The Copperhead's Choice

Chapter 3

"Good! Shoo." She leans back and waits for them to leave. All of them walk back to Daniel except one. None of them trust her. At all. She does look kind of suspicious also. I mean, Black is her favorite color, so that's what she wears. A lot of black. The friend, Emma, watches Ebony only for a little while before noticing the Line and walks back to tell everyone else.

"Hey, guys! Guess what I found? Oh, never mind, you already found it." They stand around the strange thing, looking at it, almost afraid to touch it. David pretends not to listen, and, when they aren't looking toward him, he flicks it once, blocking it from Daniel for half a second, then pulls his hand back. On the couch Ebony smiles. And waits, waits for them to come back so she can terrify them. She flickers the line in response to David's warning. The Friends decided to see what will happen if they shut the door, even though she warned them not to. They shut it gently behind them, making sure David is ahead of them, and cannot shut it after them. Oh, they're gonna get it! Ebony thinks excitedly. Blocked from Daniel, the line widens and stretches across the door, trying to get in.

They all arrive back in the living room without looking back to see I the line has changed, to find Ebony still sitting there almost exactly like they left her, her eyes are still closed, and she's sitting in the same place, but. Two things are different. She is smiling, and she's twirling the line in her hand, curling it and uncurling it, making it bend and stretch like putty.

"David? What did I tell you about the door?" she asks. He shrugs.

"I seem to have forgotten." He answers.

"You then." She points to Emma with her free hand. "You, the last one in here as I can tell. Do you; remember what I said about the door?"

"Me?" she asks. Ebony frowns and is about to say more when Emma keeps talking. "Not to shut the door? Is that what you're asking me?" Ebony nods.

"That's right. Now, what did you go and do anyway?" she lets the line go; It crackles and then disappears. She steeples her fingers and waits for Emma to answer her question.

"We... We opened, I mean closed, the door." Emma jerks her head in the direction of the guest room, where they put Daniel, and flicks her eyes to Scott, Who shakes his head and points to one of the guys, named Nick. He shakes his head at Scott and looks back at Emma, Who frowns at them both and point back to Scott, Who sighs silently and takes a step in that direction before David grabs his arm and whispers quietly in his ear.

"I wouldn't do that. Buddy Chum Pal."

"Why not?" Scott asks whispers but stays where he is and tries to pull his arm free.

"And I really wouldn't do that," David narrows his eyes and digs his fingers in.

"And what did you hope would come from doing exactly the opposite of what I told you to do?" Nobody answers her. "Come on someone doesn't have all day." David looks at her nervously.

"I guess we... wanted to see... what would happen?"

"Did you think that something good would happen?"

"I didn't, I mean, none of us thought anything bad would happen." Scott shrugs.

"You Don't? Well. Let's go see shall we?" she stands and leads the way to the room and leans on the wall next to the door. "What do you think David? Should I scare them to death now," she gestures toward her eyes. "Or when they decide they're brave enough to venture in there?" She points to the door.

"Hmm... Now I think. Get them a little more used to it, then they already are not." Ebony smiles and then laughs. "But whatever you think."

"Oh, they'll never get used to it."