We sneak over to the school's entrance.
I gently push the door open to peek inside.
It was empty.
"Coast is clear," I say.
We all go inside, making our way through the school.
Then we hear it.
Footsteps.
"Everyone hide," Clover whispers.
We all go into the nearest rooms, separating from each other.
Adrian and Ken went into an office room, while Clover and I ran into a janitor's closet.
Conner was alone.
I wasn't able to see where he went.
Inside the closet, I close the door and listen, staring at the door as I do.
I hear footsteps approaching.
We try to steady our breathing as best we can.
Then the footsteps stop just feet away from the door.
At this point, my heart is pounding.
I raise my hand to cover my mouth.
It felt like whatever was out there was standing there forever, but it was only a few moments.
Then the footsteps started again, the sounds fading off into the distance.
My heart rate slows.
I turn to look over at Clover.
Her face was maybe six inches away from mine.
I hadn't realized we were this close together.
She was staring at me.
I could feel her breath on me.
My heart started racing again.
As if she snapped out of a trance, she broke eye contact.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her face now noticeably red even in the dim light of the closet.
She tries to open the door.
The handle moved from under her hand before she reached it.
She started to fall.
I grabbed her arm to catch her, and the door opened.
Adrian was on the other side just staring.
"Woah, didn't mean to interrupt," he said.
I let go of her arm, and she speed-walks out of the closet.
Adrian makes eye contact with me, a slight grin on his face.
"Clover? Really?" he whispered.
"Not what you think, dude."
He rolls his eyes.
"Sure, whatever you say."
I stare at him for a moment with a blank expression.
"Let's just keep going," I said.
Ken walks out of a room.
It wasn't the one he had originally gone into to hide.
"Hey, where is Conner?" he asks.
I look around.
He's right.
Conner wasn't with us.
"He didn't hide with you two?"
He shakes his head.
"Nope. He ran off in the direction of that room. That's why I was checking it. I have no clue where else he could have gone."
Adrian opens his mouth, about to call out for Conner.
I cover his mouth.
"We can't draw attention to ourselves. We don't know who or what is in here."
I pull my hand back.
He nods in response.
"Maybe he got caught by one of the cops?" Clover said.
Adrian looks to her.
"No, I don't think so. If that was the case, we'd all be caught by now. Conner isn't necessarily the best at holding up under pressure, so if the cops found him, they would have found us too," he said.
"So now what?" Ken asked.
A door creaks.
"We keep moving," I say.
We start towards the gym.
We make it to a long hallway.
We were getting close.
"He better not have gotten himself into any danger," Ken says.
Adrian laughs a little.
"He was so scared to come back here, he probably ran away and went home."
Then the lights cut off.
And we hear it.
The sound of running coming from both sides of the hallway.
We were trapped.
"Crap."
We all pull out our phones and turn on our lights.
The darkness was consuming.
The light only lit up a few feet.
The footsteps got louder and started circling us.
Everyone started freaking out.
"What's going on?!" Adrian shouts.
Clover was ducked down on the ground, covering her ears.
Ken was shining his light all over, trying to find the source of the sound.
The footsteps kept circling us.
Then they stopped.
The lights turned back on.
It all stopped just as suddenly as it began.
"Okay, what the heck was that?!" Ken said.
He looked right at me.
"I don't know," I said, "but let's just keep moving."
I reach my hand out to help Clover up.
Adrian stares at me as I do.
I look back and shake my head.
"Let's go."
I start walking again.
"Hey," Adrian called.
"What about Conner? We can't just leave him after all of that."
He was right.
But we didn't have time to search for him.
"He's probably at the gym. He's smart enough to know that's where we would go."
After a moment of hesitation, he nods.
"Yeah, okay."
We keep going.
The lights flicker as we walk down the hallway.
We should have turned back, but we were already this close.
We turn the corner, and we see it.
The gym door at the end of the hall.
"Almost there," I said.
A squeaking sound rang out from behind us, like a basketball shoe on a court floor.
We all ignored it, thinking maybe if we didn't acknowledge it, nothing would happen.
The noise came again.
But no one looked back.
Then it happened a third time.
"What the heck is that?"
Adrian sounded annoyed.
He turned around to look.
When he did, a loud static sound filled the room.
We all closed our eyes and covered our ears in response.
Once the sound stopped, we opened our eyes.
We were back at the end of the hallway.
"Wait, but weren't we just..."
Ken paused before finishing his sentence.
We all stood there trying to process what happened.
We were almost at the gym door, yet somehow we're all the way at the end of the hallway.
I start walking forward.
"What are you doing?" Clover said.
"We have to get into the gym," I reply hesitantly.
They follow.
The squeaking starts again.
"Don't look back."
We keep walking, ignoring it.
The closer we got to the door, the more frequent the sound became.
We're feet away from the door when the squeaking turns into running.
The sound was coming straight for us.
It was fast.
I reach my hand out to touch the door.
The sound almost reaches us.
The moment I touch the door, the sound stops.