Category : Books-Fiction

Sub Category : Suspense/Mystery

Another task. Another scavenger hunt. Another chance to get scared out of her mind. This is not Justine's idea of fun.

"Okay." They've split up, and Eva's taken charge of the group Justine is in. "Fire, water, air, and earth."

Sierra points to the floor beneath them. "I mean, this is earth..."

"Think of something that's trying to hide in plain sight," advises Matt, who's currently examining a golden...gramophone? Is that what it's called? Justine has no idea; she knows next to nothing about 1920s technology. She wishes she had an Internet connection so she could Google it, but of course there isn't any Internet in the 1920s either.

And to think she, iJustine, whose entire life is the Internet, could end up stuck here...the idea alone is enough to make her wince.

"Okay, but look for a number," Eva reminds them, "'cause we're looking for a code."

Justine joins Matt at the gramophone. It's large, and it's shiny, and she thinks they used it for music. Yeah. After all, it looks a lot like a giant Grammy (and she should know, since she's been to the Grammys once or twice). "This is like my first iPod."

Matt chuckles.

Justine, Matt, and Lele leave the gramophone (and the rest of the group) behind and continue searching the first floor. For a while, they have no luck, and Justine's frustration (and fear) levels are rising at an alarming rate.

Eventually, they come across a metal object of some sort (again with the retro '20s technology, what the hell), and Lele stops right in her tracks. "Air?" She's pointing to it, a befuddled yet determined look on her face. "That air?"

Matt shakes his head and launches into a rant about how this thing couldn't possibly be air, but Justine isn't listening. She's too busy sifting through all of the 1920s memorabilia, keeping her eyes peeled for that symbol, and hoping against hope that she makes it through this elemental nightmare.

 

Andrea, Joey, and Oli have stumbled upon a box. There are flowers of some sort (daisies? tulips?) on one side and a hole in the other. Andrea's never seen anything like it, but then again, she supposes it could count as water...or maybe earth...

"Yeah, look." Oli points to the side of the box. "Here's the symbol on the box, here."

"What do we do?" Joey asks.

Grab a match and burn this house down, the snarky part of Andrea wants so badly to reply. Sheesh, maybe Tim's attitude has started to rub off on her.

Joey stares at the hole as if he's expecting the answer to be inside. "We have to put something in there."

"What would fit in there?" asks Andrea, eyebrows raised, perplexion on her face.

The boys shrug, and they both start searching the room for something that would fit. Andrea is left in front of the box, wondering why this "evil" that's infested Joey's estate would even bother giving them a chance to escape. If the house is powerful enough to strike down Shane Dawson, why doesn't it just kill them all right now, before they have the chance defeat it?

Not that she's complaining.

She rifles through some drawers and finds..."A lightbulb?" Would a lightbulb fit through the hole? I don't know...

So she tries it, carefully placing the lightbulb inside the hole. Nothing happens.

Andrea sighs and tucks a stray strand of copper-colored hair behind her ear. Of course it didn't work. It's not an element. The elements are fire, water, air, and earth. Lightbulbs, incandescent or not, are not part of the equation.

Oh, well, murmur her thoughts as the boys return empty-handed. Maybe I'd better step aside and let Joey and Oli handle this one. After all, they're both light-years smarter than me.

 

Sierra follows Tim and Eva into the study, still convinced it's all a prank...though, to be honest, the more time passes, the weaker her theory becomes. Why would they drag it out this long? What's with the scavenger hunt? You'd think Shane and Joey would've fessed up by now, instead of letting us all believe we're going to be murdered by the demon who lives in the house or whatever...

What if...what if it's not a prank? What if it's real, and there's really a demon, and Shane is really—

No.

She can't believe it. She won't. Everything's fine. Everything's going to be fine, goddamn it. No one is dead. And no one is going to die.

Sierra yanks herself out of her thoughts and glances around the room. It's a typical study—desk, chairs, what have you—with nothing particularly interesting inside. Nothing, that is, except for a silver fan, which appears to be the cause of the breeze fluttering through her dress.

"Wind?" Sierra points to the fan. "Is wind one?" She's already forgotten what they're supposed to find. Ah, well. No big deal. That's why she's in a group with Eva—remembering things is Eva's job.

And remember it she does. "Fire, water, air, and earth."

"Well, the fan is on," Sierra remarks as she and Tim examine its whirring silver blades. "And there's air."

"Look!" Tim shouts, pointing to the base. "The symbol's on the fan!"

So it is, and Sierra feels significantly smarter than she did previously. "Yeah, okay, we found it."

"Okay, all right." Eva's taking everything in stride, and Sierra can't help but wonder if she's in on the prank as well. Or maybe she's figured it out—after all, she is the smartest one here.

Whatever, whatever, it doesn't matter, they just need to find the combination and get out of here. "Is there a number?"

 

"Are we gonna die here?" Justine squeaks, vocalizing Lele's own fears.

Matt's staring into the corner, not even facing the girls as he speaks. "We might."

Wow, Matt, way to be optimistic over there. Honestly, the more Lele sees the Professor in action, the less she likes him. He seems like a smart guy, but he's way too self-righteous for her taste.

"Because I don't wanna die in the '20s." iJustine's voice is shaking so hard she might as well be an earthquake. She didn't really make much of an impression on Lele before all the craziness went down, and she hasn't done anything suspicious so far, but...something about her reminds Lele of the stereotypical dumb blonde beauty who gets brutally murdered fifteen minutes into the movie.

Look who's talking, she snarls at herself. You're just as blonde as she is. And probably just as stupid, for that matter.

"Oh!" Matt's kind-of-deep-but-not-really voice brings her back to Planet Earth. "I found a clue!"

Lele whirls around. "You..." It's the thing, it's the goddamn thing she pointed out five minutes ago. "No!"

"I found it." He's got the thing in his hands, and that freakin' symbol is shining on its backside. "It was right on the back. You were right from the beginning."

Lele snorts.

"What is it?" asks Justine.

Matt smiles. "A heater. This is fire. We found fire, you guys!"

You mean I found fire, thinks Lele, a satisfied smirk sneaking its way onto her face. I was right. You didn't believe me, but I was freakin' right.

As the group continues to examine the heater, Lele's missing self-confidence comes rushing back in like a tidal wave. She can do this. She's Lele Pons. Seven billion loops on Vine. Millions of people counting on her for their six-second bursts of entertainment.

Creepy house? Bring it on. She's not scared.

Right?

 

It's Oli who finally realizes what Joey's been trying to puzzle out for three minutes now. "This is water."

"Oh!" Water—of course! It all makes sense now. There's flowers, which need water to live, and a hole to pour the water into...Joey's furious with himself for not realizing it sooner.

Thank God for Oli White, that's for sure.

Speaking of Oli, he's already back in action, taking the flowers out of the vase before Joey and Andrea can even blink. He marches over to the hole, tips over the vase, and starts pouring water into the box.

"How much water are we gonna put in there?" Joey wants to know.

Oli doesn't reply.

After what seems like an eternity, Oli stops pouring...but all of the water he's poured in has been sucked through the (possibly black) hole.

"It's eating it!" Joey gasps. "It just sucked it all down!"

He's getting kind of frustrated. It's water, it has to be water, but shouldn't they have found a number by now? The water's just going in and nothing is happening. Is this a dead end? Are we gonna end up stuck here? I know it's my house and all, but I'd rather not be trapped in the same house as a psychotic demon killer...

"Where did it go?" Andrea's question conceals an undertone of curious excitement.

Joey shakes his head, staring at the hole, wondering if he's ever going to see Daniel again. "I don't know."

 

"Wait, what's the number?" Tim asks, squinting at the symbol. He's not the type to scare easily, but the way that thing is just glowing at him, like it's been burned into the base of the fan...yeah, that's freaky. That's definitely freaky.

Sierra points to the blades. "It's probably on the thing," she explains in that oh-so-eloquent way of hers.

"On the blade." Eva's the one to put the pieces together. "We need to turn it off."

Pfffft. Is that it? Tim was expecting more of a challenge. Whatever. At least he won't have to spend ten minutes looking for a damn book again. "Here, put your finger in there," he instructs Sierra, inching closer to the fan as he speaks.

Sierra looks as him as if he just told her to shoot herself in the head. "No!"

"It'll stop it," Eva points out.

"And cut my finger off?" Sierra's voice is fluctuating between a squeal and a gasp, and Tim tries to suppress the urge to facepalm.

Since Sierra clearly isn't going to cooperate, Eva pulls a spare button out of her pocket and uses that to stop the fan instead. The whirring silver blades come to a grinding halt, and the group is confronted with a shiny yellow number embedded into the fan.

8.

"Eight!" The girls race out of the room, screaming the number at the top of their lungs. "Eight, we found it, we got it, eight, guys!"

Tim takes one last glance at the fan, chuckles, and follows his friends out the door.

 

Matt barely has five seconds to examine the heater before Lele swoops down on him like a vulture in pearls. "This is my clue, actually!" she practically screams, her Venezuelan accent sticking out like an irritating snicker in a silent room.

"Oh." Matt gets out of her way. "You take the clue."

Lele snatches the heater, grumbling as she does so, and Matt backs away with his hands in the air. He's disliked the Hustler from the get-go: her bossiness, her stubbornness, her attitude in general...even her laugh is annoying. He honesty doesn't understand why she's so popular with the Vine crowd. Maybe she's more tolerable in six-second doses?

And didn't Shane's note say that someone had to die?

As the girls cluster around the heater, Matt contents himself with glaring at the back of Lele's head. Calm down, he tells himself, trying to ignore the twinge of loathing curling its way around his heart. Don't let her get to you.

If all goes well, Lele Pons will not survive the night.

 

"Where is this going?" Oli snaps, scowling into the bottomless pit before them. He's allowed Joey to take over pouring duties, but they still haven't had any luck with the water. Unless they're supposed to stand here pouring water until they all die, they are obviously not doing something right.

Joey stops pouring and frowns. "We put the water in the wrong hole."

He places the vase down and picks up the box instead, then starts pouring the water back into the vase.. Not knowing what else to do, Oli helps him, muttering "Oh, God, this is not a good idea..." under his breath as he does so.

Of course, as soon as they tip the box, water starts going everywhere—in the vase, on the floor, and all over both boys' 1920s outfits. Oli, who does not want to ruin his perfectly good fur coat, stops pouring and shoves the box back onto the table.

Joey starts to laugh—a genuine, heartfelt laugh, the first time he's done so since before Shane's death. And even as Oli scolds his friend ("That was the worst idea ever!"), he can't help but smile.

Enjoying myself is a lot more fun than fearing for my life, that's for sure.

 

GloZell's been wandering through the house for the past several minutes, but that's before she realizes that she's an awful detective. I mean, I dunno about the rest of 'em, but I don't know nothin' about these element things. Why in the hell did I ever think that I could do this alone?

So instead, she joins Justine, Lele, and Matt, who are all messing about with some heater they found. "We need to plug it in?" she asks, feeling completely out of the loop. "I don't think we need to turn it on...there's no bulb in it..."

"Well, it's a heater," Matt explains, all Professor-like and such, "so it radiates heat."

Well, I knew that, GloZell's brain scoffs at him (how she manages to bite her tongue, she has no idea). I'm not a complete doofus.

She can see why Lele doesn't like this guy.

 

Just when Andrea's thinking that this puzzle can't get any weirder, Oli grabs a flower and starts poking around the box with it.

"What are you doing?" Joey asks.

Andrea raises an eyebrow. "Are you fishing?" He's probably on to something, considering he's been staring at this box longer than any of them, but still...what kind of clue could possibly be hiding within the watery depths of the seemingly bottomless box?

A monster? Oh, God, I hope it isn't a monster, I don't think I'm ready to watch my friends die...

Before she has time to panic, Joey gasps. "What is that?"

"I've got it!" shouts Oli, using the flower to push an object towards the top of the hole. "I've got it! Yes!"

Joey reaches into the box and pulls out...a tennis ball?

He seems happy about it, and Oli's over there screaming "Yes!" and doing a victory dance in front of the cabinet. As for Andrea, she smiles and claps, but she can't help but feel a bit duped. The tennis ball is an anticlimax, especially when she'd already prepared herself for the worst.

Just be glad it isn't a monster, you ungrateful idiot.

Joey holds up the ball to reveal the number 3 in golden ink, and all thoughts of monsters are banished from Andrea's mind. We've got it. We've got water. We're one-fourth of the way there.

Thank God.

 

As Justine watches with wide blue eyes, Lele gets on her knees and plugs the heater into a nearby outlet. (Justine's honestly surprised they even had outlets in the 1920s, but whatever. At least modern technology has not completely abandoned her.)

Then, seconds after the cord has been plugged in, the space right above the outlet lights up. A golden 5 stares at the group, and the group (including a bewildered yet satisfied Justine) stare right back at it.

"This is five," Lele lets them know.

Seconds after she says that, Justine hears Joey's triumphant shout from the next room. "Three! Guys, we got three!"

"We have five!" Lele and GloZell holler back, their voices combining to form a strange sort of chorus. "Five!"

Justine collapses onto a nearby couch, overwhelmed by the group's good fortune. They did it. Two out of four. The elements are revealing themselves. Home—her channel, her family, her friends, her life—seems within reach.

And best of all, nobody else is dead.

Yet.

 

Sierra hates the dark. Always has. Even when she was a little girl...she remembers many summer nights of refusing to fall asleep unless her trusty night-light was plugged in.

And now she has to go outside. In the dark. With nothing but a tiny flashlight to light her way. All to find whatever the hell "earth" is and solve Joey Graceffa's twisted idea of a puzzle.

Yeah. How about no.

"This is sketchy," mutters Eva as the group treks their way past various windows. "This is a basement situation." She stops at an open window, her flashlight shining into its darkened depths. "This one's open..."

At this point, Sierra and Tim have joined her at the window. Sierra stands several paces back, not willing to get any closer to that thing than she has to. It's a prank, of course it is, but she still has this odd fear that some sort of demonic creature will attack from the window and eat her alive if she gets too close.

Judging by Eva's facial expression, she isn't too crazy about the idea of investigating a creepy window either. "I don't wanna look in there," she announces, turning away from the window and heading off in the opposite direction. Before either Sierra or Tim can react, she's at least eight feet away, examining a clump of sinister-looking bushes.

Sierra sticks close to Tim, reaching for his hand despite herself. "I'm scared."

"Do you want to get trapped in the 1920s?" Tim replies.

"No!" It's a prank, it's a prank, it's a prank, this is not the 1920s, she's still in 2016, she's going to see her friends and family again, she's not going to...she can't...she won't...

...no, no, no, no, no, no...

"I wanna go to 2016."

I want out of here.

 

Finding earth is a hell of a lot harder than finding air, that's for sure.

Tim's been scouting around with the girls (and Arthur, who randomly showed up right the hell out of nowhere three minutes in) for at least ten minutes now. He's got sweaty palms, a dinky little flashlight that doesn't even work properly, and a raging hangover-level headache. Which is weird, considering he's pretty sure he only had one or two drinks before dinner.

Whatever. He feels drunk. He feels like a guy who got drunk and tried to get his phone to text a booty call but ended up drunk texting his ex instead. And between the menacing shadows, Sierra's trembling hand, and that weird-as-hell look on Arthur's face, that drunk-all-summer feeling is only getting worse.

It's the butler, of all people, who finally finds something. "What's this?"

The millisecond after Tim hears that, he is there, right next to Arthur, peering at a clump of dirt not far from the bushes. There's some sort of white thingy sticking out, illuminated by their worthless flashlights. It can't—then again, he supposes it could be a finger. Dismembered body parts seem to be a trend around here.

As Sierra and Eva look on (Arthur having apparently decided "screw this" and left), Tim pushes the dirt off of the white thing. Luckily for everyone, it is not a finger—just a pair of pale white handprints.

"It's a handprint, it's a handprint!" Sierra, thank God, has gotten over her fright and is now hyperventilating with excitement. "In the dirt, in the dirt!"

Two handprints, actually. Not that Tim's one to judge. And why would there be hidden handprints in the dirt, anyway? Unless... "I think it's a box."

A few scoopfuls of dirt later, he's right.

Tim fishes the box out of the dirt. Together, the three of them pry it open to reveal a golden 2 gleaming in the darkness.

"Two." Sierra springs to her feet and makes for the house as fast as her little legs can carry her. "Dirt two! Guys! We found it!"

Eva follows her, smiling that confident Eva smile. And Tim, who brings up the rear, is stuck with the box.

Well, that's two of them out of the way. He sure as hell hopes that the other seven YouTubers found water and fire already, because he does not want to be the one doing all the work around here.

 

Two is earth.

Three is water.

Five is fire.

Eight is air.

As her friends look on, Eva enters the combination into the lock. Her hands are shaking, her mind's a mess, and her heart is still struggling to mend itself, but none of that matters now. All that matters is these numbers, their elements, and the green cabinet in front of her.

One step closer to home. To 2016.

The cabinet door swings open, revealing a cog-shaped key inside, and the group bursts into cheers. Joey, especially, is clapping and shouting "Awesome! Good work!" as if everything is okay. As if the hard part's over with, and it's all rainbows and sunshine from here.

But as much as Eva would like to believe that her nightmare is over, she knows in her gut that it's only just begun.

There's a note. Of course there is.

"What is it?" asks Sierra.

"Read it out loud!" demands Justine.

Eva does so. What else is she going to do?

The ungodly machine is in the basement.

"Oh, God," Eva groans. "Not the basement!" Of course. The basement. She should have known. Those dark windows, the shadows on the wall...that basement is clearly a death trap.

Heck, this entire house is.

The cog key will ignite its wicked engine, but understand...once the machine has been started, it can only be stopped by the loss of an innocent life.

Justine gasps. GloZell puts a hand to her mouth. Oli looks like he's about to throw up all over his suspenders.

Two guests must be selected by the vote of the group...

Here it comes. The murders. The eliminations. Sentenced to death by their so-called friends. One among the ten has got to die.

"Timothy!" shouts Lele, pointing at the Mobster with an accusing gloved finger.

...to be locked in the machine. Then those two must each choose a partner who will aid them in defeating the machine.

"I'm not going in the basement," announces GloZell.

"Timothy is one of 'em," Lele insists. "He just kills everybody, so he deserves to die."

"I don't kill my friends!"

Matt, who's standing next to Tim, shakes his head. "Yeah, I think we need to lay off Timothy, all right?"

Eva nods. As much as she loves Lele, Matt's right; the blonde's accusation makes no sense at all. Tim's the Mobster, yeah, but that's just a character. He doesn't actually kill people any more than Eva actually writes newspaper articles.

"I may have a method for voting," Arthur pipes up. "Please, have a seat."

Yeah, have a seat, mutters the bitter part of Eva's mind as she takes a seat between Andrea and Sierra. Have a seat and pray you don't die.