Page 33 of I'll Be Waiting

But I heard more than one noise down here.

What if a high chair began to topple, sliding until it clunked over. Or a bunch of brooms and mops, one falling after the other.

Did that sound like what I heard?

I have no idea what—

“Nic?”

I wheel and stumble back against the locked-room door as Jin hurries over to steady me.

“Shit,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

I run my hands through my hair, as if raking out sleep tangles while I let my heartbeat slow.

“Were you down here?” I ask when I recover.

His brow furrows. “Huh?”

“I heard someone down here a few minutes ago. Was that you?”

“No, I just came down.”

The creak. That’d been the stairs.

He continues, “That buzzing was freaking me out. Is that what you heard earlier?”

My brain takes a moment to engage. Buzzing? Right. I heard buzzing earlier this evening.

“So it wasn’t my imagination?” I say.

“Nope. Like I said, you have good hearing. What is it anyway? It seems to be outside.” He looks at the locked room. “You think it’s in there?”

“No, I heard a thump that seemed to come from in there.” I start to relax, sliding back into myself. “I think one of those stacked bodies woke up.”

He jabs me in the side. “Sure.Nowyou play along… when it’s the middle of the night and I’m freaked out by weird buzzing. You don’t want me getting any more sleep tonight, do you?”

“I just know the proper time and place to tell spooky stories. Which is now, in a strange house, in the middle of the night. So where’s the buzzing coming from?”

“Outside.”

I roll my eyes. “Obviously.”

“Hey, you asked.”

“Come on then, let’s go check it out.”

When I open a window, I can hear the buzzing. I flip on the rear hall light and we move to the back door, where it seems loudest. When I peer out, I can only see darkness.

“Where’s the outdoor-light switch?” Jin says, scanning the wall.

“Somewhere I don’t see it.”

“So we open the door?”

“Seems like it. Got your baseball bat?”

He gives me a hard look. “You jest, but if I saw one, I’d grab it. It’s pitch black out there. We could be opening the door to a killer luring us out.”

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