Chapter 5
The beam of Mark's smartphone flashlight cut into the open doorway, but the light didn't illuminate the interior. It simply vanished, swallowed by a thick, velvety darkness that seemed to actively repel the illumination.
"Mark? Mark, what's happening?" David's voice blared frantically from the distant kitchen phone. "Talk to me! Did you open it?"
Mark couldn't speak. His throat felt completely constricted as he stared into the threshold. The air pouring out of the newly revealed room was bitterly cold, carrying not just the smell of dust and ozone, but the distinct, sweet fragrance of old pipe tobacco and fading perfume.
Buster stood a few feet back, letting out a low, mournful howl that echoed strangely, as if the hallway itself had suddenly grown twice its actual size.
"Dave," Mark finally choked out, taking a cautious half-step forward. "The light... the flashlight isn't working right. The beam isn't hitting any walls."
"What do you mean it's not hitting any walls?" David demanded, his voice cracking with frustration. "It's a standard room! It has to be ten by twelve feet, matching the guest bath on the other side!"
"It's not," Mark whispered, his voice trembling violently. "I can't see the back wall. It just keeps going."
Without thinking, Mark reached out and extended his arm into the doorway, pushing the smartphone further into the blackness to get a better angle.
The moment his hand crossed the threshold, the temperature dropped precipitously. A sharp, stinging static electricity prickled across his skin, making the hairs on his arm stand straight up. He looked down at the phone screen to check the battery, but the display was completely blank, flickering with a violent green horizontal line before going entirely dead.
At the same exact second, from deep within the endless dark hallway ahead of him, a soft, familiar voice spoke out of the void.
"Markie? Is that you coming down to help with the groceries?"
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Mark froze, every drop of blood draining instantly from his face. The voice belonged to his father—a man who had died in a car accident twenty-two years ago, buried three states away under a granite headstone that Mark had visited every single year.
Before Mark could process the impossible sound, a pair of heavy, ice-cold hands reached out from the absolute darkness of the doorway and firmly grabbed his outstretched wrist.
