Force of Nature ▸ House of Anubis [3]

chapter twenty-six. house of crypts

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            We've been trapped in Robert Frobisher-Smythe's crypt for ten minutes, and every possible out we find isn't actually an out. It all leads back to the crypt.

            "Another dead end," Eddie mutters, coming out of the last door.

            "Great," I mumble.

            We're in the beginning of a Stephen King novel and I don't know about anyone else here, but I'd prefer reading and watching those rather than living it. Then again, my life for the past three years feels like it's been a really bad Stephen King novel. Just take away the clowns, the creepy twins, and the guy who goes HERE'S JOHNNY! and add in ancient Egyptian gods, creepy crypts, and Victor going IT'S TEN O'CLOCK!

            "At least if I'm buried alive," I hear KT say, "I'm in the family tomb, right?"

            I look back at the coffin, stepping towards it. Fabian's using the light of his phone to examine it. "So, if Frobisher's in the tank," I say to him quietly, "what do you think is inside this thing?"

            "Air, probably," Fabian responds. "It's probably empty."

            "You think his body was ever in the thing?"

            Before he gets a chance to answer, KT opens the door behind us and out come several bats—as if things weren't freaky enough—and we all let out exclamations of surprise as we duck from them. As the bats fly out of sight, Fabian closes the door back, saying to us, "It's okay. They're just bats."

            "Right!" KT exclaims. "Just bats in this just crypt!"

            "Well, they got out," Fabian states, eyeing wherever the bats had disappeared to. "Maybe we can."

            Patricia almost glares at him. "So we just have to sit here and wait long enough to grow wings."

            I sigh, pushing my hair out of my face. My hand touches the charm around my neck, making sure it hasn't fallen off in the crypt of a man who's not just not-entirely-dead but one who is somehow a part of my insanely complicated family tree. And the one who, intentionally or not, got us into this whole thing.

            The Cup of Ankh. The Mask of Anubis. And now whatever's going on this year, which feels like a dozen things at once.

            "Is anybody there? Ahh!"

            I look up when I hear the echoing voice. I would recognize it anywhere. "Alfie?!"

            Within seconds, we've all run across the crypt to where his voice came from—a vent close to the ground. Eddie yells that it's us as I just barely see Alfie's face back away, getting smaller.