrow hall.
“Scarlet? Scarlet? Can you hear me?”
My voice echoed as if in a tunnel.
No reply.
I couldn’t stop the waves of panic rolling down my body. Where can she be? Did the Beast or one of the other Shudder Mansion creatures take Scarlet and Mia and hide them somewhere? Or worse?
A solid wood doorway—the back door—was just where I expected it to be. I had used it to escape several times while playing the Shudder Mansion game.
The others gathered around as I raised my candle to the door. “Oh, wow,” I murmured as I saw the black metal bolt across the door. The bolt had a chain and a big padlock on one end.
I tugged at the padlock. It wouldn’t budge.
“This door is locked, too,” Cheng said in a tiny voice. His candle trembled in front of him.
“I should have brought my toolbox,” Carter said. “I have a bolt cutter that would cut right through that one.”
I wanted to slump onto the floor and cover my head and wish this whole night away. But I knew I couldn’t give up. I had to get help to find my sister. I had to get us out of this terrifying house.
“Wait! There’s another back door,” I remembered. I took off, trotting down the long hall to my right.
“I can’t feel my feet,” Danitia called. “Seriously. I think I have frostbite.”
“Riley, don’t run so fast,” Cheng called. “I … can’t keep up with you.”
I turned back and saw him thumping along barefoot, limping, halfway down the hall. “Almost there,” I called. “We’ll be okay as soon as we get out of here.”
“Oh, nooo,” I moaned. The other back door was locked and bolted, too.
We all stared at the big padlock chained to the bolt.
“Well … we wanted adventure …” Carter murmured.
“We can’t give up,” Danitia said. “We have to get help.”
“My grandparents must be worried about me already,” Cheng said.
“Our parents ran off screaming,” I said. “They haven’t come back to see if we’re okay. It’s crazy. It’s like they don’t care.”
“Something frightened them,” Danitia said. “Something frightened them really badly.”
“So why haven’t they come back to rescue us?” I said.
I heard a sound. I raised my hand to silence the others.
A voice. A muffled voice. Very far away?
I spun away from the door and crossed to the middle of the hall. “Did you hear it, too?” I demanded, listening hard. “Did you hear something?”
“A voice?” Danitia said. “I think …”
I took off, running toward the sound. My heart started to pound in my chest. I stopped in front of a closed door at the end of the hallway and tugged it open. The others ran up beside me. Their candles sent a pale wash of light into the doorway.
I stared at the steps that led down. “The basement,” I murmured. “Here it is.” I moved onto the first step.
Danitia pulled me back. “Riley, we can’t go down there. It’s scary enough up here.”
“She’s right,” Cheng said. “We have to find a way out. We can’t go down there and …”
I pulled free of Danitia’s hand and moved back into the stairwell. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted down in a breathless voice. “Scarlet? Are you down there? Mia? Scarlet? Can you hear me?”
Silence.
The four of us froze. No one moved.
“Scarlet? Can you hear me?”
And then I gasped as a hoarse, raspy voice sent up a reply. “Help me. Please—help me!”
“Scarlet?” I cried. “Is it you?”
“Help me.” Yes. I recognized her voice. Yes. Yes. We’d found her.
“Please—help me!” she cried. “Hurry!”
I stumbled on the last step and landed hard on a concrete floor. Blinking in the darkness, I saw pale light through a wide window high on the far wall.
The air down here was hot and dry. One side of the room had a wall of wooden crates piled high from the floor to the ceiling.
“Ewww. What’s that?” Danitia lowered her candle, and we gazed at the pale yellow bones of an animal skeleton stretched out in front of us. “I … I think … it’s a rat,” she stammered.
“An ex-rat,” Carter said.
“Scarlet?” I shouted. I choked on the heavy, dry air. “Scarlet? Where are you?”
“Help me, Riley!” her shrill, frightened voice rang out. “Hurry!”
Kicking up a cloud of dust, we moved toward the light in the next room.
“Oh no!” I cried out as I stepped into the next room and stared at my sister. She sat in a stiff-backed chair under a bright spotlight, a cone of white light.
Her head was down. Her red hair covered her face. She turned to face us, and I could see her eyes, wide with terror.
“Scarlet!” I screamed. “You’re here!”
“Untie me!” she shrieked. “Hurry. Untie me!”
Her hands were tied to the chair behind her, and thick rope tied her ankles together at the floor.
“Riley—quick!” she cried. “Get me out of here!”
I dove toward her. I glimpsed Danitia close behind me. Carter and Cheng hung back.
“Is Mia here?” Carter shouted. “Have you seen Mia?”
I leaped into the cone of bright light. Scarlet twisted and squirmed, trying to loosen the heavy ropes that tied her down.
“Who did this?” I screamed as I grabbed at the ropes around her wrists. “Who brought you here?”
Before Scarlet could answer, I saw something moving across the room. Squinting through the bright light of the spotlight overhead, I saw shadow creatures dipping and circling.
I gasped. My hands drew back from the ropes. I heard Danitia cry out. Cheng and Carter backed against the concrete wall.
The shadows curled and bobbed in front of us, like a calm, dark ocean, waves low but readying to sweep onto shore. A tall wave of shadows, billowing across the room. Rising … rising like the tide coming in.
I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. I’d seen these shadows in the video game, and they never brought good news.
“What’s happening?” Scarlet cried. “Riley, untie me! Why are you just standing there?”
I didn’t answer. I stood and gaped in horror as the shadows took shape. Three inky forms rose up from the billowing dark waves. In seconds, the shadows stood upright, became three separate figures.
I gasped as I recognized the faces of the three shadow people that faced us now. I knew two of them from the game. I knew their evil. And the third one I knew better than the others …
… Mia!
Mia encased in shadow, then stepping out of the dark covering into the light, her blond hair fluttering around her. Eyes wild with excitement. Her face a picture of total glee.
Mia. I never trusted her. From the moment I saw right through her skin in the sunlight … From the moment I saw a figure that looked just like her in the video game … Scarlet wanted to make her a friend. But I knew there was something wrong, something creepy about Mia.
And now she grinned at us, the shadows behind her. Her face glowed in the white light of the spotlight. And she pointed to the man and woman at her sides.
“These are my parents,” she said. “I told you they would show up later. And here they are.”
The man wore shiny
armor over a purple robe. He was bearded and dark. His ears stood straight up, like wolf ears. And his snout of a nose and long-toothed grin made him look more like a monster than a man.
He was a monster. The Beast. I knew him well. I never defeated him in the game. I never came close. Mia’s father was the Beast. And now here he was. And I let out a long breath because I knew we were doomed.
In the game, he stood like a man, but he growled like an animal. He tore people apart, ripped them in half with his teeth.
Margo, the woman—Mia’s mother—was just as deadly. She looked frail and small, pretty and blond with a sweet smile—like Mia. But she had amazing powers of strength. She could grab your arm and snap it off. Or break your leg with one hand.
Whenever Margo and the Beast appeared in the Shudder Mansion game, I knew I was doomed. I never had the right weapons. I was helpless. They ended my game every single time.
And now here they were in real life. The smiles on their faces showed they knew they had already won.
What did they want?
“Let me go!” Scarlet cried. “Mia—tell them to untie me. Mia—please.”
Mia ignored her. She turned to Danitia, Carter, Cheng, and me. “My parents asked me to make you all welcome,” she said in her whispery voice. “Mom and Dad are so eager to meet you and to have you here.”
“How did you do that trick of coming out of the shadows?” Carter demanded. “Are you magicians?”
He hadn’t caught on. He had no idea what we were facing.
“Are you going to untie me?” Scarlet cried.
“SILENCE!” the Beast roared. “Silence—all of you. I make the game rules—not you.”
“This is all a game?” Cheng asked.
“Yes, this is a game, and you have won,” Margo said.
“Escape from Shudder Mansion is played all over the world,” the Beast said, pumping out his chest as he bragged. “The most popular horror game of all time.” His deep voice thundered off the basement walls.
“And now you have won, as Margo told you,” the Beast continued. “Because you will all appear in the game sequel—DEATH at Shudder Mansion.”
The words sent a deep chill racing down my back. “You can’t do that! You have to let us go!”