It was still there.
If he was fast, he might be able to reach it and climb out. If House slammed the frame closed, he would shatter the glass. It was the only clear path. He narrowed his eyes and calculated the distance. Fifteen feet. That was as far as he needed to go. Fifteen feet from where he stood to the bathroom.
He stared out into the hallway, took a deep breath, and then ran.
Hallway Table scraped along the floor and planted itself between his body and the door, and he dove under it, sliding along the icy wood floor and out into the hall. His shoulder collided with the wall and it rippled, changing color and then shape right before his eyes, and suddenly, he had no idea where he was. There was supposed to be a hallway on his right, a door right there that led to the bathroom—to the window—and now there wasn’t. It was wallpaper he’d never seen before, covering walls beside a set of doors he’d never opened.
“Mom!” he screamed. “Are you here? Mom!” The scratchy, hysterical cry was a sound he’d never made before. He pounded on the wall, sliding his hands along the smooth surface as he struggled to make his way down the rippling hallway.
With no other choice, Gavin sprinted in the opposite direction, toward the stairs and the front door. The floor bucked up in front of him, the wooden planks parting with an earsplitting crack, and rose as if standing, melding into a solid wooden wall, forming door after door after door. He reached for one and then another, throwing them open to find a crooked staircase that rose up to nothing, a brick wall, a freezing black abyss.
Behind him, the entire house shook, and it was so cold that Gavin could see his own breath, feel the burn of frost beneath his fingertips. The floor started to tip, and he felt himself slide backward, calling out for his mother the entire time. His fingers scrambled to find purchase on the slick wood, nails digging into the icy surface.
A rope latch swung from the ceiling behind him, the pull for the door to the attic. Although he’d never been inside, he knew from the outside that there were windows up there, and Gavin struggled to roll over and reach for the catch. After three tries he managed to get his footing and caught it, watching as the door swung down, the ladder unfurling and crashing to the floor in front of him. Shrill screams tore through the air, but whose? Gavin had never heard another voice in this house besides Delilah’s and yet. . . they sounded familiar. Were these the voices Delilah had heard? The ones from her nightmare? They were saying his name, sobbing it, screaming it from every direction. The walls bowed, and light shone behind the cracks in the plaster, like a train was barreling down from the sky, zeroed in on the house.
Gavin lunged for the ladder and began climbing, his hands slick with sweat and blood and God only knows what else. His feet slipped on the rungs, and beneath him, his legs felt limp and deadened with fear. Gavin had seen every horror movie played in the last four years at the Morton movie house but had never imagined anything like this. Terror gripped his heart in a solid fist, and his body didn’t seem to be his own. Pain pulsed in every muscle, and his hands wouldn’t steady, his feet missed nearly every rung as he scrambled to climb.
“Stop!” he heard himself beg. “Please, please, stop.”