Chapter 4

I quickly switched off my flashlight, grabbed Sean and Katie both, and pulled them along as we sprinted for our lives.

Katie looked completely bewildered.

I motioned for her to look behind us.

What she saw next shattered her sense of reality.

The "staff member" started running faster and faster. Then, out of nowhere, he dropped down and began sprinting on all fours.

"Why won't you come with me?" he called out.

"Why won't you come with me?" he shouted again.

"Why won't you come with me?" he shouted again.

"Come on, come on, come on... Ugh..." he kept repeating.

The most terrifying part was it had no face.

Katie screamed, completely freaked out, and bolted.

As we rushed past a wall, Sean and I exchanged a glance.

Almost in perfect sync, we both shouted, "The equipment room!"

The next second, we swerved off course and dashed into the equipment room as fast as we could.

Outside, the creature couldn't find us. It paced back and forth along the stretch, unwilling to give up.

I clamped a hand over my mouth, barely daring to breathe.

Thank goodness I was sharp-eyed enough to spot that equipment room built into the wall just in time.

God knows what would've happened if that thing had caught us.

I had no idea how long we waited, but the footsteps outside finally faded away for good.

Katie was trembling. "What... what the hell was that thing?" she whispered.

"Think about it. If this tunnel's abandoned, there shouldn't be any staff at all," I said.

Katie patted her chest, still shaken.

Sean said, "He got here way too fast. That just didn't feel right. I just know that if we'd followed him, something horrible would have happened."

Katie's voice trembled. "Are we... stuck in some kind of supernatural loop? Are we really never getting out of here?"

We kept walking, but the tunnel seemed to stretch on forever. It felt like we were trapped in some kind of supernatural loop, straight out of a horror novel.

But the more dire the situation became, the more I had to hold it together.

I forced a smile. 'Don't jinx it. We'll make it out, for sure.'

After a quick breather, we decided to head back to the car.

Sean and I had plenty of food stashed in the car for our spring trip. It was enough to last us days.

"Let's go," I said.

But as we slipped out of the equipment room, Sean suddenly grabbed my hand and hung back a step.

He quietly pointed at my phone.

I got the hint. I dimmed the screen and snuck a look down.

The moment I saw the message, my blood ran cold.

It read: [She's not human!]

I turned to him and saw barely suppressed terror in his eyes. His fingers were shaking as he typed.

He kept typing: [When we were hiding in the equipment room, all three of us were pressed together. Her body was unnaturally cold, colder than anything I've ever felt. Even colder than a block of ice.

[That kind of cold, I've only ever felt it on corpses in the morgue!]

Sean quickly stepped forward, putting himself between Katie and me, doing his best to keep me away from her.

"When we catch up to her, just act normal. The second we're in the car, we're driving out of here," he whispered.

His hands were shaking, but he still kept himself between Katie and me, doing everything he could to protect me.

I nestled close to him, trusting him completely.

In a dire situation like this, I had no choice but to rely on him.

Up ahead, Katie suddenly turned around. "Why are you two walking so slowly? Whispering behind my back?"

I forced a smile. "Didn't you say we're always acting lovey-dovey? So what, we can't even have a little secret behind your back?"

She clicked her tongue, with a teasing grin on her face. "Couples always die first in horror stories."

She turned around and stared straight at me, her eyes unblinking. "Honestly, if we hadn't been chatting the whole time, I might've thought you two weren't human either."

I stopped in my tracks. "Wait, what?"

It wasn't her joke that made me freeze.

It was what I saw.

In the beam of my flashlight, she had no shadow at all.