Deception

By Frank Perillo

Amanda walked down the dark, abandoned alley. The heavy rain obscured her vision and hearing. As she was walking she could faintly make out a figure laying under a roof propped up against the side of a building.

“Hello, I’m Officer Leidel, I was sent to investigate mysterious disappearances in the area. Do you need help?” she called out to the figure.

She saw as the figure tried to get up but couldn’t, she then heard the figure yell in pain. She ran over. It was a man, he was bleeding from a stab wound in his side.

“Are you okay, what happened?” Amanda asked while helping him up.

“I was driving with my friends, I could barely see through the rain and ended up crashing my car” the main replied.

“What’s your name, do you know where your friends are?” Amanda asked.

“William and I don’t know where they are, they were gone when I woke up,” the man replied.

“Let’s get inside somewhere before we continue,” Amanda told him.

“There’s a hospital about five minutes from here, I saw it in the distance and was trying to get to get there,” William informed Amanda.

“Let’s go there then” Amanda said as she and William made their way to the hospital.

Amanda and William went inside the hospital. It was cold, there were broken windows and the wood was rotting and the paint was chipping off the walls. They made their way to the patient rooms on the first floor. “Nothing,” Amanda muttered to herself in frustration as she got done checking all the empty drawers. “Wait here, I’ll look for medicine and bandages,” she said to William who was lying on the bed.

“Ok, just hurry” he replied weakly.

"I will."

Amanda was checking each room when she heard a faint sound. “Probably just the wind or rain,” she thought, “Or old age.” She continued checking rooms when she heard the sound again, this time louder and coming from the stairwell. She was about to go investigate when she remembered William. “I should go tell him” she thought to herself and headed back to the room.

“William I--” she cut herself off midway, when she opened the door to the room. William was gone. “Where is he, why would he leave?” but her thought was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming from the floor above. “William, or… someone else?” she thought to herself.

She went back to the stairwell and up to the second floor. She heard the footsteps again leading towards the patient rooms. She ran over to the hallway. “What?” she said with a quiver in her voice. She saw a trail of blood leading to a room. “William, I hope he’s ok,” she said as she rushed towards the room. She opened the door quickly and looked around, there were pictures all over the wall. Some were of people, some were of what looked like monsters. She slowly walked inside, the trail of blood led to an empty bed. As she was investigating the room she heard footsteps, then a voice.

“Amanda” the voice said.

Amanda turned around to find William clutching an axe. “William, w--” she was cut off.

“I’m sure you have a lot of questions, but you’ll have no use for the answers when you're dead!” William said in a low sinister voice.

“What are you doing?” Amanda asked, slowly reaching for her gun.

“I’ll put it like this, if you thought my condition was bad, just wait until you feel the one your gonna be in!” William said with a chuckle.

Amanda quickly drew her gun but William was quicker and used his axe to knock it out of her hand, slicing her hand in the process. Amanda tumbled back into the window holding her hand close to her, she looked at William and his twisted grin in fear.

“Farewell,” he said as he forced her through the window.

As Amanda fell onto the ground below, she saw William staring down at her. William walked away from the window and Amanda knew he was coming to finish the job. She struggled to get up and limped as fast as she could back into the town.

Frank Perillo is in 11th grade. He likes video games and anime. The music and stories in games and anime inspire him a lot and he hopes to work in the video games industry when he graduates college.