Beneath the whispers

Chapter 45

Looking around, we are in the middle of a huge empty hall, the only thing there is a table and the footwear I saw earlier

I walk up to the footwear and move the table lightly and there laid some clothes, the others rush towards me as I lifted the cloth and it is a big top and some panty black leggings. The footwear is a canvas

“This belongs to a young girl” I say looking up at the others. Willow squats beside me and examine the shoe

“That belongs to Maya” Thelma says. I look at her confused and she rolled her eyes “she was Mira’s friend that was taken from the hotel”

“Wait what?” Tony asks and she bent down to look at the clothes again

“she had it on” she said and stands up again. Looking at the cloth again, it did look familiar. But then –

“why is her clothes here and not her” I ask and drop the cloth

“she might be here somewhere” Tony said “we should go find her”

He lifts his torch and heads first, we all follow behind him, the first corridor we took is empty just like the hall, the doors we opened only led to empty rooms but we still moved forward, opening doors and doors and still no show.

We get back to the first hall we entered and take the other side of the building, the house is virtually empty and another offsetting thing is that it look exactly like the hotel on the inside except that it has a story building

After exhausting the rooms on the other side we went upstairs and the same thing. When we got back to the reception we were tired but seeing Maya’s clothes made it very hard to just leave the mansion.

“What should we do?” I ask allowing myself to drop to the carpet floor on my butt

“There has to be something, the building cannot just be empty with a handful of furniture. It doesn’t make sense”

“Yea, he is right… there has to be something at least” Willow says and we all instinctively look at Harper and he shrugs. He knows something and whether he doesn’t want to tell us or he cannot tell us I do not care

A high school girl is in trouble and from what I know they will harm her. He looks at me and then behind me, I furrow my brow in confusion and he looks away

I get up and turn around to look behind me, I collect the torch from Tony’s hands and point it behind me moving the torchlight around until it settles on a line on the wall

“guys” I call to them and they all look at the circle light of the torch “this place has an underground part” I complete and everyone gets close to stand behind me

We look at each other and back at the line trailing the light round the square that made for the tiny door

Before we could act, a heavy gust of wind slams the house and burst the door open and hit us, disorganizing us and making me trip on Willow and dropping the torch. The lights in the hall went dark and the whispers grew in our ears

I try to reach for the torch but it strays away from me on its own, when I try to reach it again it moves this time almost into the corridor – oops definitely not me

I sprung up to my feet, looking around the hall through the dim light from the torch till my gaze rest on Harper’s face, his panicky face is dripping with sweat and regret washes over his face. I grab his hand and pulls him towards me “nothing will happen to you” I reassure him

The whispering gust slams at us again and I pull him as I break into a sprint. Tony is screaming my name and willow screams for him and meets him, they both start screaming for me and Thelma and I try to trace their voice pulling Harper behind me and struggling through the wind

“Tony! I am tracing your voice don’t stop shouting”

“Okay! We are coming for you!”

“what about Thel!”

“we have found her!” he responds

The gust grew violent by the minute and Harper grips me tightly as something starts to pull on him. I turn and pull back with all my might

In minutes I feel the wind that swirl around him hitting my hand with such a force that it hurt but I don’t let go. The force pulls harder and he is lifting from the ground into the air. I remember the deodorant spray and the lighter I was with

“let me go!” Harper yells “I am not who you think I am!”

“I know!” I yell back and lets go, rushing for my belt and ripping out my weapon, I light the lighter and spray on it. a huge gush of yellow fire washes over the dark clouds and a loud shrieking yell erupts the building and the gust disappears, I watch Harper fall and I hurry to him

The others must have seen the display because they rush towards us and Tony pulls me away from Harper who is grunting in pain

I break free “we are not leaving without him” I say and without a word, Tony drag Harper to his feet so Willow helps him and he pulls me again into a sprint, running towards the front door

“how did you get the torch?!” I yell

“how did you lose it?” he replies “I went for it thinking it was you. Dumb ass” I am pretty sure that torch was leading me to my doom

The whisper grew in our ears again and before the door closes, Willow stops it, he lets go of Harper to push the door against the wind and Harper joins him to push the door, I and Tony reaches the door but Thelma is running behind us so I stop and stretch my hand towards her

In a few seconds she grabs onto my hand and I pull her but the gust already has her and is pulling her away from me, Tony is pulling me with his hands wounded around my waist and willow is struggling with the door with Harper

The dark clouds cover her body and slowly her face with it as her yelling voice grew ruffled until it became so distant that we couldn’t hear her anymore

The door has almost closed with a space fit for someone as slim as Thelma – thankfully. I had lost my balance but Tony has to leave me so he would spray at the gust, we were risking Thelma getting hurt because of the little space we had to spray from. I steady my feet against the floor

“leave me! Get the spray can!” I yell at him, the door was still closing in and we had to act fast

“you are not balanced”

“I know, you have to spray fast enough before it takes us”

“the door won’t hold much longer” Willow grunts from where he struggled with the door

With a heavy breath and some mumbling like he was practicing what he would do in his mind, Tony lets go and rips out the lighter and spray can

He aims down knowing that Thelma was in the air and sprays through the door opening. The yellow flame pushes into the building and with yet another deafening squeak the gust disappears

I, Willow and Harper crash into the building as the door bands on the wall behind it

I stand up fast, rip out Tony’s torch from his chest pocket and hurry back into the building, I move the round light through the floor and then to the walls but no sign of Thelma. I gasp

“I cannot find her!” I yell and they all rush to me, we look at the empty hall with our mouth gaping