Page 6 of Organized Chaos

“Sorry. I’ll try not to fall through any more floors. That’s a first for me.” Sarah’s weight lifted from him.

Ah, so that’s what she’d been doing. For a minute he’d worried she wanted to suffocate him down here in the dark.

“I can’t see a thing.” Her voice sounded from several feet away.

Phillip rose to a sitting position. A wave of dizziness washed over him, causing his ears to ring. He palmed his chest and took the deepest breath he could without coughing. Bruised ribs maybe. Nothing broken. He wiggled his toes and rolled his head side to side while listening to Sarah move around in the darkness. Should he warn her about spiders?

Maybe wait a minute. He should be on his feet before the next round of anarchy began.

CHAPTER THREE

This certainly wasn’t how she’d planned to spend her day. Sarah toed the floor and waved a hand in front of her face. She smelled dirt and her foot sank into the ground. So, dirt floor instead of concrete. Phillip was probably grateful for that since he’d broken their fall with his body. She glanced down even though she knew she couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anything. Even the hand moving inches from her nose was nothing but another spot of black in the darkness.

What was she going to do about Phillip? It was one thing to be trapped down here alone, but now she was stuck with the madman who’d chased her through the house.

She inched away from his prone form. He’d grunted once or twice but made no move to stand. She’d hear him when he finally made his way to his feet. “Well, you succeeded in trapping me in your creepy basement after all.” She put her hands on her hips and glared. Her eyes adjusted to the dimness and his outline on the ground stood out to her.

He rolled his head back as though searching out the source of her voice. His tone came out slightly breathless but still caustic.“Yeah, because that was my plan all along. To get you to fall through the pantry floor. With me.”

Sarah grinned and turned away before her laughter gave her away. She couldn’t help it; the guy was pretty funny. But she couldn’t let her guard down. Serial killers could be funny, too.

Tiny beams of light crept through a crack on the far wall. Sarah crept that way and found the cellar doors she’d first noticed when she arrived. She pushed hard, but the swollen wood refused to budge. Chains wrapped around thick iron handles on the outside. She ran her fingers all around the frame and discovered the hinges were on the outside too. Made sense considering the doors opened outward but just once she’d like to be wrong and have things go her way.

Phillip grunted and she heard a scuffling sound. He must’ve decided to try standing up.

“Need any help?” She headed toward him, her arms stretched out in front of her. Her palms slammed into something warm, and she jerked them back when she realized she’d run into Phillip’s chest. Again. Oops. Okay, so maybe she wasn’t entirely sorry. Except she was trying to maintain her distance since they’d gotten off on the wrong foot.

“Not that kind.” He staggered away from her.

“Sorry.” She backed up another step and turned. Her elbow scraped along what felt like a wooden shelf. She should know considering she’d done it countless times through the years. It was like biting a wooden popsicle stick and dragging it through your teeth. The sensation sent a shuddering through her and she hissed in pain.

Phillip’s presence neared her. She felt the air shift but couldn’t see him. Those few minutes at the cellar doors had taken away her ability to see in the dark, leaving her unable to find her bearings. She blinked then widened her eyes, willing them to let her see again.

The room came into focus with excruciating slowness. Phillip blotted out the majority of the space as he stood in front of her with his arms crossed.

Sarah matched his posture. “How do we get out of here?”

He took his time answering, and when he did, he sounded resigned to a terrible fate. “I don’t know.”

Sarah huffed. “Well, don’t just stand there. Let’s look around. Maybe there’s something we missed.”

“I’ve been in this cellar a hundred times. There’s no way out except through the doors.” He pointed behind her, but Sarah didn’t turn around.

She couldn’t risk losing her night vision. “You’re just not thinking outside the box.” She moved past Phillip, bumping his shoulder in the process.

The deeper she went into the cellar, the stronger the dirt smell. And something else. Something almost putrid but not quite. Her nose curled. A series of shelves appeared a few steps ahead. Sarah spotted rows of glass jars and the smell suddenly made sense. “What’s in the jars?”

“Other than the souvenirs of my past victims?” His voice came from her left. Far closer than she anticipated.

She let out a shriek and spun. Her hand knocked into the jars and sent several crashing to the ground. They hit in a series of sharp cracks.

Sarah gagged on the sudden odor of rotten food. She staggered back, arms flailing, and smacked Phillip. From the sound he made and the feel of skin on skin, she’d hit him in the face.

“I was joking,” he ground out. “Serves me right for trying to bring levity to a situation when I should be thinking.” He moved away, the sound of his feet sliding over dirt drowning out Sarah’s panic.

A new shape appeared off to the right. Sarah’s mouth dried at the thought of turning her back on Phillip, but she pushed aside her misgivings and headed toward the dark spot that slashed in horizontal rows.

Her breath hitched. Stairs. There were stairs!

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