He made his way up quietly, not wanting Mrs. Applewhite to hear. She would scold him for snooping around. After making his way down the long corridor, passing by rooms occupied by other guests, he found the stairwell at the end.When he made it to the third floor, there was a sign on the wall in the stairwell next to the door of the hall that read employees only. This was the floor where extra bed spreads, sheets, and storage was. Disobeying the sign, Jason opened the door and stepped through.He flipped the light switch but it didn’t work, the bulb probably needed changing. Jason stood at the lengthy hall’s end staring down into darkness. His eyes adjusted quickly and there it was on the wall at the end of the hall; a small square door, painted white with a little black knob. At first Jason didn’t believe it, but it was there. It’s just a stupid hamper chute, that’s all, Jason thought. There’s nothing in that chute but air, he told himself and made his way back downstairs. Back in the room, Jason closed the door behind him and joined the others who were carrying on, none of them were reading, Jason guessed they were all finished. Soon after Jason got back, Mrs. Applewhite opened the door and stepped inside. “Everybody done?” “We’re finished,” Anne said. David yawned and Tammy had fallen asleep on the floor “Looks like its late,” Mrs. Applewhite said. “We’ll go over what we’ve read tomorrow after we get back from the museum. Girls, it’s time to go to your room.” Julie shoved Tammy to wake her up. “Remember the bus will pick us up at 8:00 in the morning, so I’ll be knocking on your doors to wake you up at 6:30, enough time for everyone to have breakfast and shower, alright?”The girls marched out of the room, single file, down to the room they shared and the boys each hopped in their own bed. Mrs. Applewhite turned out the light and went to her room to retire. A few hours later in the dark, while everyone slept, Jason lay awake in his bed, still thinking about the laundry chute on the third floor. George’s bed was next to his. “Hey, George, you awake?” Jason said in a whisper.George grumbled. “I am now. What do you want?” “I have to tell you something.”“About what?”“About the story I read earlier.”“What, did it give you a nightmare?” George said with a scoff.“No,” Jason said confidently. Hey, what if…what if those stories are true?”“Don’t worry, they’re not.”“But I think they are.”“Why?“The story I read was about a bed and breakfast in Norfolk, Virginia. Just like this one.”“There are probably plenty of bed and breakfasts in Norfolk.”“The name of the inn in the book is Kresswell, this inn is named Kresswell.“So what.”“The book said it was on Petersburg Street.”“Is this one on Petersburg?”“I looked out the window and couldn’t see.Jason moved the curtains and peered out the window again. “But I guess there’s only one way to find out.” He unhooked the latch of the window, sat up on his knees and lifted the window open. “What are you doing?” George asked.“What does it look like?” Jason replied and stuck his left leg out of the window. “Come on. Let’s go see what street this place is on.” George felt it couldn’t hurt. Besides it seemed like fun to sneak out at night. “Alright, wait up. Jason had completely jumped out of the window feet firmly on the cool grass then George began to climb out next.
“Hey, where are you guys going?” Milton asked in a groggy voice from his bed, the side of his face smashed in his pillow. “No where, we’ll be back. Go back to sleep,” George said. Milton didn’t seem to care and went right back to sleep.Jason in his pajamas and George in a t-shirt and jogging pants walked down the sidewalk in the cool night. They passed by a small park, a few houses and many cars parked along the street. In a mere five minutes they reached the corner and the boys looked up at the street signs hanging on the post. One street was called Simmons and the street on which the inn was located was Petersburg.“Whoa,” George said. “Maybe the story in the book is true? What was that story about?”“The book said that there was a laundry chute on the third floor of the inn and if you put your hand down the chute and recite Ring around the Roseys, something will grab your hand and pull you down into the basement.”“Weird.”“I know right. Remember when I went to the bathroom earlier?”“Yeah.”“Well I didn’t. I went upstairs to the third floor. And there’s a laundry chute up there at the end of the hall just like in the book.”“No way. This I gotta see,” George said.The boys quickly made their way back to the bed and breakfast and climbed back through the window into the dark bedroom. David and Milton slept soundly while Jason and George quietly walked through the room, slowly opened the door, stepped out in the hall and shut it silently behind them.Jason and George wore socks so their footsteps made no sound as they tip toed down the hall. They reached the end of the hallway and climbed the staircase all the way up to the third floor. George saw the employees only sign on the wall next to the door but defiantly opened it anyway. He flicked the light switch up, like Jason before him, and of course the light didn’t work. The long dark hallway was eerie and silent.The two paused for a moment, staring down the grim corridor. “There it is,” whispered Jason, pointing down to the end of the hall at the hatch on the wall. “Maybe this is dumb,” Jason said. “Let’s go back downstairs.”“You made me sneak out of the window and we’re up here now. There’s no point in going back now,” George said.The boys walked down the hall, passing closed doors on either side along the way until they stopped directly in front of the chute. “Open it,” Jason said. George hesitated. “Go ahead, open it,” Jason urged. George turned the black knob and pulled the small door open. The straight edged hole in the wall was a pitch black. “See, it’s just a regular laundry hamper,” George said.“Take a look down there,” Jason dared.George grabbed the lower edge of the chute and took a peek down into the blackness. “Nothing, there’s nothing there, look.” George put his hand in the hole, waving it in the air.“Stick your whole arm down there, as far as it will go,” Jason dared once more. George sighed and took the dare. He stretched his right arm all the way down the chute as far as he could until the bottom ledge reached his armpit. He swished his arm back and forth in the emptiness as if wading it in a pool of water. “Nothing. There are no monsters in here. Let’s go.”“Wait, you didn’t repeat the words,” Jason said. “You have to say the rhyme for it to work.”George glared dryly, his arm still hanging in the chute. “What am I supposed to say?” he asked.
“Ring around the Roseys,” Jason replied.George didn’t want to say it; he was scared but would never admit it. But it was too late; he’d gone this far and wanted to prove that he had guts. George nervously cleared his throat and said the rhyme in its familiar tune.“Ring around the roseys… a pocket full of poseys… ashes, ashes…we all fall down.”George finished the entire song and everything was quiet. Nothing happened. Jason sort of expected as much and George smiled. “Told you so. The stupid stories in that book aren’t tr…” Seriousness came over George’s face. “Help! It’s got me!” George said. Jason rushed to grab hold of his friend’s shoulders to aid him.“Ha! You should have seen your face!” George said and pulled his arm out of the chute.Jason felt dumb, yet relieved and let George go. “Let’s go back downstairs,” George said gripping the edge of chute door to close it. Without warning, a hand, white as milk and decaying skin came up from the chute and clutched George’s right wrist. His eyes widened as he screamed.Jason grabbed hold of George’s arm with both hands and pulled as hard as he could to break George free. “Get it off me!” George cried but the dead hand dug its fingers deeper into his flesh. Trying to break the grip of the hand, Jason pulled on his friend’s arm. George grunted struggling, but the emaciated fingers wrenched even harder. It pulled his whole arm completely into the chute up to his shoulder as George pressed against the wall with his free hand in resistance.The other hand belonging to the thing in the chute came up from the dark hole in the wall and clutched the collar of George’s shirt. With a one immense jerk, George’s head and torso entered completely in the square void as he screamed Jason’s name. Jason grabbed hold of George’s legs pulling in a tug of war with the thing. “Help! Somebody!” Jason cried as loud as he could in an effort to wake someone. “Help us!” Crunching sounds came from the chute and blood spurted from it, spattering all over George’s white t-shirt in dark red. Jason pulled harder and George’s body went limp. “Help! Somebody please!” Jason called.Penelope Spindleman, known to her students as Mrs. Applewhite, pulled herself up from behind George’s body from within the dark chute. Shadows covered her face but Jason could see the pale white of her rotting skin and bloodied mouth. She had taken bites out of George. With a strong yank downward, she pulled George completely into the chute and his body fell all the way down to the bottom. Jason pulled away from the chute to escape and run down the hall not before Mrs. Applewhite seized his arm and jerked him to her. He looked in the hole, into Mrs. Applewhite’s glowing star-light eyes. He screamed in the hall for help as tears streamed down his cheeks. “Somebody help me!” Mrs. Applewhite bit into Jason’s neck and with a solid tug she pulled his entire body into the chute. She descended down with him along with the sound of snapping bones. Jason’s screams echoed down the shaft until all was silent in the empty hall. Then by itself, the door to the chute slammed shut.As you might have guessed, the missing boys caused quite a stir in Norfolk the next morning. However, as far as Milton knew, Jason and George snuck out the window in the middle of the night and never came back. And everyone knows, adolescents run away all the time. END
