Chapter 7
By now Zac and Isaac had lost all interest in the money. They had lost their brother to their stubbornness and now thought that they would do as he had wanted them to do in the first place, leave. They found out that the area in which the grave was, was part of the house. All around it was a huge wooden fence. There was no way out through the back. So they wondered back into the secret passage trying to find the front door.
"(cough) Do you think we (sniff) missed the way out?" Isaac asked finding the dusty air very hard on his lungs.
"No." Zac answered walking on ahead. "We couldn't have missed it I remember exactly where it was and what it looked like."
The whole idea of the secret hallway had lost its charm. The place was so dirty and disgusting and the air was becoming hard for even Zac to breath. Every time they took a breath, they got a mouth full of dust and it didn't really do much for their eyes either. The most exciting thing about the place now was when a spider either dropped on their heads or dropped down it front of their faces. For some odd reason this didn't bother Zac at all but Ike didn't enjoy it one bit, neither did he enjoy walking into spider webs nor having the weird feeling that some bug had crawled into his shirt and was happily biting him.
"Agh! (choke) (cough) I'm telling you Zac (sniff) we gotta get out of here!" Isaac complained after finding the bug that was in his shirt and killing another one who was trying to make its way up his pants. "It's infested with (choke) (cough) a lot of very friendly bugs, too friendly! "
"Stop whining! Agh!" Zac snapped, getting a mouth full of dust web. "If you're afraid of the little bugs, then find your own way back!"
After that Isaac was silent, other than a few chokes and coughs.
They walked on for about another five minutes. By now both boys knew for sure they had missed to stop. The passage had a few turns here and there, it seemed that in went all though the house.
"Hey look!" Zac yelled excitedly. "Footprints!"
"Footprints!" Isaac exclaimed a little worried. "You mean (cough) we aren't the only ones in here! Let's get out the next stop. (choke) I don't care where it is, let's just get out!"
"No," Zac replied following the footprints to the left at a turn. "I wanna see were they lead."
Sandy had begun to regret finding the girls. Don't get me wrong, he loved the company, but still. Now he was confused, if they did meet up with Mason and he wanted to kill them, would Sandy have to try to protect the girls or what? He knew that the girls were just as capable as he was with handling that kind of situation but if they got out of Mason Manor and back into the real world, he couldn't really say, "Mason tried to kill us but Chantel protected me." How humiliating. But if he were to try and save the girls he might get killed before getting any recognition for it. It was so confusing.
Meanwhile Chantel's mind was on more important things. If I run now I should be able to lose the both of them. Then I could get out of here alive and leave the money without them thinking I'm a coward. She thought. No, I can't do that. They wouldn't make it out alive! If they ever met up with Mason he would surely kill them both, I'd need to be there to protect them. Sandy would probably run the second he saw him and leave my sister to die but I guess you can't expect anything else from a boy! And how cruel it would be to leave poor Sandy alone with my sister.
"So, " Sandy said interrupting Chantel's thought's "when did the three of you come to here?"
"Oh, we came after it started raining. It was so dark, we could hardly see, even with the flashlights. We would have been here sooner if Taylor and Chantel would have shut up and stopped talking and joking around it must have taken them........."
Sandy really wished he hadn't thought of talking as a pastime. Joanne just kept going on and on and (wham!)
"What was that?!" Chantel froze.
"I don't know." Sandy answered shaking Joanne off his arm again and walking forward to meet up with Chantel, who was ahead of them. They all stood silent waiting for it to happen again. It didn't.
"It must have come from one of these rooms." Chantel whispered pointing to the doors in the hallway. All the children picked up on what that meant. If it came from one of the rooms they weren't the only ones in the basement and whoever was down there with them was trying hard not to be heard again. They didn't waste any time. Chantel grabbed her bag, which had fallen on the ground and they all charged down the dark hall as fast as they coul
A few minutes before Isaac and Zac were still stuck in the secret passage way.
"Isaac you gotta look at these footprints. There huge! This guy's gotta wear shoes size 11 or 13 !" Zac exclaimed watching the footprints closely, as if any moment they would start dancing around.
They had been following the footprints forever. In Isaac's opinion the guy must have been about as lost as they were. There was no way they would ever be able to find their way back to the front door, if they kept on going this way. They had been turning corners and going down stairs and killing bugs for hours. All the while, Isaac was coughing and wheezing and making things very hard on his throat. Oh how he liked things earlier on that morning when they had been walking in the woods and all ears were on him. He was the leader. Now he was forced to follow Zac around only wishing he could gain control once again and get out of the stupid house.
It was so dark. The only light was the small rays that came from their flashlights. When Zac was quiet Isaac could hear the rain hitting the house from outside and he could feel the mighty thunder and lightening as they flashed and crashed though the sky, leading on the beautiful chorus of the rain storm. It seemed so beautiful and mysterious now that he was inside.
All of a sudden Isaac began to feel sick. The rain didn't seem so nice anymore and everything seemed to be twirling around in circles. Isaac started coughing again now finding it harder to find the air to breath in.
"Are you ok?" Zac asked running back to Isaac who had fallen over and smashed into the wall.
"I (choke) (cough) can't (cough cough) I..." Isaac stopped, he wasn't able to talk. He clutched his throat struggling to breath.
"You can't breath!" Zac started to panic. "Try! Keep trying!" He ordered shaking his poor startled brother.
"(cough) (cough) I (choke) I (choke) (cough) help!" was all Isaac could say.
"Oh no! Oh no!" Zac was puzzled as to what to do. He decided he would just have to try and drag Isaac to an opening somewhere to get him some air. He handed Isaac his flashlight to hold to, then started to pull Isaac's heavy body along and dust covered ground. He saw a door straight ahead.
"Look Isaac we're almost out!" Zac explained excitedly to his brother. "Hold on we're almost there!"
Just then Isaac stopped coughing, his body seemed a little heavier. He dropped the flashlights and closed his eyes.