SandstormNeit
06-10-2006, 01:22 AM
Main Characters:
Zoey
Zack's twin sister
Hair color: Red
Eye color: Green
Age: 14
Zack
Hair color: Red
Eye color: Brown
Age: 14
Todd
Zoey & Zack's best friend
Hair color: Black
Eye color: Blue
Age: 14
Allan
Zoey & Zack's little brother
Hair color: Blonde
Eye color: Brown
Age: 6
PART ONE
I never really liked our house.
Sure, it was pretty, old, Victorian, yeah. It was very gothic looking, red walls, green window shudders, and humongous.
Yet, I was never really fond of it.
Neither was my brother, Zack. When our mom bought that house… he freaked out worse than I did.
And I freaked out pretty badly.
Anyways, we lived in an old house that we hated, especially after the incident where…well; I’ll get to that now…
So, it was about two year after we moved into the dump that we called home, and Todd, our, like, best friend, was over. Zack had gone to get snacks, so Todd and I went up to the “kid’s den”, as Mom called it. We sat down on the huge beanbag couch, and, suddenly, it just…flipped over! We were sent sprawling backwards, and got up laughing. But, our laughter, now reducing to hysterical giggles, was cut short when we saw something on the floor under where the couch had previously been…a trap door.
“Zack!” I shrieked so loudly, my throat felt raw. (Well, it was hard not to shriek at your brother when you found a creepy old trap door in a creepy old den in a creepy old house!) I heard thumping, and in a matter of seconds, my brother was in the doorway.
“Wha-…” He looked at me in confusion. Blankly, I pointed at the trap door.
“DUDE!!” Betcha saw that one comin’ didn’t you? He knelt down beside the trap door and opened it.
An old, musty smell wafted up from the gap. Zack looked up.
“Well? We goin’ in?”
Immediately, Todd stepped forward. I hesitated. I really, really, really hated that house. Really.
I stepped forward.
Climbed down the ladder.
Down, down, down…
Into darkness.
PART TWO
The rungs of the ladder were cracked and very, very old. I could tell by the feel of them that they had been put there a long, long time ago.
I stepped down onto one rung. Another. And yet another. I went to step onto the next one, but my foot just lay there, floating in the ozone where the rung should’ve been. I looked down and saw that there were at least 10 missing below that one, and Zack and Todd must’ve jumped.
Jumped. Did I mention I hate heights? Yea, well… I do. ‘Jump’ was not a very appealing word at the time.
“Zack! I’m stuck!” He looked up at me from further down the ladder.
“Zoey, just jump!”
Curse that word.
“I can’t!”
“Yes you can! Just grab onto that rung, and slowly lower yourself down!”
I did so. I grabbed onto the only rung that was in one piece and… yes, I jumped. And I almost slipped when my foot hit the rung under the gap. I reached down with I hand to feel the wood, and found that it had some kind of… muck on it.
“Agh! Zack, what is this stuff?”
“Well…and Zoey, don’t scream, please, if Mom found out we’re down here…”
“I won’t scream.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay…” He paused, looking down. “I think we’re in the sewer.”
Now, I admit, I almost screamed. I began to go down again, breathing slowly to calm myself, when I remembered something…or, should I say, someone.
“Hey Zack…?” I whispered hoarsely.
“Yeah?”
“Wh…where’s Todd?”
We looked down to find nothing but shadows reflecting off of sewer water.
PART THREE
"Todd...?" I said quietly. Then, a little louder. "TODD?"
"Zoey..." Zack looked at me solemnly. I knew that meant he had come to a conclusion. "We have to go back up."
"No! Are you crazy...we..just..we can't leave without Todd! What if he's hurt somewhere? Or drowning?" I shook my head. "No. We can't leave without Todd."
Zack sighed. He knew not to argue with me.
I nodded triumphantly, and began to climb down again. For some reason, I looked at the rung I was stepping on....
There were symbols written all over it.
I shuddered, trying not to think about it. I closed her eyes and continued to climb.
When my hand grabbed the rung with the symbols, I was one rung from the sewer floor.
I grabbed the symbol-rung. The grooves of the symbols felt so nice, calming...soothing. Suddenly, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, they were filled with fear. My legs began to move on their own, climbing down onto the last rung, onto the sewer floor.
"Zack?!" I called out, panicking.
"Whoa, Zoey! Where are you going?"
"Oh, just for a little stroll in the sewer! I don't know, you idiot! I can't move my legs! They're moving on their own!" I hissed. Then, I saw that Zack had one more step before getting to the symbol-rung.
"ZACK!" I shrieked as I began to move farther away. "DON'T TOUCH THAT RUNG WITH THE SYMBOLS ON IT!"
Then, he was out of sight.
I bit my lip. I couldn't move my legs at all.
I reached for a nearby pipe, and grabbed it. My legs tried to walk, but stayed in place. They pulled, and my hands began to slip off the pipe. The rough metal cut my palms, and soon blood was running down my wrists.
I clenched her teeth and closed my eyes at a particularly large chunk of metal cut my hand.
"Agh!" I gasped when I finally lost my grip. My legs continued walking.
I looked down at my hands. my left hand was covered in small not-so-deep cuts, but my right hand had a large, deep gouge-like cut running from right below my middle finger to the bottom of my palm.
"So much for not telling Mom..." I mumbled bitterly, silently cursing my legs. I ripped the edge off my shirt and wrapped the cloth around my right hand.
As I was tying the cloth, I saw something in front of me.
A black stone with symbols carved into it, surrounded by candles.
It looked like a... shrine.
But-no..
The black stone had a handle, like the kind you put on sliding-doors.
This wasn't a shrine...this was a door!
"Zooooooooooo-ey...." A ghastly voice called. "Zoooooooooooooooo-ey..."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!?!" I shrieked.
"Zoey...Zoey...help us Zoey..." I realized it was more than one voice speaking. It sounded like a little girl's voice, and a grown woman's voice. I could also, possibly, detect a tiny baby's crying.
"Zooooooooo-ey..." now all I heard was a little girl's voice.
"Zooooooooooo-eeeey...."
I suddenly had a vision.
My house,the ugly broken-down victorian mansion, was beautiful and new. I walked inside.
I made her way to the Kid's Den, for some reason, and saw a woman holding a baby. The baby was bawling, and the woman had tears running down her face. A little girl, also crying, held the woman's free hand.
A man was yelling at them. His face was red with anger.
"You will stop disrespecting me, Alice!" He screamed at the woman. "And you..." He pointed to the little girl. Her curly blonde hair was soaked with tears. "You will be locked in the sewer!" He slapped her face. He opened the trap door and swung the little girl over his shoulder. He began to climb down the ladder.
"MAMA!" The little girl shrieked.
"LILY!" And the mother tucked the baby's face in it's blanket, and began to climb quickly down the ladder.
I followed, somehow knowing that, since this seemed to be a vision, the family wouldn't see me.
When they got to the bottom of the ladder, "Alice" and the baby ran after the man and "Lily", who had already disappeared around the corner.
"Philip Cores! You put Lillian down THIS MINUTE!" Alice shrieked.
I gasped. "Philip" was opening a black stone door!
"NO! She disrespected me!" Philip screamed back. He threw Lily in.
"Fine..." Alice muttered, and stepped into the small, dark room with her daughter. She held the baby close. Philip looked at them, and his eyes rested on the baby.
"I thought I'd finally have a son..." He muttered. "So be it."
Right as he closed the door, the woman, Alice, looked directly at me, her eyes filled with...no not fear...what was the word?
Oh.
Pride.
"NO!!!" I shrieked as I got flashes of what happened after the door closed. The bony baby whining, and suddenly its breathing stopped.
The little girl writhing on the floor in agony, an infected rat bite on her leg. Her writhing finally stopping, and no other movements.
The woman sitting silently, tears rolling down her face as she held her dead children close.
"NO...!" the vision faded and I kneeled down on the floor, bloody hands holding my head.
"ZOEY!!" My eyes were blurred by blood and tears, but I could see Todd rushing over to me. "ZOEY?!?!"
"Well..looks like we found you.." I muttered before blacking out.
PART FOUR
"Zoey...?" My eyes fluttered open. Todd must've caught me when I blacked out, because his hand was holding my head up, and I was still in a kneeling position.
"Todd?" I muttered. "Where were you?"
"I couldn't control my legs..." he answered, his eyes distant. "I grabbed a certain rung with all kinds of grooves in it, and...I just couldn't control my legs." He looked at me, concern in his blue eyes. "What happened to you?!"
I moaned. "Same thing as you...except...I grabbed a pipe to try to stop my legs..." I showed him my blood-covered hands. "And...in the end...I heard voices. Telling me to help them. And..." I hesitated. Todd was staring at my hands. "And I had a vision." Todd's eyes snapped up to my face.
"What?" I told him about my vision.
About twenty minutes later, I finished telling him about my vision as he bandaged my hands. Good ol' Todd, always carrying a First Aid Kit.
"Wow..." he whispered. "What do you think it means...?"
"It means I have to save them...I guess..." I answered. "But I don't see how...they're already dead..."
"Maybe you have to free their spirits..." Todd pressed his hand against the black door. "Look at these symbols...maybe these symbols keep their spirits trapped."
"Todd!" I looked at him incredelously. "That's...Todd you're brilliant!"
Todd grinned. "I know." I rolled my eyes.
"But...how can we free them? The symbols may keep their spirits trapped...but how can we get rid of the symbols?"
"The key Zoey....the key...." The girl's voice whispered, sounding no louder than the wind. "Zoey, you must find it...find the key..." The mother joined her daughter's voice. "Find the key, Zoey..."
"We have to find the key." I said emptily.
Todd turned around. "Where'd ya hear that?"
I blushed furiously. "The family's spirits told me."
PART FIVE
We could not find Zack anywhere.
"He must've gotten lost..." Todd mumbled.
"I guess we have to find the key without him then..." I mumbled reluctantly. I hated this...what if Zack was hurt?!?!
"Guess so." Todd looked at me. "Where should we begin?"
"Well...." I began. "I suppose the key would be in a room where no-one can find it..."
"The attic," Todd and I said at the same time.
We began to climb back up the ladder. When we arrived back in the Kid's Den, we decided not to close the trap door in case Zack found his way back to the ladder.
"To the attic..." I whispered.
"To the attic."
We walked to the end of the hallway, and climbed three sets of stairs. Finally, we found ourselves at the attic door.
I fumbled with the door knob, and the door opened.
"It wasn't locked..."
"Well, maybe the key's in a locked container. Like a jewelry box or something."
Todd nodded. "Let's look."
We searched for at least an hour. As you probably guessed, nothing was locked.
"Dangit..." I muttered.
We tried the back yard.
"Maybe we're not looking for a key key..." Todd said suddenly.
"Huh?" I said, wiping my hands off on the back of my jeans. "Whaddya mean?"
"I mean...what if the 'key' is a password or somethin'?"
My jaw dropped. "That's amazing..."
Todd grinned again. "Uh huh. I know."
I grinned back. "You conceded jerk." We walked side by side back into the house.
"Password, password..." I mumbled as Todd searched on the internet.
"I can't find anything." Todd sighed. "Maybe...maybe if we search for symbols we can find out what those symbols on the door mean!"
"TODD!" I said.
"What?"
"STOP IT WITH THE GREAT IDEAS!"
PART SIX
Todd found a type of writing that looked like the symbols on the door.
"Used by Conductors during the times of the Underground Railroad, The Underground Language helped very much when used to inform others of what was happening with the slaves." I read aloud.
"And when locking your family up so they die of starvation..." Todd muttered angrily.
"Come on," I said quietly. "Let's go translate the door."
A few minutes later, we were standing in front of the door.
"Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooo-ey..." the little girl kept calling for me.
"...and those souls sealed in The Crypt shall be forever trapped by hatred, only to be freed by the opposite of hate." Todd finished translating the door.
I jumped up. "YES! That sounds correct! It makes sense at least..." I ran over to Todd and hugged him. I let go. We both blushed.
"Yeah, but what's the opposite of ha-" Todd broke off as we heard a loud crack.
The black door had split right down the middle.
"WE DID IT!" I shrieked.
"But...how?" Todd asked.
We pondered for a moment, before realization dawned on me. According to the look on Todd's face, it had dawned on him too. We blushed again, and didn't talk for a moment.
"So...uh...did we free them?" Todd asked awkwardly.
"Uhm...I don't know..."
"Noooooo, Zoey...we're not free as of yet...first you must unlock our secret..."
"DANGIT! More unlocking?!?!"
"Huh?"
"Well apparently we have to unlock their secret..."
"Ugh..." Todd rolled his eyes. "What now?"
"Hold on..." I said, beginning to hear the girl's voice again.
"Skeletal bodies hold more than death...to unlock our secret you must look in the secret chest..."
I shuddered. Look in the skeletons' chests...?!?!
"We have to..." I started out hoarsely. I cleared my throat. "We have to look in the skeleton's chest."
Todd nodded. "Of course. Of course. Just our luck." He stepped over the remaints of the door. I stepped behind him.
The room was very small, like a large closet. Or a prison. In a corner of the room, there was a large skeleton holding a tiny baby skeleton and a small child's skeleton close.
Suddenly, I felt kind of dizzy. I leaned against the doorway.
"You okay?" Todd asked, looking at me over his shoulder.
"Uh-huh.." I answered.
"You sure?" Todd scrutinized me. "You're pale as a ghost."
Suddenly, the large skeleton's skull turned. It's empty eye sockets stared at me. Skin grew onto the bones, and I found myself staring at Alice. Suddenly, the skin rotted again, and began to fall off.
"Nooooooooo..." I moaned. "Alice...."
"Whoa! Zoey? Zoey?! ZOEY!!" Todd's voice was the last thing I heard before everything went black.
PART SEVEN
I don't know how long I was out. When I woke up, it was dark and I couldn't see anything. I didn't think much of this, since the sewers were dark, but then I realized I was sitting on something soft.
My bed. I was laying on my bed.
But where was Todd? I slowly stood up and made my way to the door. I turned my light on, and there was Todd, in my arm chair on the other side of the room. He had fallen asleep in it.
But where was Zack?
He must've not returned from the sewers.
I had to save him.
PART 8
I shook Todd awake.
"Huh?" He lifted his head sleepily. "Wha?"
"Zack still isn't back!" I said. "We have to go find him!"
"Wha? Isn't your mom home?" Todd asked, sitting up. "Should we ask her to help?"
"No, tonight she's workin' all night."
"Just our luck."
Todd led the way down the stairs. "So..uhm...what happened earlier? You moaned and said "Alice" and...blacked out."
"Oh...Alice was the woman's name...the larger skeleton." I told him of what I had seen.
"My God..." Todd mumbled. "That's...freaky..."
By then, we were standing at the trap door, looking down into the darkness.
"I'll go first," I said. I started to step onto the first rung, but Todd grabbed my arm.
"I'll go first." I rolled my eyes, but didn't argue. Besides, he was already three rungs down the ladder.
When we finally arrived at the bottom, avoiding the runed-rung of course, we made our way towards The Crypt.
As soon as the black door, now laying on the ground, came into view, I felt weak, like I was about to pass out again.
Todd must've seen what I was feeling on my face, because he grabbed my arm to steady me.
I took a deep breath, and walked into The Crypt.
"Skeletons chest..." I whispered hoarsely. I kneeled down next to Alice's skeleton, half expecting her hand to shoot up and strangle me to death.
Which is exactly what she did...almost.
PART 9
I was pulling Alice's fingers away from her ribs when her right hand grabbed my hand.
Her left hand reached for my throat.
"ZOEY!" Todd threw himself at Alice's skeleton. He landed on the bones.
They were crushed into tiny pieces.
I was left with Alice's finger bones still tightly closed around my neck.
Too tightly.
I grabbed the arm bones still attached to the hand and pulled, but they wouldn't break.
"Help us Zoey..."
I couldn't breathe.
I pulled harder on the arm, but it still didn't pop off. Todd, who had been helplessly sitting there for about two seconds, grabbed the arm and we both pulled as hard as we could. I could see the world going dark. We pulled harder.
Finally, the fingers un-attached themselves at the knuckles and fell limply in my lap. I greedily sucked in air.
"Zoey! Are you OK?" Todd looked at me, concerned. I tried to answer, but all that came out was a choked grunt.
"I-I'm fine." I finally managed to croak. And at that moment, for some strange unknown reason, I looked at my hands.
They were white. And shining. I looked at Todd's hands. They were the exact same way.
Todd saw me looking at our hands, and gasped. Then, he slowly raised his head to look at my throat.
"Z-Zoey...?" I reached into my pocket and got out my cell phone. I took a picture of myself, and looked at the picture.
I had a white hand print wrapping around my neck.
I swear I almost fainted. I couldn't help it. You'd probably faint too if you were trying to stay concious from lack of breath, a skeleton's hand had just tried to strangle you, and you found large white marks on your hands and throat.
Oh yeah. You'd definitely faint.
(CLIFF HANGER!! ^_^ muahahahaha.... part 10 comin' later!!)
Zoey
Zack's twin sister
Hair color: Red
Eye color: Green
Age: 14
Zack
Hair color: Red
Eye color: Brown
Age: 14
Todd
Zoey & Zack's best friend
Hair color: Black
Eye color: Blue
Age: 14
Allan
Zoey & Zack's little brother
Hair color: Blonde
Eye color: Brown
Age: 6
PART ONE
I never really liked our house.
Sure, it was pretty, old, Victorian, yeah. It was very gothic looking, red walls, green window shudders, and humongous.
Yet, I was never really fond of it.
Neither was my brother, Zack. When our mom bought that house… he freaked out worse than I did.
And I freaked out pretty badly.
Anyways, we lived in an old house that we hated, especially after the incident where…well; I’ll get to that now…
So, it was about two year after we moved into the dump that we called home, and Todd, our, like, best friend, was over. Zack had gone to get snacks, so Todd and I went up to the “kid’s den”, as Mom called it. We sat down on the huge beanbag couch, and, suddenly, it just…flipped over! We were sent sprawling backwards, and got up laughing. But, our laughter, now reducing to hysterical giggles, was cut short when we saw something on the floor under where the couch had previously been…a trap door.
“Zack!” I shrieked so loudly, my throat felt raw. (Well, it was hard not to shriek at your brother when you found a creepy old trap door in a creepy old den in a creepy old house!) I heard thumping, and in a matter of seconds, my brother was in the doorway.
“Wha-…” He looked at me in confusion. Blankly, I pointed at the trap door.
“DUDE!!” Betcha saw that one comin’ didn’t you? He knelt down beside the trap door and opened it.
An old, musty smell wafted up from the gap. Zack looked up.
“Well? We goin’ in?”
Immediately, Todd stepped forward. I hesitated. I really, really, really hated that house. Really.
I stepped forward.
Climbed down the ladder.
Down, down, down…
Into darkness.
PART TWO
The rungs of the ladder were cracked and very, very old. I could tell by the feel of them that they had been put there a long, long time ago.
I stepped down onto one rung. Another. And yet another. I went to step onto the next one, but my foot just lay there, floating in the ozone where the rung should’ve been. I looked down and saw that there were at least 10 missing below that one, and Zack and Todd must’ve jumped.
Jumped. Did I mention I hate heights? Yea, well… I do. ‘Jump’ was not a very appealing word at the time.
“Zack! I’m stuck!” He looked up at me from further down the ladder.
“Zoey, just jump!”
Curse that word.
“I can’t!”
“Yes you can! Just grab onto that rung, and slowly lower yourself down!”
I did so. I grabbed onto the only rung that was in one piece and… yes, I jumped. And I almost slipped when my foot hit the rung under the gap. I reached down with I hand to feel the wood, and found that it had some kind of… muck on it.
“Agh! Zack, what is this stuff?”
“Well…and Zoey, don’t scream, please, if Mom found out we’re down here…”
“I won’t scream.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Okay…” He paused, looking down. “I think we’re in the sewer.”
Now, I admit, I almost screamed. I began to go down again, breathing slowly to calm myself, when I remembered something…or, should I say, someone.
“Hey Zack…?” I whispered hoarsely.
“Yeah?”
“Wh…where’s Todd?”
We looked down to find nothing but shadows reflecting off of sewer water.
PART THREE
"Todd...?" I said quietly. Then, a little louder. "TODD?"
"Zoey..." Zack looked at me solemnly. I knew that meant he had come to a conclusion. "We have to go back up."
"No! Are you crazy...we..just..we can't leave without Todd! What if he's hurt somewhere? Or drowning?" I shook my head. "No. We can't leave without Todd."
Zack sighed. He knew not to argue with me.
I nodded triumphantly, and began to climb down again. For some reason, I looked at the rung I was stepping on....
There were symbols written all over it.
I shuddered, trying not to think about it. I closed her eyes and continued to climb.
When my hand grabbed the rung with the symbols, I was one rung from the sewer floor.
I grabbed the symbol-rung. The grooves of the symbols felt so nice, calming...soothing. Suddenly, I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, they were filled with fear. My legs began to move on their own, climbing down onto the last rung, onto the sewer floor.
"Zack?!" I called out, panicking.
"Whoa, Zoey! Where are you going?"
"Oh, just for a little stroll in the sewer! I don't know, you idiot! I can't move my legs! They're moving on their own!" I hissed. Then, I saw that Zack had one more step before getting to the symbol-rung.
"ZACK!" I shrieked as I began to move farther away. "DON'T TOUCH THAT RUNG WITH THE SYMBOLS ON IT!"
Then, he was out of sight.
I bit my lip. I couldn't move my legs at all.
I reached for a nearby pipe, and grabbed it. My legs tried to walk, but stayed in place. They pulled, and my hands began to slip off the pipe. The rough metal cut my palms, and soon blood was running down my wrists.
I clenched her teeth and closed my eyes at a particularly large chunk of metal cut my hand.
"Agh!" I gasped when I finally lost my grip. My legs continued walking.
I looked down at my hands. my left hand was covered in small not-so-deep cuts, but my right hand had a large, deep gouge-like cut running from right below my middle finger to the bottom of my palm.
"So much for not telling Mom..." I mumbled bitterly, silently cursing my legs. I ripped the edge off my shirt and wrapped the cloth around my right hand.
As I was tying the cloth, I saw something in front of me.
A black stone with symbols carved into it, surrounded by candles.
It looked like a... shrine.
But-no..
The black stone had a handle, like the kind you put on sliding-doors.
This wasn't a shrine...this was a door!
"Zooooooooooo-ey...." A ghastly voice called. "Zoooooooooooooooo-ey..."
"WHAT DO YOU WANT WITH ME?!?!" I shrieked.
"Zoey...Zoey...help us Zoey..." I realized it was more than one voice speaking. It sounded like a little girl's voice, and a grown woman's voice. I could also, possibly, detect a tiny baby's crying.
"Zooooooooo-ey..." now all I heard was a little girl's voice.
"Zooooooooooo-eeeey...."
I suddenly had a vision.
My house,the ugly broken-down victorian mansion, was beautiful and new. I walked inside.
I made her way to the Kid's Den, for some reason, and saw a woman holding a baby. The baby was bawling, and the woman had tears running down her face. A little girl, also crying, held the woman's free hand.
A man was yelling at them. His face was red with anger.
"You will stop disrespecting me, Alice!" He screamed at the woman. "And you..." He pointed to the little girl. Her curly blonde hair was soaked with tears. "You will be locked in the sewer!" He slapped her face. He opened the trap door and swung the little girl over his shoulder. He began to climb down the ladder.
"MAMA!" The little girl shrieked.
"LILY!" And the mother tucked the baby's face in it's blanket, and began to climb quickly down the ladder.
I followed, somehow knowing that, since this seemed to be a vision, the family wouldn't see me.
When they got to the bottom of the ladder, "Alice" and the baby ran after the man and "Lily", who had already disappeared around the corner.
"Philip Cores! You put Lillian down THIS MINUTE!" Alice shrieked.
I gasped. "Philip" was opening a black stone door!
"NO! She disrespected me!" Philip screamed back. He threw Lily in.
"Fine..." Alice muttered, and stepped into the small, dark room with her daughter. She held the baby close. Philip looked at them, and his eyes rested on the baby.
"I thought I'd finally have a son..." He muttered. "So be it."
Right as he closed the door, the woman, Alice, looked directly at me, her eyes filled with...no not fear...what was the word?
Oh.
Pride.
"NO!!!" I shrieked as I got flashes of what happened after the door closed. The bony baby whining, and suddenly its breathing stopped.
The little girl writhing on the floor in agony, an infected rat bite on her leg. Her writhing finally stopping, and no other movements.
The woman sitting silently, tears rolling down her face as she held her dead children close.
"NO...!" the vision faded and I kneeled down on the floor, bloody hands holding my head.
"ZOEY!!" My eyes were blurred by blood and tears, but I could see Todd rushing over to me. "ZOEY?!?!"
"Well..looks like we found you.." I muttered before blacking out.
PART FOUR
"Zoey...?" My eyes fluttered open. Todd must've caught me when I blacked out, because his hand was holding my head up, and I was still in a kneeling position.
"Todd?" I muttered. "Where were you?"
"I couldn't control my legs..." he answered, his eyes distant. "I grabbed a certain rung with all kinds of grooves in it, and...I just couldn't control my legs." He looked at me, concern in his blue eyes. "What happened to you?!"
I moaned. "Same thing as you...except...I grabbed a pipe to try to stop my legs..." I showed him my blood-covered hands. "And...in the end...I heard voices. Telling me to help them. And..." I hesitated. Todd was staring at my hands. "And I had a vision." Todd's eyes snapped up to my face.
"What?" I told him about my vision.
About twenty minutes later, I finished telling him about my vision as he bandaged my hands. Good ol' Todd, always carrying a First Aid Kit.
"Wow..." he whispered. "What do you think it means...?"
"It means I have to save them...I guess..." I answered. "But I don't see how...they're already dead..."
"Maybe you have to free their spirits..." Todd pressed his hand against the black door. "Look at these symbols...maybe these symbols keep their spirits trapped."
"Todd!" I looked at him incredelously. "That's...Todd you're brilliant!"
Todd grinned. "I know." I rolled my eyes.
"But...how can we free them? The symbols may keep their spirits trapped...but how can we get rid of the symbols?"
"The key Zoey....the key...." The girl's voice whispered, sounding no louder than the wind. "Zoey, you must find it...find the key..." The mother joined her daughter's voice. "Find the key, Zoey..."
"We have to find the key." I said emptily.
Todd turned around. "Where'd ya hear that?"
I blushed furiously. "The family's spirits told me."
PART FIVE
We could not find Zack anywhere.
"He must've gotten lost..." Todd mumbled.
"I guess we have to find the key without him then..." I mumbled reluctantly. I hated this...what if Zack was hurt?!?!
"Guess so." Todd looked at me. "Where should we begin?"
"Well...." I began. "I suppose the key would be in a room where no-one can find it..."
"The attic," Todd and I said at the same time.
We began to climb back up the ladder. When we arrived back in the Kid's Den, we decided not to close the trap door in case Zack found his way back to the ladder.
"To the attic..." I whispered.
"To the attic."
We walked to the end of the hallway, and climbed three sets of stairs. Finally, we found ourselves at the attic door.
I fumbled with the door knob, and the door opened.
"It wasn't locked..."
"Well, maybe the key's in a locked container. Like a jewelry box or something."
Todd nodded. "Let's look."
We searched for at least an hour. As you probably guessed, nothing was locked.
"Dangit..." I muttered.
We tried the back yard.
"Maybe we're not looking for a key key..." Todd said suddenly.
"Huh?" I said, wiping my hands off on the back of my jeans. "Whaddya mean?"
"I mean...what if the 'key' is a password or somethin'?"
My jaw dropped. "That's amazing..."
Todd grinned again. "Uh huh. I know."
I grinned back. "You conceded jerk." We walked side by side back into the house.
"Password, password..." I mumbled as Todd searched on the internet.
"I can't find anything." Todd sighed. "Maybe...maybe if we search for symbols we can find out what those symbols on the door mean!"
"TODD!" I said.
"What?"
"STOP IT WITH THE GREAT IDEAS!"
PART SIX
Todd found a type of writing that looked like the symbols on the door.
"Used by Conductors during the times of the Underground Railroad, The Underground Language helped very much when used to inform others of what was happening with the slaves." I read aloud.
"And when locking your family up so they die of starvation..." Todd muttered angrily.
"Come on," I said quietly. "Let's go translate the door."
A few minutes later, we were standing in front of the door.
"Zoooooooooooooooooooooooooo-ey..." the little girl kept calling for me.
"...and those souls sealed in The Crypt shall be forever trapped by hatred, only to be freed by the opposite of hate." Todd finished translating the door.
I jumped up. "YES! That sounds correct! It makes sense at least..." I ran over to Todd and hugged him. I let go. We both blushed.
"Yeah, but what's the opposite of ha-" Todd broke off as we heard a loud crack.
The black door had split right down the middle.
"WE DID IT!" I shrieked.
"But...how?" Todd asked.
We pondered for a moment, before realization dawned on me. According to the look on Todd's face, it had dawned on him too. We blushed again, and didn't talk for a moment.
"So...uh...did we free them?" Todd asked awkwardly.
"Uhm...I don't know..."
"Noooooo, Zoey...we're not free as of yet...first you must unlock our secret..."
"DANGIT! More unlocking?!?!"
"Huh?"
"Well apparently we have to unlock their secret..."
"Ugh..." Todd rolled his eyes. "What now?"
"Hold on..." I said, beginning to hear the girl's voice again.
"Skeletal bodies hold more than death...to unlock our secret you must look in the secret chest..."
I shuddered. Look in the skeletons' chests...?!?!
"We have to..." I started out hoarsely. I cleared my throat. "We have to look in the skeleton's chest."
Todd nodded. "Of course. Of course. Just our luck." He stepped over the remaints of the door. I stepped behind him.
The room was very small, like a large closet. Or a prison. In a corner of the room, there was a large skeleton holding a tiny baby skeleton and a small child's skeleton close.
Suddenly, I felt kind of dizzy. I leaned against the doorway.
"You okay?" Todd asked, looking at me over his shoulder.
"Uh-huh.." I answered.
"You sure?" Todd scrutinized me. "You're pale as a ghost."
Suddenly, the large skeleton's skull turned. It's empty eye sockets stared at me. Skin grew onto the bones, and I found myself staring at Alice. Suddenly, the skin rotted again, and began to fall off.
"Nooooooooo..." I moaned. "Alice...."
"Whoa! Zoey? Zoey?! ZOEY!!" Todd's voice was the last thing I heard before everything went black.
PART SEVEN
I don't know how long I was out. When I woke up, it was dark and I couldn't see anything. I didn't think much of this, since the sewers were dark, but then I realized I was sitting on something soft.
My bed. I was laying on my bed.
But where was Todd? I slowly stood up and made my way to the door. I turned my light on, and there was Todd, in my arm chair on the other side of the room. He had fallen asleep in it.
But where was Zack?
He must've not returned from the sewers.
I had to save him.
PART 8
I shook Todd awake.
"Huh?" He lifted his head sleepily. "Wha?"
"Zack still isn't back!" I said. "We have to go find him!"
"Wha? Isn't your mom home?" Todd asked, sitting up. "Should we ask her to help?"
"No, tonight she's workin' all night."
"Just our luck."
Todd led the way down the stairs. "So..uhm...what happened earlier? You moaned and said "Alice" and...blacked out."
"Oh...Alice was the woman's name...the larger skeleton." I told him of what I had seen.
"My God..." Todd mumbled. "That's...freaky..."
By then, we were standing at the trap door, looking down into the darkness.
"I'll go first," I said. I started to step onto the first rung, but Todd grabbed my arm.
"I'll go first." I rolled my eyes, but didn't argue. Besides, he was already three rungs down the ladder.
When we finally arrived at the bottom, avoiding the runed-rung of course, we made our way towards The Crypt.
As soon as the black door, now laying on the ground, came into view, I felt weak, like I was about to pass out again.
Todd must've seen what I was feeling on my face, because he grabbed my arm to steady me.
I took a deep breath, and walked into The Crypt.
"Skeletons chest..." I whispered hoarsely. I kneeled down next to Alice's skeleton, half expecting her hand to shoot up and strangle me to death.
Which is exactly what she did...almost.
PART 9
I was pulling Alice's fingers away from her ribs when her right hand grabbed my hand.
Her left hand reached for my throat.
"ZOEY!" Todd threw himself at Alice's skeleton. He landed on the bones.
They were crushed into tiny pieces.
I was left with Alice's finger bones still tightly closed around my neck.
Too tightly.
I grabbed the arm bones still attached to the hand and pulled, but they wouldn't break.
"Help us Zoey..."
I couldn't breathe.
I pulled harder on the arm, but it still didn't pop off. Todd, who had been helplessly sitting there for about two seconds, grabbed the arm and we both pulled as hard as we could. I could see the world going dark. We pulled harder.
Finally, the fingers un-attached themselves at the knuckles and fell limply in my lap. I greedily sucked in air.
"Zoey! Are you OK?" Todd looked at me, concerned. I tried to answer, but all that came out was a choked grunt.
"I-I'm fine." I finally managed to croak. And at that moment, for some strange unknown reason, I looked at my hands.
They were white. And shining. I looked at Todd's hands. They were the exact same way.
Todd saw me looking at our hands, and gasped. Then, he slowly raised his head to look at my throat.
"Z-Zoey...?" I reached into my pocket and got out my cell phone. I took a picture of myself, and looked at the picture.
I had a white hand print wrapping around my neck.
I swear I almost fainted. I couldn't help it. You'd probably faint too if you were trying to stay concious from lack of breath, a skeleton's hand had just tried to strangle you, and you found large white marks on your hands and throat.
Oh yeah. You'd definitely faint.
(CLIFF HANGER!! ^_^ muahahahaha.... part 10 comin' later!!)