Page 31 of Hell's Fear

“There must be something hidden beneath the rodents,” Rock said, appearing slightly queasy.

We all scanned the room but saw nothing until Max gasped.

“Dude?” Wraith asked, turning to face him.

“Some of… those… have markings on. Maybe we gotta shoot them,” he suggested and then dry heaved.

“Oh no! Don’t do that!” I cried and heaved myself.

Rock looked alarmed. “Nobody puke!” he yelled.

“Sympathetic puker?” Shotgun teased as Rock took several deep gulps.

“Dude, if he pukes, followed by Carly and me, how long until we all are?” Rock pointed out.

Shotgun went a little pale as I retched again at the image of the vomit-stained room. Rock rubbed my back until I calmed down.

Meanwhile, Wraith had been ignoring us and shooting the critters behind the bars.

“How many should we shoot?” Slaughter inquired.

“Dunno, I’m just targeting the ones with markings. As soon as they’re hit, the marks disappear,” Wraith replied. “It would fuckin’ help if everyone looked as well as me.”

Slaughter, Rock, and Wraith all stood at the gates, and when they found a marked creature, they passed the water gun to that person.

Between the hissing and chittering, the noise level seemed to rise, which ended up with Bomber poking his fingers in his ears. I wondered if he knew that wouldn’t work.

Finally, silence fell, and everything stopped moving. It freaked Max out even more. Shaking our heads and sticking Max and Bomber in the middle, we made our way to the open exit.

There was food and drink waiting for us, as we’d been informed, but I was curiously looking around the vast area we were in. It resembled a maze, but every path was blocked.

“Think we’re meant to use this,” Max said, pulling a tablet from a holder. He pressed a button, and the screen lit up.

“I’m tall when I’m young, and I’m short when I’m old. What am I?” he read.

“No damn idea,” Rock replied.

“A candle?” Bomber answered. “I’ve heard that before.”

Max typed in candle, and the bars in front of us split in half. The top part rose a little while the bottom dropped. We had to climb through them.

“Let’s take ten minutes to eat,” Shotgun suggested, and we all agreed.

When we stepped into the next cell, the screen lit up again.

“What month of the year has twenty-eight days?” Max asked.

“February!” Wraith shouted.

Max typed in the answer. A red light flashed on and off.

“All of them do,” I groaned, and Max entered twelve. The bars on the left rose and crawled through.

“There’s a one-storey house in which everything is yellow. Yellow walls, yellow doors, yellow furniture. What colour are the stairs?”

“There is none! It’s one storey,” Wraith crowed just as I said yellow.

I giggled as Wraith crossed his eyes at me.

---