We waited for lights-out, and for the school to fall into silence before we dared leave our rooms. With his head bent low, and crouched over like a crab, Sam made his way down the narrow staircase at the end of the corridor. I followed him down the spiral stairwell and into the bowels of Ravenwood. The school was in darkness, and I felt my way down the staircase by brushing the tips of my fingers against the stone wall, listening to the snap-snap sound of Sam’s shoes ahead of me. Reaching the ground floor, Sam crept through the passageways which stretched throughout Ravenwood. I followed.
Ahead, oblong shards of moonlight fell through the corridor windows and lit our way. I could hear the sound of Sam’s racing heart and it was almost deafening in the desolate corridors. My stomach tightened and I felt sick. Back in my bedroom, the idea of searching out Emily Clarke’s bedroom seemed exciting, but Sam hadn’t mentioned anything about how creepy the school was during the night and in the dark. Every shadow we passed I eyed with dread, fearing that a Grey would appear from within the gloom and come racing towards me, sizzle-stick in hand, its end pulsating with shocks of electric blue light.
The hallway windows looked out across the grounds of the school. As we neared each one, Sam would flap his hand in a downwards motion, signalling for me to drop. Crouching as we passed beneath the windows, the white light from the search towers flooded the hall then swooped away again. Standing, with backs arched, we moved off again. Ahead, the hallway veered to the right and I followed Sam down it. Not once did Sam falter or stop to wonder what direction he should take. He seemed to know where he was heading. As we rounded the bend, I stopped, threw my arm out against Sam’s chest and pressed him to the wall.
“What?” he said, looking startled.
“Shhh!” I hissed. “Can’t you hear that?”
“Hear what?” Sam whispered.
Then, the sound of crying — no pleading — that I could hear, seeped up from below.
“That!” I said, my eyes wide like saucers.
The sound came again. But this time it sounded more like whimpering than sobbing.
“Where’s it coming from?” Sam asked, taking one of my hands in his. It felt nice to be holding his hand, but his flesh felt cold like a corpse. Sam glanced to his left and then to his right, as he tried to find the whereabouts of the noise in the pitch blackness of the school.
It came again, but this time words could be heard between each sob and whimper.
“Nooooo….Pleeeaaassee stop! I beg you!” The voice sounded like the person was being strangled. Whoever had muttered those words was in complete agony.
I followed the voice in the darkness and it led us to the top of a narrow wooden staircase fixed into the corridor wall. The stairs led down beneath Ravenwood.
“I’ve never seen these stairs before,” Sam whispered behind his hand.
“I think we should head back…” I started, just wanting to contact Kiera and tell her what I had discovered. But what had I discovered? Not much. No proof yet of what had happened to Emily.
A splash of light from the search towers illuminated the corridor. It fell across our face. And seeing the fear in Sam’s eyes, I knew what he had meant when he said I looked as if I were about to shit myself. We dropped to the floor and lay on our stomachs. I could hear a scratching sound from beside me and I rolled onto my side.
“What’s that noise?” I whispered.
“What? The scratching noise?” Sam asked.
“Yeah.”
“That’s me,” Sam said.
“What are you doing? Someone will hear!” I groaned.
“Shhh!” Sam said. “I’ve found something.”
“What?”
“The reason why I’ve never seen this stairwell before,” Sam told me.
“How come?”
“They’ve had it hidden behind this bookcase,” Sam whispered. “They just slide it aside when they want to go down…”
“You’re hurting me,” the voice from below came again, and it sounded weak and petrified. “I don’t know anything about any….no! Pleeeaaassee stop!”
“I think we should get outter…” Sam started.
“No — wait. I want to listen to this,” I whispered, my head tilted towards the top of the stairwell.
“Are you out of your tiny mind?” Sam whispered.
“Shhh!” I told him, putting a finger to my lips.
“…I don’t know what you’re talking about…” the voice echoed up from below again and this time I got the sense that the voice belonged to a woman. “…Just let me go…I promise I won’t say anything!”
We were so intent on listening to the woman’s pitiful voice that neither of us heard the sound of footfalls climbing the stairwell which led up from the basement. Searchlight flooded the corridor again and poured down the stairwell. In the flash of brilliant white light, I saw a shadow creeping along the wall of the stairwell as someone came up from the depths of Ravenwood towards us.
“Go!” I cried, scrambling to my feet.
“Say what?” Sam asked, sounding surprised.
“Someone’s coming!” I hissed.
And then, as if being kicked in the ribs, Sam jumped to his feet and raced away down the corridor, as I clambered at his heels. I glanced back over my shoulder, but the searchlight had swept away, and all I could see was darkness. I didn’t know what was worse, not being able to see what it was that had come from beneath the stairs or the terrifying images my mind would create later while I lay in the dark on my own.
Without warning, Sam stopped ahead and I nearly crashed into him.
“How much more noise are you planning on making?” Sam groaned in the darkness. “You’ll have the whole goddamn school awake in a minute!”
“Oh stop your moaning. It wasn’t me who was moving pieces of furniture about back there! Anyway, why’d you stop like that all of a sudden, its pitch bla-”
“Cos we’re here, that’s why,” Sam whispered.
“Where’s here?”
“Miss Clarke’s room,” Sam whispered, and as he swung open the door, a burst of searchlight splashed against the corridor walls again. Sam grabbed my hand again, and pulling me into the room he closed the door behind us.