“I told you,” April said, clapping her hands excitedly.
“I never doubted you for a minute,” Sean said, reaching over the back of the passenger seat and squeezing his girlfriend's shoulders.
“I never thought I’d get one of these. You guys are way smarter than I am.”
“Don’t say that,” Kayleigh chided. “That story that you came up with for the house is genius. I have a few ideas about how we can create videos that match up with the history.”
“Thanks, Kaylz. I’ll be honest; I was ready to talk to you guys about not playing the game anymore. It freaks me out, but solving one of the riddles has me all fired up. It’s scary, but it’s also kinda fun.”
“Welcome to the dark side, bitch,” Kayleigh laughed.
They spent the rest of the ride home talking about what might come next in the game and deciding that they should dig up some info on common codes and ciphers. They agreed that the more they knew, the more likely it would be that the riddles to come might not seem so daunting.
Back home, Sean opened up his laptop and went to his bookmarks, where the link to the video feed was now stored. “Alright, sweetness, hit me with the digits.”
“You got it, babe. It’s 7-6-5-8-3.”
“Slow down and repeat it.”
“Sorry, I’m just so excited. It’s 7-6-8-5-3.”
Sean typed in the numbers, hit enter, and watched as the screen went from black to red, a large X appearing dead center. “What the fuck is going on?”
“Did you type in the right number?” Kayleigh asked.
“Yes, just as April said. 7-6-8-5-3.”
“Is that what I said?” April asked, the color draining from her face.
“One hundred percent,” Sean said, repeatedly hitting the escape button in hopes of magically eliminating the X.
“It’s 7-6-5-8-3. I thought that’s what I said. Honestly, I did.” Tears filled April’s eyes and threatened to spill.
“Game over,” Sean said. “That’s game over.”
Kayleigh moved away from the kitchen island, glaring at her friend. “You did that on purpose, didn’t you?”
“What? No. I...”
“Of course, you did. You’ve been freaking out about this game right from the start. You should have just quit like you said you wanted to.”
“That’s not what happened. I got confused.”
With a sigh, Kayleigh dropped her head, shoulders slumped, and began to cry, quietly at first, but soon with wracking sobs that felled her to the floor. Her dark hair fell across her face, the long locks acting as a shield against having her emotions on display.
April went to her side, dropping to the floor and pulling her friend in tight, saying, “I’m sorry,” over and over again as they rocked together.
“I’m sorry, Apes. I wanted this so bad. This was our shot, but it’s not worth losing a friendship over.”
“You are never losing me, even when you are a meanie.”
“You’re too polite to call me a bitch. That’s what you should say.”
They held each other tight, laughing away the tears until Sean interrupted the happy moment.
“Um, guys. You might want to come and see this.”
Picking themselves off the floor and wiping their eyes in unison, they went back to the island, where Sean’s laptop was showing the video feed. The girl was now standing, her arms raised and bound, tied to a meat hook on the ceiling. They watched as she swayed, as though dancing to some tune that only she could hear, her movements weirdly hypnotic.
“Shit. Are we going to have to watch while they fake kill her?” Kayleigh asked, shuddering involuntarily.
“Who knows?” Sean said, reaching for his vape pen.
“What juice do you have in that thing?”
“Lemonheads candy flavor,”
“Jesus, Sean. Right when I need a hit is when you channel your twelve-year-old self,” Kayleigh moaned.
As the robed man walked into view, Kayleigh snatched the vape pen out of Sean’s hand and sucked in a mouthful of lemon vapor. “Here we go,” she wheezed.
Taking up his usual spot in the middle of the pentagram, he clasped his hands and bowed his head before speaking. “The answer that you entered was incorrect. While this grievous error should signal the death of my captive, it appears that Falyn is feeling...generous. I have, it would seem, overestimated your capacity for critical thought. The Master has deemed that you have another opportunity to play and has decreed that we should make things a little less demanding moving forward.’
Upon hearing that they were still in the game, the group high-fived, and let out whoops of delight.
“That said, there still needs to be a penalty for a wrong answer. Behold.” The robed man covered the space between the pentagram quickly, as though gliding across the rough floor of the basement. He stroked the face of the girl, who flinched and tried to evade his touch. Turning to the table holding all the torture implements, he selected a tool that looked a lot like an ice cream scoop. Holding it up for inspection for a moment, he then turned and blocked their view of the proceedings.
“What is he doing? What the fuck is he doing?” Kayleigh said.
The girl’s screams filled the house, echoing off the walls, her pain absorbed by the bricks and mortar so that they could tell her story to future tenants who believed in spirits.
“Turn it down, babe. Please turn it down,” April sobbed.
Sean hit the volume button and took it down a few notches, leaving it just loud enough in case the torturer spoke again.
The robed man turned back to face the camera, still blocking the girl, who had now gone silent, from view. In one hand, he held the torture tool, while in the other, he held one of her eyes. “As further punishment, you shall not be permitted to view again until the next riddle has been solved. I bid you a good evening,” he said as the screen faded to black.
“It’s not real, right?” April said, breaking the stunned silence.
“Hell no. Do you see what he did? That whole hands clasped routine was something new. I bet he had that fake eye in there all along,” Kayleigh said.
“Right, plus, he blocked our view while he was torturing her,” Sean said, placing torturing in air quotes.
“On the bright side, I think they want us to finish the game. It might be fun to fuck up another answer, just to see how far they take this thing,” Kayleigh said.
“Not a good idea. They might write us off as a bunch of morons unfit to plug their game. I think we need to buckle down and finish strong.”
“You’re right, Sean. That never even occurred to me.”
“I’ll tell you what, though, I am a little curious about who has been delivering the messages. I’m going to move the kitchen camera up to my bedroom. Our window looks down onto the front steps.”
Kayleigh nodded. “Great idea. I’ll reset the app to receive notifications. I’m don’t want to have that awful noise blasting in my ear, though, every time someone comes to the door.”
“No problem. Mute the sound and enable push notifications instead.”
Pulling out her phone, Kayleigh set up the app as instructed while Sean set about moving the camera upstairs. “Let’s catch this asshole in action.