Page 11 of Three's a Crowd
They peered inside.
‘Looks pretty creepy down there,’ Daisy ventured.
He rolled his eyes at her then started to descend the stairs. Half way down, he turned back.
‘Make yourself useful and look for a torch,’ he said gruffly.
‘Okay,’ she said through gritted teeth.
She went back to the kitchen and rummaged through the cupboards and drawers until she found a Maglite at the back of the cupboard under the sink. She tried it to make sure it was working then took it down to the cellar. It was almost pitch black and freezing cold down there and she shivered hard in her still damp clothes.
As she reached the bottom stair, a draft must have caught the door because it slammed shut behind her with a loud bang.
She froze in horror, then hurried back up the stairs to try and open it, an icy dread sinking through her body.
Nope. It wasn’t budging. It was stuck.
‘For God’s sake, Dizzy!’ Zach said, his voice reverberating with annoyance.
‘I didn’t do it on purpose! A breeze must have caught it,’ she said back crossly.
Following her back up the stairs, he tried yanking on the handle too, but it stayed stubbornly shut.
‘You should have propped it open before you came down.’ He let out what sounded like a low growl. ‘Really living up to your name at the moment, aren’t you?’
Daisy was too worried about being locked in a cold, dark cellar to rise to his jibe this time.
‘Shit!’ he said, kicking the bottom of the door.
They alternately tried pulling at if for a few more minutes, but it was no good. It wouldn’t open.
Daisy was shivering hard now. Her damp clothes lay icy-cold against her body and the draught that had caught the door felt bitter as it swirled around her hands and face.
‘What should we do?’ she asked, her voice beginning to shake. She wasn’t sure if it was just the cold that was doing it, or the fact that she was actually starting to feel quite scared about being trapped in a dank, dark cellar.
It was like something from a horror movie – not her favourite genre.
But at least someone was with her. Even if it was the last person she’d rather be trapped with right now.
‘I suppose we’ll have to wait for the others to come back,’ he said with a loaded sigh.
‘I’m freezing,’ she muttered through numbing lips.
Zach was shaking with cold too. He took the flashlight out of her hand, which had formed a vice-like grip around it, and shone it around the room.
‘Look, there’s a blanket over there in the corner. We ought to get these wet clothes off and wrap that around us to get warm before we get hypothermia. Then I’ll sort out the trip switch.’
She looked at him with scepticism, one eyebrow raised. ‘You’re kidding me, right?’
‘Okay, then. What’s your great suggestion?’ he countered.
It did make sense to take their cold, wet clothes off, of course. She was going a bit numb all over by this point and was desperate to get warm again.
‘Alright,’ she sighed, ‘but eyes right, soldier.’
‘Diz, I’ve seen you in a bikini before,’ he retorted, putting the flashlight down on the floor on its end so that it illuminated them both with a faint light.
‘Yeah, when I was ten. This is slightly different, I think you’ll agree.’
