7
23. 5. 22, Monday, 14:45
Emma was ready to scream herself hoarse once the door to the Room closed.
The Room was full of flying nightmares: BUGS.
Flies, mosquitoes, dragonflies, butterflies, ants and crickets. All crawling on the floor, the walls, the ugly bug-themed furniture…even the light fixtures.
Emma breathed hard. She was wearing her thickest shoes and most skin-tight clothing so that those disgusting creepy-crawlies wouldn’t get in. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight bun. She had her back against the door.
Oh, how she wished she could open it!
The only thing that was holding her back from getting into a complete breakdown was the fact that a) cameras were recording her and b) most of the bugs were in glass cages.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” she squealed. Ants were creeping to her now.
Thudding noises came from the glass cage above head, where the butterflies and dragon flies were. There was a tiny hole in it, and Emma immediately knew she had a limited time before they found it and got out.
Chirp. Chirp. The crickets were all squatting on the table in between the two armchairs with FLIES on them. The rug was decorated with insects, which made it hard to tell which was real and which was sewn.
She felt something tickle her cheek. MOSQUITO.
“Get off me!” Emma yelled, swatting it off. She darted to another corner off the room, mosquito in pursuit.
Bang. She hit the standing lamp. Oops. It wobbled, and she grabbed it. Only to drop it once she realized there were more ants on it. She gave a small shriek and wrung her hands.
“Aaaaaa – okay, okay, calm down,” Emma exhaled. “That lamp must have a clue. The ants might be guarding it.”
She winced. That meant that she would have to pick it up. Ew.
Gingerly, Emma reached for it, grasping, eyes closed. She did her best to ignore the flies investigating her. Like that cricket which is definitely not near her foot…
She pulled the lamp upright. Emma shook it hard, to make all the ants fly off, nearly hyperventilating when it came near her. She prayed hard nothing else would come near her, and that the dragonflies and the butterflies wouldn’t come out yet.
She peered into the inside of the lamp shade. There didn’t seem to be anything inside. It was as orange as the outside, decorated with ugly black mini beasts, with the slight blotch of discoloration with an ugly black…word?
Emma took one last look to make sure the butterflies haven’t escaped yet. She slipped her hand in and felt the blotch. It was papery. Peeling it off, she pulled it out to read it. It was a single sentence, in tiny black lettering, like that tiny black thing flying towards her–
“AAAAAAAAH!!! BUG!!!” Emma stumbled back. She cursed the person who took away her repellents. She violently swung at the air, at the torrent of bugs buzzing at her.
She dropped the paper and raced back to the door of the Room, the only place bug-free. No way was she going to set another foot there again. Emma didn’t have to anyway. She already read what the thing said.
I stand on one foot perfectly, but fall over easily.
It made no sense. Riddles rarely did. She swore. It probably had something to do with her going back to the bug zone.
The timer said that fifteen minutes had passed. How long more would she have to stay in this wretched Room?!
Her gaze landed on the portrait of a hype realistic ladybug on a rose. The leaf was pointing downward, like an arrow.
An arrow pointing to the one-legged table underneath.
One foot. One leg. Fall over easily. If Emma pushed the table, it would fall quick.
The problem was the table was swarming with pests.
“Oh no, not again,” Emma sighed, making her way to it slowly. She avoided all the insects on the floor. Careful to not move fast lest she attract their attention, she snatched up a nearby book and flicked it all the bugs on the table top.
Twenty minutes.
Dropping the book, she yanked off the decorative cloth (in the pattern of worms, yuck). Painted on the table in white was an anagram. Ugh, she didn’t’ want to stand here anymore.
What the heck did ‘EEOAVSLT’ even mean?
She memorized it and hastily (in her opinion. In reality it was rather slow) tread back the path she made earlier, keeping a watchful eye on the crickets, flies, mosquitoes, ants and any other signs of any clues.
Twenty-five minutes.
“Oh god,” she breathed in relief. She was almost to the door!
And that was all dragonfly and butterfly hell broke loose.
***
At least they didn’t try to stick him in the swimming pool.
Still, the Room he was in was almost as bad.
The inflatable furniture was floating, unlike Denver. The timer said that he had been frozen there, watching the water level increase, for almost five minutes. He gave himself a mental shake, mentally chanting ‘$1 million’ and waded over to the fat sofa.
Why?
He had no idea. But it seemed like a good place to start.
The ice-cold water was rising to his knees, from ankle-length. He glared at the trapdoor on the ceiling. That was the exit. The only exit. He hurled an expletive at it for being so high up.
Then he slipped and fell into the water.
It was cold. Very cold. Colder now that he was soaking wet. He shivered.
But wait. What was on the floor?
He felt along it, refusing to put his head underwater.
The stone floor (his Room was in the basement) was carved with pictures of sea life. He was sitting on the Whale, trying to keep his head away from the liquid. It felt rough as he moved his palm along it.
Then something shiny and thin pricked his finger.
He hurriedly took his hand out of the water, cringing at the tiny droplet of blood. Whatever he had touched was DEFINITELY not carved rock. “…No. No. No.”
No way was he ducking under the water.
But how else was he going to see what it was?
He moaned. There wasn’t any other choice.
Taking a deep breath, he plunged in.
Opening his eyes and quivering against the cold, he scrabbled around the whale’s mouth. He could see it now. Something metallic was jammed in between the stony teeth. He dug it out with his fingers, eager to get back to the surface.
He broke through, gasping like crazy. Oh, sweet, sweet air. He promised himself to never do that again. Keeping his head above water, he looked down at what he had brought up.
A needle? What, was he supposed to do sewing underwater?
He dismissed the dumb idea. What else could he do with a needle in this Room? Use it to pick open the trapdoor? How would he even reach it?
Then his eye fell on the balloon chair.
Aaah. Pop some things, then.
Fifteen minutes had passed already. Better get started then.
Pop. Bang. Pop. Denver doggy-paddled around, doing his best not to cry from the itching fear of cold water, stabbing the furniture. What was supposed to happen, he had no idea. But popping things were fun anyway. If he weren’t swimming around in a room of cold water rapidly coming up to his chest.
Finally. Jackpot. Something fell out of the beanbag. He breathed heavily. It was getting harder to tread water. He lunged for what fell out.
A metal stick?
“What – spfffff – the – huh huh huh – heck?” He yelled at wherever the camera was. “Is this a poker?! There isn’t any fire here! Wha – “
He lost his footing and submerged into the sea of water and ruined rubber. Denver accidentally inhaled water. Kicking and lashing around wildly, his phobia was well turned on now.
What a horrible thing. Just as he was so close too.
***
Leo shut his eyes hard.
NO. He refused to look down. Or at the sides. Or up. Anywhere really.
He was on a very large balcony at the back of the house, on the third-highest floor. The railings didn’t look very safe, thin wobbly metal beams. Leo was deathly scared of the glass floor. The door was locked shut, the timer on it ticking away. He stood, like Emma, with his back to it.
A hundred things crawled into his mind, like the imaginary ants down his back. His legs shook, turning to jelly.
He hoped the floor wouldn’t crack, depositing him with a path straight to the Great Beyond. He hoped that if he had to go near the railing, it would hold his weight. he had no wish to see anything.
Even when he didn’t see what a dizzying height he was at, that didn’t stop the feelings.
Like the wind rushing around him. Like the noises the glass made every time he shuffled his feet. Like the creaking of the railing. Like the uncontrollable twitching he was suffering from.
No, no, no. he was too young to die.
Why did he even sign up for this anyway?
He didn’t want to budge. At least standing frozen here would be better than moving around. The whole balcony could be filled with clues and he wouldn’t want to go further out than he already had to.
Then a small voice in his head reminded him that if he quickly looked for clues now, he could get out of this Room. He stood there, undecided and indecisive. Should he move, or should he not?
Cautiously, he opened his eyes a crack. Lightly, uncertainly and fearfully, he crept to the table and woven chairs. Swallowing hard, he lifted up the cushions. Nothing underneath. Did he just come all the way out to the danger zone for nothing?
Feeling nauseas, he grabbed the chair and sat down, quivering. Golly, he was close to the railing. No, no, no, no, no – what the heck was he sitting on? This didn’t feel like a cushion. More like something else. Something hard.
He got to his feet, touching the cushion. Something was in it. He unzipped it, averting his eyes from the railing and on the glass floor. Inside was a messy pile of cardboard-backed square papers…no, puzzle pieces. He reached for them.
Then a gust of strong wind buffeted the entire balcony.
Leo yelped, grabbed the cushion and ran back to the door.
Skidding to a stop, he scooted as close as he could to it. Not wanting to look at the glass floor, he put the puzzle pieces on top of the cushion. At least on top of the door had a tiny roof, so he was safer from the wind and any falling furniture. Or at least that was his reasoning.
He spent about ten minutes fixing together the puzzle. It wasn’t easy, since a) Leo had to keep pausing to get over his fear of heights b) the puzzle pieces were small and often got blown around by the slightest movement and c) Leo had to check the cushion for missing pieces several times. Finally, he finished it.
The picture was of the balcony. Specifically, the potted tree.
It just had to be near the railing, didn’t it?
Leo swallowed hard and tried to make himself stop twitching. Impossible. The railing didn’t look any safer up close. He didn’t have anywhere to look, between the tall view over the railing or the high scene underfoot. He hated this Room, vowing to never come here again if he could.
It took him another ten minutes just to slow-mo walk to the tree. He wondered if was supposed to lift up the pot, move it aside, or was there something hidden in its leaves? He crouched down, as far from the railing as possible.
There was the clue. A tiny chalk arrow on the side pointing down.
Dig through the soil? No problem.
Leo began to scrape away like mad with his hands. With something on his mind, intent as he was on digging it out, he could forget that he was in the place of his nightmares. Well, almost.
That evaporated when another gust of wind hit the balcony.
Leo hit the door and decided to stay there
***
Freddie was definitely good at multi-tasking.
Right now, she was doing multiple things at once: biting her left knuckles, toying with her hair, tapping her foot, jiggling her other leg and having the occasional fit of inappropriate laughter.
They had left the lights on, but she was already spooked.
She was sitting on the sofa, right next to the door, the only place where there weren’t any of the dreaded statues, although the cushions had ugly eyes watching her. Unlike other people, Freddie didn’t close her eyes – she preferred to keep sight of the statues, just in case they started moving and she could get out of the way.
There were statues EVERYWHERE. In every corner, every surface, every available space. Even the furniture were either shaped like statues or their legs were carved into it. The portraits were even about disapproving-looking statues. And all of them glared at Freddie.
Talking had always been a coping mechanism, as well as the dumb and timed-wrongly joke, so Freddie was mentally and verbally making a list of all the statues in the Room. “Easter Island statue, definitely not a creepy Greek head, hooboy, that heckin’ scary Egyptian mask thing, staring rabbit on the shelf with the dragon heads at the end, Phantom of the Opera mask statue over there – dang does that ruin the book for me.”
Freddie stopped chewing her knuckle, opting to bite her bottom lip now. Why did all the statues have to stare at her like that, with their stone hands reaching out to her, all glaring at her, staring judgementally, wanting to come alive and stomp on her, mouths just open to speak….
“Oh wow, wouldn’t I love to get out of here. Outside, where’s there no kooky marble animals looking at me -” Freddie screamed. She could’ve sworn the masks held up by the hands blinked.
Wait, no. that was the timer lights flashing. Fifteen minutes were up.
“Heck, heck, heck,” Freddie muttered. “Let’s get outta here, Fred.”
Times like these she wished had Emma and Lana to tell her it’s fine and helpfully block the view of the hideous things. She’d even welcome her sister Cass to slap her out of the fearful stupor
Suddenly, she noticed something weird. Next to the TV was a replica of the Mona Lisa, which shouldn’t have been really scary, but it was with the terrible lighting. But when Freddie squinted, she could make out something shadowy partially behind the famous figure. Adjusting her glasses and ignoring the glowering golden snake, she could make out an interloper in the painting: a statue of a…penguin?
“You’ve got to joking,” Freddie yelled at the camera. “Of all things, a penguin?!”
Of course she had seen the stony bird. It eyed her from the wall, a judging penguin lamp. How was she supposed to get up there? Freddie was tall, but not that tall.
Oh wait. Now she got it. In order to get to the lamp she had to get the ladder. Where was the ladder? Right behind the biggest, most likely to come alive, armless statue.
“No. No. No. I refuse,” Freddie protested. “There is no way I’m going to get off this sofa and go look at the dumb statues you put there. Especially not that armless dude.”
The timer ticked ominously. She scowled at it. She hated having no choices.
Getting off the sofa and crawling to the ladder took longer than you would expect, seeing as Freddie was being haunted by dozens of figurines. She wished they were Funko Pop ones, those didn’t scare her. She had a collection of them, in fact.
She went behind the armless statue. Grabbing the ladder, she lugged it awkwardly around the statue, feeling the penetrating gaze of the taxidermy heads of animals. She prayed silently to whoever was listening that they wouldn’t come alive yet and make her drop the ladder on her foot. The statue seemed to twitch, or maybe that was just her.
Freddie finally yanked the cumbersome hardware to the lamp, after about five stops to wipe her sweaty palms and pretend the statues weren’t looking at her with their beady little eyes…the armless statue leering at her…
“Stuff it, Mister, you don’t have arms,” Freddie ordered, propping the ladder against the wall.
The statues’ heads all turned to look at her.
***
Julian hadn’t been put in a Room.
No, with his phobia, they stuck him in a clearing in the woods.
Maybe there was a fence surrounding him that he couldn’t see. Maybe the crew were all just hiding. Julian didn’t see anyone however – it appeared to be that he was…ALONE.
In the dark woods.
In a large space.
With no way to look in all directions at once.
Yay, so fun. He spun around, trying to find a trace of somebody, anybody. He doubted that any scary clowns or horror movie things could be found here, but what about wild animals? In fact, how about a psycho living in the woods?
Really not as thrilling as the movies.
He ignored the weird alarms in his head insisting that something horrible was going to happen. Staying rational, he picked up a large stick and poked a bush with it. Other than discovering some bugs – he snorted at what his sister would think of them – there was nothing there.
Well, hiding something in a bush sounded cliché, but might actually have some merit to it, so for the next minutes he investigated the other bushes.
Dead leaves, bugs, dead leaves, more dead leaves, another worm, random feather on the ground, dead leaves, dead leaves, stick, dead leaves, nicely arranged pebbles, dead leaves, dead leaves, even more dead leaves –
Nicely arranged pebbles???
Julian squatted down. The pebbles were arranged to form an ‘X’. Cliché. X marks the spot was so overused. Rolling his eyes, he set to work digging on that spot.
Several times he lifted his head to check his surroundings. No killer psycho in sight, no bears, and unfortunately no one around. Ugh. The space was too open for his liking.
Finally he hit jackpot. Julian lifted out the wooden chest from the dirt. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any key. Was he supposed to break it open?
He briefly wondered what was going on with the rest of the clubs. Wondered how Emma was faring in a bug-filled Room (she once saw a roach in her room and screamed bloody murder before running to his). Wondered what the other guys were doing.
He picked up the stick and swung it a few times. No key? Break it open then.
Julian smashed the stick into the puny box, which splintered into a million pieces. In the midst of the mess was a weird pressed leaf and…a compass?
Great. Both items were useless.
He stuffed them into his pocket. Jeez, couldn’t they make the clues a little less cryptic? Julian, bored and frustrated, picked up a pebble and hurled it at a nearby tree. A shower of leaves fell down.
Leaves. Like the one in his pocket.
Not so useless after all.
Julian ran to the tree and looked up. Another box was tucked in between the Y-shaped trunk. He jumped, once, twice, and snatched it out. Carved on the cover was the word ‘South’. So that was what the compass was for.
At least no one was around to witness his initial ignorance. Oh, wait, no. The cameras were recording everything.
He readied the stick to break open the box again.
Inside was nothing more than a ball of yarn. What, was he supposed to knit in the middle of nowhere? Julian could see how a compass and a leaf made sense, but this didn’t. He looked around furtively. Okay, nothing coming in all directions.
Yarn, of all things. Stupid. Whoever thought of that had to be stupid.
Julian gave an exasperated sigh. Yarn in this situation was as helpful as a fork when drinking soup. He looked around. Might as well look for other and hopefully more useful clues to get out of this waaay too wide open space.
Chomp. Huff. Growl.
“BEARS! THIS IS WHY I DON’T LIKE OPEN SPACES WITH NO ONE AROUND!”
***
Adonis’s fear of spiders had lessened over the years, but now it was back with a vengeance.
The number of spiders here were too many to count, too many to stomp on.
Common house spiders, black and furry spiders, jumping spiders, brown-gold skinny spiders, long-bodied cellar spiders, hobo spiders, really really large spiders, wolf spiders, sac spiders… Adonis had no idea how the crew managed to put so many different types here.
The arachnids swarmed the floor below him. He struggled to balance himself on the elevated platform he was on while fighting the urge to stamp them out of existence.
The entire Room resembled an extreme Floor-Is-Lava game – the spiders were the lava (lava that could crawl on the walls, though) and the round platforms formed paths all around the Room, as the furniture had spiders (real or fake, Adonis couldn’t tell) staking their webby territories there.
Paths snaked all around, but none led to the exit door. Adonis guessed that he had to find some clues that will give him a way to get out of here.
He leaped to the next stool, all the way to the book shelf on the wall. He had spotted an outcast book, standing out from the fat, boring, blue dictionaries. Wobbling slightly and wincing at the sight of a web, he grabbed the red book and pulled it out.
A white painted arrow pointed to the giant fake-web tapestry hanging on the wall. Spiders woven from black thread were depicted frozen in the act of crawling around the web. Ugly thing, that.
Adonis cursed. Fat lot good that arrow was. He looked down, then to the left, then down again, then to the left once more. Another fake web made out of ropes hung there, with plastic spiders – actually if they were real or not he couldn’t tell, Adonis was just being foolishly hopeful – all swarming in the middle.
Funny thing, that other web. It seemed to be the exact pattern of the tapestry, albeit the spiders were in the wrong place, stuck together instead of-
Adonis leaped his way over to the wall, excitement drowning out the clicking of the web-happy creatures. Carefully balancing, he tapped a spider. Fake alright. He poked it a bit, a little bit conscious of the fact that he was very, very near to the spiders as this stool was slightly…shorter?
It moved.
Ah. Perhaps he was supposed to move the tacky, hideous things to the correct places.
Adonis wished he had his custom-made boots with him, but like every other contestant, they were removed and taken away – any item that could help defend against their phobias were strictly prohibited.
Glancing up and back every so often, Adonis slid the spiders to the spots dictated by the tapestry. He hoped the spiders wouldn’t think to climb onto his legs. He hoped they were harmless ones. Why would Damon Ashwood put them in danger after all? This was a reality TV show, not a mass murder of innocent kids!
Then he remembered the old reality show Jungle Survivalists, where contestants would stay in the jungle for as long as they could last without any contact with the outside world or any modern appliances. A few were injured or sick and one in fact died of disease transported by a mosquito.
Yeah, this show was probably safer.
Spider. Spider. Spider. Adonis did his best to ignore the gnawing paranoia that the arachnids were noticing him. Surely not!
He clicked the last Halloween décor into place.
The wall slid away like a person sliding off a bed.
Adonis stood there, surprised. There was apparently another wall behind the wall, and the newly discovered one had many, many buttons and levers on it, a sci-fi jumble of controls. But there was one giant lever calling out to him, labelled “Do Not Push Down”.
Of course Adonis had to push down.
Of course the spider in the cavity jumped out at him.
Reverse psychology nearly always worked.
***
The Room was cosy. The chair was cosy. The atmosphere was cosy.
Lana, however, was not cosy.
She huddled on the armchair, watching the various live-feed TVs that were playing. Try as she might, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it.
Lana’s Room appeared to be any old sitting room, with cat doilies, wilting flowers and overstuffed armchairs. Except for the giant wall showing everything that was going on in the Other Rooms like a giant CCTV camera.
Oh, how she longed to go and save her friends from the statue, bear, bug, watery, tall, eight-legged messes they were in! How she longed to call her siblings and parents to find out if they were okay! What if they died, without Lana to remind them to protect them!
Lana’s fear was not knowing what was going on with her beloved family and friends, of them dying (although that was highly unlikely (…right?)). But although now she could see what was going on, it felt terrible!
Poor Emma had a tornado of flying insects flying around her, landing on the screaming, terrified girl. Crazy old Freddie was having a mental breakdown when the statues all came alive – Lana suspected they were robots, but Freddie didn’t know that.
She desperately hoped Denver didn’t drown, when he sank under. She prayed Leo wouldn’t fall over the edge of the balcony. She yelped when Julian was chased by a…well, it looked like a bear, but like a dog too. She winced when the spider jumped and glued itself onto Adonis’ face.
Lana felt equally horrified, terrified and scari-fied herself.
It just amplified her phobia when the she watched the other Contestants too. Jordan was clearly freaking out over being put in an isolation chamber, Queenie placed in a similar Room to Emma’s. Kyler was shouting something muffled as barking dogs converged down on him; Alex had covered his ears to block out the fake thunder in his Room.
Well, it was only Ben’s Room that made Lana snort. However was he scared of peanut butter, of all things!
Then suddenly, the screens went dark.
What’s happening to them? Lana thought worriedly. Oh no….
She jumped off the chair and searched for the remote. There was none. Panicky of what was going on with everyone else, she checked everywhere. Nugatory. She even tried to turn on the TVs by prodding the wires, but no.
Lana licked her dry lips. “Okay, assessing here. TVs out, no obvious clues out of here. I hate it here. No remote either, which probably means I need to find it. But why would they hide it?”
“Unless…unless it’s a clue!” She exclaimed, then deflated. “This means I’ll have to continue watching. And I want to get out of here.”
“Okay, what if…the remote was a clue to the key so I can get out!”
Lana began to search around for clues. In her heart she was dreading what was happening to her friends and other contestants, parents and siblings. Why oh why did she join this reality TV show?
Finally, she found something interesting. A box of plastic letters and numbers, like they were scooped out from alphabet soup. But there were only a few there, some repeated…
Lana had seen enough movies to know what it meant.
It took her ten minutes to rearrange everything. When she did, the timer was ominously announcing she had only thirty-five minutes left.
UnD3R TH3 pAST31, 0v3R TH3 M00n
“Under the something, over the…moon?” Lana repeated. She looked up. There was a chandelier shaped like a moon overhead, dangling low enough that she could reach it if she stood on a chair. “Over the moon…maybe there’s something there.”
Lana clambered onto the chair and peered at the ‘Moon’. There was nothing there, but then again the riddle said ‘over the moon’. She looked ahead.
Over the moon.
Over there, in front of the chandelier. A picture of a cat dressed in a tux, the top part of the frame ‘over the moon’.
Naturally that’s when the screaming sounded from a speaker.
Emma and Freddie’s screaming.
***
Damon: Well, viewers, I hope you had a fun time watching the first episode of the latest season of Room of Fear! Generally, all you loyal viewers would know who made it out, but only within the time limit. Unfortunately none of our contestants made it out during it, only exiting after exceeding the time limit. But don’t fret, we’re still here to announce the winners!
(Anne-Marie appears)
Damon: The first one to exit is Ms Talmadge here – congratulations! She made it out after one hour and ten minutes! While a little moth bitten, Anne-Marie is quite less beat up than some other contestants like Mr Makylov here. He, as you saw, unfortunately fell in to the spiders.
Adonis: THAT’S NOT FUNNY.
(Tanya enters)
Damon: (ignoring Adonis) Silver medal goes to Ms Roswell, who escaped a pitch-black Room, after one hour and twenty-two minutes! Although a little set back-
Tanya: More than a little.
Damon: Tanya didn’t stop banging the walls until she found the door to insert the key into! Well done.
(Lana enters)
Damon: Third place goes to Ms Jensen, who despite was very alarmed to hear the cries of her friends and see them in their respective Rooms, managed to find the key and unlock her way out!
Lana: To all my friends I’m sorry I couldn’t get out sooner, but I really couldn’t find that danged remote.
(Leo and Julian enter)
Damon: Fourth place goes to Mr Finley, fifth Mr Vincent! The crew of Room of Fear highly applaud your courage in facing buffeting balconies and being pursued by wild animals! I really must say Mr Finley, you were very creative in hiding. And Mr Vincent, you do run quite fast.
Leo: Wait, were the winds just produced by a machine-
Julian: Apparently it wasn’t a bear after all. I can’t believe I was being chased by a dog.
Damon: The rest of our contestants sadly freaked out, so were unable to complete the tasks. But not to worry, there is always other episodes! Good luck to them all, and I thank you viewers personally for watching…
(Theme song plays)
Damon: Room of Fear!
***
And so began the bedraggled Phobia Club and Others’ fun-and-fear-filled episodes.