Page 36 of Don't Watch Alone
My hands yank and pull, but it’s useless. The thing’s too tight. It burns. My lungs scream, and stars explode at the edges of my vision. I think I’m choking, dying, passing out, but then it gets worse.
There is someone's breath on my skin, it's so hot and close. Right by my freaking ear.
“You should’ve stayed home,” the voice whispers. “But now… you’re gonna die.”
I want to scream, to thrash, to do anything—but all I can do is shake. The pressure tightens again, a final pull, and then I feel it—feel it—that sick, awful snap as something gives way. A sudden warm slickness spills across my chest. Blood.So much blood.
The world lurches sideways. It tilts and fades.
And then everything fades into black.
Chapter eighteen
Drew
Ishovethewalkie-talkiedeep into my pocket, the cold, scuffed plastic pressing against my palm as I step toward the elevator, praying to anything listening that the damn thing still has power. Blaiz had made it crystal clear we’re not leaving until Tony is found, no matter how long it takes, no matter how fucked this whole place feels. He wandered off, disappeared into the mall like a dumbass, and now the rest of us are just stuck here, wandering around in this dead building.
I press the up arrow, and the button lights up with a pale green glow that makes my stomach clench. A slow, metallic groan accompanies the parting doors, exposing a dim metal box appearing eager for a second apocalypse after surviving one. I step in. The silence hits immediately—thick, dense, andunnatural. I hit the button for floor two, and the doors groan shut, enclosing me in this vibrating, blinking, coffin-like space.
I fucking hate elevators.
It shudders once, then starts its move upward. The motion is jerky, like the machinery forgot how to function smoothly. The lights blink above me. Once. Twice. Then everything dies; the lights, sound, and motion are all gone. I’m left standing in a silence so complete it feels like the atmosphere itself is holding still. A faint emergency bulb kicks on above the control panel, barely enough to light the numbers. The car gives one final twitch and just stops.
I hit the buttons; two, lobby, open, alarm, over and over, my fingertips slamming into unlit plastic. Nothing happens. Not even a damn click. I dig my hands into the seam between the doors, gritting my teeth, straining until my forearms ache, but they don’t move; not even a smidge. Just cold, stiff steel that might as well be welded shut.
The creeping panic I’ve been swallowing all night rises up from my gut and scratches at mythroat, piercing and sudden and ice-cold. How the fuck am I supposed to get out of here?
Then it hits me—the walkie. I yank it out, nearly dropping it in my speed, my thumb fumbling over the talk button. “Anyone copy?” I rasp, twisted by fear I can’t even hide.
Nothing. Just static. Then something like Blaiz’s voice, twisted by the interference, words lost in the static.
“I’m stuck in the elevator!” I shout into the receiver, practically jamming it against my mouth. “I can’t get out! Somebody answer me!”
More static. Louder this time. Cruel.
“Fuck!” I slam my hand against the doors, the metal ringing out like a bell in a burial chamber. “HELLO?! I’M IN HERE! GET ME THE FUCK OUT!”
I’m pounding the walls now, screaming until my throat burns, praying someone—Blaiz, Eva, Derrick, Jade, hell, even that dumb prick Tony—hears me.
And that’s when it happens.
The elevator speaker crackles once and then a voice cuts through, low and icy, like cold water dripping on your back. It’s aman, barely louder than a whisper, but somehow it fills the tiny space like smoke, clinging to every surface, soaking into my skin.
“You should’ve stayed home tonight.”
My heart stops. My breath catches. That voice isn’t one I know, and I know it. This isn’t someone playing a joke.
“You’re next.”
The blood drains from my face, and I don’t even have time to question what the hell that means before the speaker explodes with this laughter; high, shrill, that isn’t right, like a hyena trapped in a meat grinder. It bounces around the walls, hitting me from every direction, and I can’t breathe, or think.
“What do you mean I’m next?!” I scream, spinning in circles like there’s some direction the voice is coming from, like I can face it down if I just find it. “WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT MEAN?!”
The voice chuckles again, now slower, and wetter—like it’s choking on something thick. “You die.”
“Come on! Guys—seriously! This isn’t funny anymore!” I shout. My face is hot and wet with tears I hadn’t even noticed were coming out. “Let me out! Please!”
The laughter doesn’t stop. It just keeps going, rising and falling, hanging over my insanity. My legs buckle. I slide down the wall. The metal is cold against my back, and I hit the floor in a pile, my mind struggling for something to cling to—logic, explanation, just anything at all.
