The Dare That Killed Me

Usually, at about seven-thirty sharp, the lights go dim, and all that’s left is cars pulling into their lanky driveways. Well, that and Tim Fryer.

He waits for me at the end of the hall near apartment 206, banging on the buttons of the elevator.

“Come on! Stupid elevatoris!”

Tim Fryer is the kind of guy you become friends with because his dad is rich. It happened about two years ago when they hired me to mow their lawn. Mr. Fryer came out of the house holding a but load of cash, begging me to take it and be friends with his son. I mean, how often do things like that happen in real life, oh yeah that’s right, they don’t. 

I drag myself down the hallway, feet pulling in behind me like sacks of foreign flour. “What now Tim?”

“Things jammed dammit.” He slaps his hands up against the steel doors, attempting to pry it open. Saliva mizzles down the side of his mouth, spooling onto his worn jean jacket.

“Tim,” I say, patting him on the back. “Let’s just take the stairs man. It’s not a big deal.” 

He throws me a look. The kind of look that doesn’t need any words to justify it. The kind of look you didn’t know people even had in them. 

 Then he says, “Johnny, I’m gonna forgive you because you don’t understand.” 

Then I say, “understand what?”

And he’s like, “I gotta get to floor thirteen.” 

It’s days like this I wish I’d listened to the voice in the back of my head. The one that’s constantly screaming at me to give the cash back to his father. Unfortunately, I do not have the kind of job that can substantiate, ‘pro-earning’. 

I squint my eyes. “This some sort of joke?”

He crinkles his nose, the crease in his brow forming in a flat line across his forehead. “You don’t believe me, Watson?” 

“Dammit! Man. how many times have I told you to stop calling me that!” 

“You didn’t answer my question, “ he says. 

“You know, usually when this happens in the movies, there is a floor thirteen.”

He jumps up, throwing his fist into the air, belly jiggling. “We’re gonna do it, Johnny--”

“Do what?”

“Be the first ones to floor thirteen,” he says. 

I frown, every corner of my mouth sinking past my feet. The bags underneath my eyes magnified by his annoying little voice. I physically don’t know how much longer I can take this. I feel my sanity slipping, I’m starting to see Van Gogh's ‘Starry Night’ on the mustard yellow wallpaper. 

“Tim, it doesn’t exist,” I say, breath drawn out.

“Oh yeah? Take a look idiot.” He pushes my head down towards the buttons. “Floor thirteen.” 

I can’t believe I’m saying this. But for the first time in Tim Fryer's existence, he was right. There had indeed been a floor thirteen. Laid flat up against the panel like one of those wall decals at the dollar tree. 

“It’s just a sticker,” I say. 

“No, you gotta look harder. It came to life a minute ago, you gotta believe me!”

The panic in Fryer's voice sounded real. It sounded so real, that I actually gave the sticker another look. Low and behold, it had no longer been a sticker, but an actual elevator button. 

“What is that? Beg daddy to have that put in for you?” I yell at him. It’s easier than believing there’s an actual floor labeled 13.

He punches me in the shoulder. “You wanna open your mouth again? Sure is a whole lotta trash coming out!” 

“Oh, man. You take that back or I’ll--” 

Then the words came out. The words that we lived by, a code written by our ancestors in the ’80s. The one we were never supposed to use unless the situation was dire. 

“I triple dog dare you to go to floor thirteen,” he says. “Alone.” 

I gasp, then lift the backward cap from my head, throwing it to the ground like a gauntlet. It had been done dammit. The words that tested my so-called manhood. There was no going back now. 

The elevator doors slide open, and I proudly step through them. Tim slams down on the button and bids me a farewell as the doors close. It got real dark, real fast. 

The ground beneath me shakes, jolting me side to side. Lights flicker in a nasty peach hue, the buzzing growing hard against my ears. Almost as if they were going to explode.

After what felt like twenty minutes of continuously being jolted from one side of the elevator to the other, the doors finally opened to a dark hall, carpet long and red. It takes everything in me not to expect the Grady twins. I step out onto the shaggy rug, lights popping on as I inch further and further away from the box.

The last light on the hall pops on, with a girl standing beneath it. She is wearing one of those old-fashioned nightgowns. Her hair a pearly black, weighing in over her face. 

Yep. Time to get back to the elevator Johnny. I wish I had listened to that guy yelling in front of his dojo off Bell Avenue. I could have been a karate legend. 

I turn around at dart speed, but looking back, it isn’t there. The bright light at the end of the hall had disappeared. The rooms from which I first passed had shifted. They read backward, with the letter in the first slot, D133. 

She twists her head around her body. “Welcome,” she says. “We’ve been waiting for you.” 

“Haha. Funny joke guys. You can come out now,” I say, laughing. “Where's the camera-man? Lenny? Is this your doing? I really didn’t mean to hit you in the face with my ski last winter.”

Doors creak open, creatures folding out one by one. Each of them saying welcome, over and over. They push me down the hall, touching me with their disoriented hands. Blood dripping from the nails, and torn fingertips. They drive me closer to her. 

Here we are, standing face to face with one another, yet I still can’t see her eyes. She keeps her head plastered to the floor, and her feet coned together. The veins in her cheeks pulsing black. 

“We have a room for you, Johnny,” she says. Then reaches her hand out with a golden key. She turns it in the door behind her, waiting for the god-awful click.

I’m going to die. I won’t even get any last words because these freaks are going to do something shady like cut out my tongue. That’s it, I’m going to die on the floor of this stingy hotel room that hadn’t even existed twenty minutes ago. And it’s all because of Tim Fryer. 

“Come on in,” she says, laughing. 

The room is black. Even the windows, which should have been clear, are painted in a dark sticky tar. It reeks of dead flesh like someone had repeatedly died. 

“What is this place?” I ask. 

She shuts the door, locking me inside. I run over, banging my fists against the old creaky wood, her footsteps disappearing from the light at the bottom. Her army of geeks follow her wobbling behind cooing strange noises. 

I spent the night there, huddled in the corner. Whispering things to myself, like it wasn’t me talking. Rather someone else that wanted inside. A voice, a creature, a monster birthed from the bowels of hell. Somewhere in this room, was the devil.

They left me there for countless days. The girl with the straggly hair, and her minion followers. I never saw them again after that night. I never saw Tim Fryer or the elevator. Only darkness, and the urge to fight the “Thing’ in the room. 

Sooner or later, I came to a conclusion. The reason floor thirteen didn’t exist. I used to be like you, I used to chalk it up to mass hysteria. That the world was out of its mind. Well, It isn’t. 

My name is Johnny Blackwell, and if anyone ever comes across button thirteen on the elevator panel, don’t press it. Because if you’re seeing the button, they’ve set aside a room for you. A room you’ll never be able to get out of. 

I’ll never leave floor thirteen. But one day, you might arrive. You might meet the girl at the end of the hall, or be shuffled along by popping lights on the ceiling. Don’t fall for it. Don’t fall for someone trying to tell you there’s a floor thirteen. Ignore them, keep walking as fast as you can. 

Take it from me. Before all this, I didn’t believe in ghosts or evil supernatural beings. I didn’t believe in a floor that belonged to the dead. A place you’d go, that you’d never come back from. I lean my back up against the wall, a piece of white chalk that they’d left for me at my fingertips.

“Here lies Johnny Blackwell…” I say. “The guy who could have lived.”