and Fizz–”

The words cut off.

“M-Matt?” Ryan pushed against the door but it was useless. That rickety old thing should have

swung free with a gentle nudge, but it felt as solid as metal. Something wasn’t right.

“Ryyaan.” Matt’s voice urged him to hurry. “Something really fucking weird is going on here!”

“What?” Ryan asked through the door. “What is it?”

“The bloody floor is moving! Shit, help me!”

“Hang on!” Ryan moved away, jumped over Ginger’s body, and ran up the three steps to the next

hall. The kitchen was the first room. He stood in the doorway, eyes darting about in panic. There had

to be something he could break down a door with? Pots, pans, knives... A rolling pin? Then Ryan

remembered Ginger’s aborted DIY attempt in the bathroom. To get at the floorboards and the pipes

below, he’s brought up the half-axe from the basement.

Yes!

Ryan ran to the bathroom. The axe was there, leaning against the wall, abandoned along with the

broken floorboards. Ryan stooped and picked it up, testing the weight in his hands. The blade wasn’t

new, but it was sharp enough.

“Ryan!” Matt yelled. “RYAN!”

Ryan ran back down the hall. He slowed to step carefully over Ginger, sparing him a glance.

Nothing had changed; he lay still on the floor, seemingly asleep. Ryan shook his head. He had to

focus. He had to get Matt out of the pigeon loft.

“Stand back!” he shouted. “I’ve got the axe!”

“Bloody hell,” Matt’s voice wavered. “Well, hurry up! I’m slipping, the floor’s tilting, and I can’t

hold on! I don’t want to go in that other room!”

“Okay, I’m going to aim here.” Ryan knocked on the top left panel with his hand, then he gripped

the axe. “Stand back.”

Here goes, he thought. Maybe he could imagine whatever bad thing hounding them was the door.

That was bound to make him hit harder. Ryan swung the axe, bringing it down on the door. He

expected it to lodge in the wood at least; the door was old, the wood soft. But the axe simply bounced

off as if the wood were made of rubber. Ryan gasped as he lost his grip on the axe. It flew out of his

hands, and he spun on the spot, trying to grab it back.

Ginger was below him. In one split second, Ryan’s mind fretted over the probability of the axe

falling on Ginger, blood spurting everywhere.

No!

Ryan wouldn’t let that happen. He pushed himself forward, trying to clasp the axe in mid-air. It just

missed his fingers, but he managed to push it higher in the air, aiming it toward the stairs, where it

wouldn’t hurt anyone.

The axe arched safely over Ginger. But in his desperate lunge forward, leaping over Ginger’s body,

Ryan hadn’t thought of the stairs. He tripped down three of them, then managed to grab onto the

bannister. His arm twisted as he fell hard against the wood, legs sprawled. Ryan grunted in pain. The

axe sailed down the stairs, and Ryan expected it to clatter into the lower stairwell.

Thank God no one was –

A figure appeared. Ryan stared, heart in his throat. Who had he thrown the axe at? He tried to call

out, but the axe had already fallen. The man waiting there caught it perfectly by its handle. Ryan

blinked in open mouthed amazement. It was that man again, in the military uniform. Ryan’s grip on

the bannisters loosened, body aching from his fall. He barely noticed. He watched the man flip the axe

in his hand, raise an eyebrow, then pull his arm back. He nodded once at Ryan.

Sensing what to do, Ryan shouted to the pigeon loft, “Matt! Keep away from the –”

The axe whistled over his head. Ryan was too slow to see it hitting the door, but he heard the BANG

that blasted through the hall like a gunshot. The door swung open.

“Matt!” Ryan called, crawling up to the landing.

Matt was in the hall of the pigeon loft, which wasn’t dark or moving any more. He leant against the

windows, gripping onto a windowsill like his life depended on it. Matt blinked, and looked around him

as if confused, then he lunged forward, bursting onto the stairwell.

“Holy, bloody, mother-fucking GOD!” he shouted, pulling the door shut behind him. “That place is

fucking nuts!”

Ryan sighed in relief. “Matt. You’re okay.”

“But what about Pete?” Matt looked at him, his eyes wide. “He was on the floor! Lying there. Fizz

was...Fizz was, like, standing there, waiting for me. What’s he playing at? He’s turned psycho!”

“It’s...I don’t think it’s him,” Ryan said. He glanced back down the stairs, but the strange man had

vanished. “Matt, do you remember when we went in the pigeon loft that night? You, me, and Sammy,

with the spray paint? Remember we heard those...weird noises? And we all ran off scared.”

“Yeah, but...we were drunk.”

Ryan let out a humourless laugh. “Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sober right now,

and I’ve seen some weird shit.”

Matt nodded. “Okay. Yeah, okay. So what the fuck do we do?”

“Sheila and Ash have gone to get a girl called Beth. I don’t know what’s going on here, but Sheila

seemed to know.”

“Sheila? The red-head? And Beth, the blonde girl?”

“Yeah.”

“But what can they do?”

“I don’t know!” Ryan snapped. “I don’t know what’s going on, okay? We never should have put

Fizz in the stupid bloody room.”

“Ryan?” Sammy’s voice called up the stairs. “Ambulance is here.”

Chapter Eighteen

Two paramedics, a man and a woman, hurried up the stairs. Their green uniform was a welcome

sight, but Ryan honestly wasn’t sure what they could do here. Everything that had just happened

whirled around in his head, and all the answers pointed to weird shit, unexplainable apparitions, and

things he couldn’t see.

What could anyone do against all that?

Sammy was right behind the paramedics, peering through the bannisters to watch. They set their red

bags of equipment down, and asked Matt and Ryan to move aside.

“What’s his name?” the man asked, indicating Ginger.

“Daniel,” Ryan said, swallowing hard. He conceded to move away, but stayed as close as he could,

crouched beside Ginger’s body. “He is breathing, but he just collapsed, we...I...” He glanced up at

Matt, who shared his nervous look.

The woman pressed her fingers to Ginger’s neck. “There’s a pulse, but it’s faint.”

“Daniel?” the man said, leaning over Ginger. “Daniel, can you hear me?”

No response.

Ryan swallowed again, trying to keep himself together. He watched the paramedics set to work.

“Got the air,” the woman said, pulling out a clear, plastic mask and turning on a machine in her bag.

“Set up the pads. Checked his airway?”

“Yes, all clear.” The man opened his bag, bringing out more equipment. “And there’s someone

else?” he asked, looking round at Ryan.

“Huh?”

“They told us on the radio you had two people unconscious?”

“Oh. Um...”

Should he lie? Ryan wasn’t sure. He wanted someone to come in and make everything all right

again. He wanted the paramedics to save Ginger, Pete, and Fizz.

Matt took the decision out of his hands when he said, “Actually...there’s three.”

“Three? We’ll have to radio for back up.”

The woman nodded. “There’s all those stairs, too. We’ll need help getting them down to the van.”

The man pulled at the little radio attached to his shoulder. He pressed a button and said, “Control,

this is–” The radio crackled loudly, and the man paused. “What the?”

“Sorry,” Ryan said. “The reception up here doesn’t work.”

The paramedic tapped his radio impatiently but it still crackled. “That’s weird,” he said. “It

shouldn’t interfere. You’d better show us the others first. We need to make sure they’re stable like this