VANISHED (#1 in the VANISHED series) #NaNoWriMo2019 ✔

s i x ✔

Arielle and Stella stumbled out of the Eastern State Penitentiary so fast, their legs were sore and throbbing. Shaken beyond belief, Stella spat out her guts in a trash-can by the parking lot, and Arielle steadied herself against her car. Hands trembling so much she had difficulties holding her phone, she stared at the screenshot, at the black creature trying to slide away before she caught it.

The bars clunking and rattling. The banging, the slamming. And Stella's ear-piercing scream—that attracted crowds of curious onlookers. The scene replayed over and over in Arielle's mind and she pinched the bridge of her nose, inhaling, exhaling, desperate for her heartbeat to settle.

Would Jade have wanted to endure this freakish shit?

She'd kept her cool—she provoked whatever the thing was by asking direct questions, by being firm and confident—but truthfully, she was anything but cool. Her intestines had liquefied and her belly had bubbled with fear, anxiety, terror. She'd be doing the same as Stella if she didn't have an intense phobia of throwing up; the sound alone turned Arielle's senses to mush and made her want to faint.

No... someone has to drive us out of here.

Stella hobbled over, her cheeks almost tinted lime-green. "Ugh..." She wiped her mouth with her sleeve. "Now can we leave? Did you get what you came for?"

Arielle locked her phone and slid it into her bag. "What I came for?" She groaned and stomped her feet. "Fuck, that was insane. But... yeah, we're done here." She recalled how quickly they whipped around corners and shoved past worried tourists and threw their headsets and MP3 players at the entry clerks. Neither of them wanted to spend another minute in that place.

"What time is it?" Stella planted her hands on the roof of the car and stretched. "Our reservations in Richmond are for later, but our room might be ready if we arrive early."

Arielle didn't care what time it was. She unlocked the vehicle and urged Stella to get in the passenger's seat. "Come on, let's go."

"Can you drive?" Stella huffed as she squeezed inside and jammed her head against the headrest. "Ugh, my stomach..."

"I'm in better shape than you," said Arielle, buckling her belt, starting the engine. "We need to get far from here... for both our sakes."

"Thank fuck that was the worst part of our tour." Swiping a hand over her sweaty forehead, Stella blew out a breath. "Eastern State Penitentiary should be the worst on our list."

They pulled out of the parking lot, and Arielle's palms still shook. Gripping the wheel for a little over four hours, to haul them to Richmond, Virginia, would be tough... but this place gave her the creeps the longer they stayed. In the rear-view mirror, she glimpsed the castle-like structure and could have sworn she saw grim shadows dancing by its towers. Cackling at her, mocking her for running off so fast, for not sticking it out to hear what they had to say.

Sorry, Jade. We weren't ready for something so intense.

"Stel... back there, I... I don't know what came over me, I—" She wriggled in her seat, unable to get comfortable, "—I snapped at you, and I'm sorry. With your background, I trust your instincts, but when you said we should leave, I... I couldn't. I needed something more than that picture. Something to debunk it or... it's like I needed to play Jade's role too. If she'd been there, she..."

Stella snorted. "She would have tried to get through those bars to run after the shadow, yeah." She extracted a water bottle from her bag. "I'm... I'm not mad. This is new to me, too, I... I've never experienced something like that. Like someone was twisting my insides. And it was the same sensation I had in Block Eight, but... meaner, fiercer. It hurt." She chugged a few gulps, then offered the bottle to Arielle, who declined. "Maybe it's good we stayed, since it... triggered something in me."