Kelly’s hand is squeezed over my mouth to trap in the gasp, and as the three of us huddle together, I can feel the uncontrollable trembling rattling each of our skeletons in unison.

                Her giant fingers touch down on the ground, sliding scientifically through the clumped dust and lubricating it between the fleshy tips.  She rubs the end of her slender thumb along the ridges of each of the other four fingers in a steady sequence, then traces a crooked line like a river through the gray expanse.  I can make out a thin wisp of her chocolate brown locks sweeping just under the metal cusp as she peers into the blackness.

                Thank fucking Christ we hadn’t walked that far ahead before Kelly heard the grate coming down, or otherwise our incriminating footprints would’ve been stamped right through it, and we might already be lost.

                “Anybody?” Julia sings like a siren.  “I promise to be nice with you.”

                The seconds heave by in rhythm with my chest.  I’ve never been so aware of my body’s movements.

                “Wherever you are, I know it must be so dark and scary by yourselves,” the girl continues coolly.  Her hand drifts slowly back across the floor, stroking it.  “Now you’re all alone.  You probably forgot what it’s like.  You’re like little babies trying to take care of yourselves.  But if you came back to me, you wouldn’t have to worry about the world anymore.”

                I can feel a cold bead of sweat on my shoulder, and it’s hard to say who it belongs to as we cling together.  Given that we’re as bare as the day we were born and without any kind of plausible plan to go up against this girl, I can’t say she’s totally wrong in comparing us to infants.

                “That’s too bad,” our tormentor mumbles quietly to herself just when I’m starting to feel I won’t be able to hold still for much longer.  “I miss my little friends so much.”

                I’ll just bet she does.

                Satisfied at last, the maniacal teen's hand retreats into the light, and the grate slams back into place, the screws grinding back in a moment later.  We hear her frustrated footsteps thundering away, pounding as she heads down some other hallway in this damned maze of a mansion.  It’s only when we hear dead silence, when we’re so absolutely positive that no living soul exists within the same fifty-foot-radius, that the three of us collectively inhale again, still quiet as the mice we’re emulating.  At last, Kelly’s palm gently removes itself from my lips, and Brian’s clammy hand leaves my shoulder.

                “Good ear,” Brian says gratefully.  “Thanks.”

                “Don’t mention it,” Kelly sighs with a weary huff.  “I guess the new rule is no talking while we’re moving.”

                “Sounds good to me,” I say.  I sneak forward on all fours, despite the continued quietude, and place my feet in the cleansed circles where Julia’s fingers were searching moments before.  I can still feel her warmth on the ancient metal.

                Once in front of the grate, I stand up, peering through the opening and into the monumental living room with its ornamental couches and expensive glass coffee tables.  A small chandelier hangs above in the domed ceiling.  The openings look wide enough for us to squeeze through.

                “Hold for a second,” Kelly utters, realizing what I’m considering.  “Is… that still the plan?”

                “That’s what I figured,” Brian says firmly.

                “Me too,” I say.

                “And after that?”

                Brian and I give each other a blank look.  It’s not like any of us have been brave enough yet to think that far ahead.  The general consensus, we assumed, would involve getting help from some normal-sized folks and then returning with a spiked baseball bat intended for Julia’s skull, though this was just general theorizing.

                “Move for the garage?” I offer .  We’re close to the front door, if Beth’s arrival was any indication, and my vague memory of that security feed serves.  The other way out can’t be that far away.

                “It’s a start,” Brian agrees, then turns back to Kelly.  “What’s the problem?”

                “Well, I mean, she’s walking around now.  Might still be nearby.  Are we sure that-”

                “It’s better than waiting for her to go back upstairs,” he interrupts.  “Because then-”

                “She’ll be back in front of the feed on her computer,” I finish, sliding a leg through the grate to test it.  It’s a fairly tight squeeze, but the opening is broad enough on the opposite side that getting through will be easier after the first push.

                “Right,” Kelly gulps as she and Brian creep up next to me.  “All right.  I guess we get moving, then.”

                “The red couch.  See it?  The corner from here?” Brian says as he points to the dangling tassels of the intended fabric tower just off to our right.  “Get through and go for it right away, directly under.”

                “Fine,” Kelly says, and taking a deep breath, hoists herself over the small lift and onto the metallic rim of the grate.  With a small push, she slides through fairly easily and lands on the hard floor.  Brian, with the broadest shoulders of the three of us, takes a little more maneuvering, but with a few hard elbows from me he makes it through.  I follow last, nearly stumbling on my landing, but manage to catch myself and sprint after the other two.

                The distance to the couch isn’t particularly long, but I feel that same exposed sensation from last night as we ran for the hole in the wall right under Julia’s nose, as though my skin has been peeled away and a powerful gale is sweeping through.  I’m cold, yet still feel the anxious sweat on my brow as I dive into the refreshingly dark sanctity underneath the couch.

                “Good,” Brian says, whispering so quietly his voice barely registers in our insignificant ears.  “Here on out, only this loud.”

                Kelly and I nod as we set off for the other end of the couch and crawl beneath the decorative tassels again.  Brian pokes his head out just far enough to confirm that the coast is still clear and then gestures like a military commander toward a nearly identical couch with a cream hue instead.  And then we dash again, grateful to have a floor-length rug to run across that dampens our already humble footfalls, and slide under the next cover.

                Progress is slow, as we only make our moves after taking at least a minute to test out the silence.  The living room is huge, even to emaciated prisoners with only a few inches in height to their names.  It takes a full five moves between scattered furniture just to get anywhere near the doorway.

                Every instant spent out in the open allows the phantom sensation of Julia’s body squeezing down on me to return, and no matter how wide I open my eyes in this liberating landscape, it’s nigh-impossible to convince myself that I don’t have my ex-girlfriend’s monstrous toes clamping down on my body in the heat and unholy musk of her shoes, the weight making escape a laughable fantasy.  I can all but feel the soft skin of those digits pressed against the back of my neck, threatening to snap it between them if I so much as breathe another breath without her authorization.  The very memory of her standing on me is enough to add weight to my shoulders as I stumble along, especially because I know it’ll be child’s play compared to what faces me and the rest of us if the real Julia should appear now in the room.

                Our next view is a long hallway, nearly bare save for the ceiling-length windows that frame a couple of tables holding blue oriental pottery and partially wilted roses.  Fortunately, the curtains are swept closed over the openings, and wordlessly we agree that this is the best option in what is probably the most dangerous part of the trek, especially since the only other exit from this room involves two intimidatingly tall steps to climb.

                We move with the same efficient caution, keeping low and heaving our whole bodies into the rush.  Throwing myself under the heavy folds of the curtain behind them somehow brings me the same sense of security, though in reality I know it’s just my body doing what it can to keep my mind from collapsing in fear.  The couches, of course, offered some protection if Julia were to discover us.

                Right here, we’re literally fucked if she happens to walk in.

                By some miracle we make it through all four curtained checkpoints without our hearts giving out from knee-buckling nerves.  There’s little time to discuss further moves, as our top priority has to be getting out from under our vulnerable embankment, and we instantly set about searching.

                The kitchen appears at the end of the line, and unsurprisingly, it’s scaled to house a full catering staff, with three different stoves and a newly finished sheen on all the marbled countertops.  Behind a low-hanging bar opening on the far end, a small breakfast nook with a circular table is arranged tastefully, and next to it is a long mat lined with shoes.  Above it is a white door, with the telltale rubber lip flap around its jamb: almost certainly a way outside.

                Our chosen destination is a titanium trash can in the corner, less than ten seconds’ sprint from where we sit under the curtain.  It is, perhaps, even more dire a position to take shelter than the curtain, but a quick point from Kelly into a high corner of the room reveals a security camera that Julia might very well be peering through at this very instant.  The receptacle would, at least, offer some cover from it.

                So off we go again.  Our feet hit the tile floor and pick up speed with every pace, encouraged by the comforting looming of the towering cylinder.  We throw ourselves behind it and wait for sixty agonized seconds, huddled together, until the end if necessary.  If Julia had seen us on the cameras make this, the longest move yet, she’d probably already be down here with her fingers around us and splintering our bones.

                But she doesn’t come, and it’s all right to receive regular oxygen again.

                That’s when we hear it.

                A soft groaning, starting slowly, but gradually increasing in velocity: the sound of chain links ticking over and over one another.  The grinding of rubber on sprayed driveway pebbles comes next, then the creak of the tire hitting concrete, right through that beautiful thoroughfare next to the shoes.

                The garage.  The garage door opening, and more importantly, a car entering the house.

                I feel both Kelly and Brian exhale as they stand behind me, and can almost hear the smiles plastered goofily on their exhausted faces.  However, in spite of the palpable relief we feel, we know not to thrust ourselves out into the open as though the game is won.  We’ve inherited far too much of Julia’s paranoia over the years, especially in these past few months, to ever be convinced that we’re not doomed just yet.

                We paralyze ourselves for a few more seconds, gripping each other’s shoulders to ensure no one blows the cover.  It occurs to me that, unless our demon spawn brunette captor is playing some elaborate ruse to make us come spring out right into her clutches, this could very well be the maid entering the house.  A woman catastrophically unaware of the horrors that have taken place in this house and potentially liable to go into shock if our revelation is handled incorrectly, but a person nonetheless.

                The last few inches of the garage door snap loudly into place through the wall.  My skin tingles and my hands tremble.  A nearly ironic prayer sits on my lips, and I can tell the same is true for my friends.

                It’s at this moment that a loud crackle echoes through the towering plaster canyons of the Mack house.  We flinch, staggering back and searching the doorways expecting to see Julia, but there’s nothing.

                Looking up a little further as the crackle repeats, my gaze snags on a gold-plated speaker embedded at roughly eye level for someone of average height, around ten feet down the wall and above the closest countertop.

                “Good moooorning,” Julia intones cheerily, her voice booming from the speakers and echoing with an eerie feedback as though she’d been absorbed into the ether and was haunting us from beyond the grave.

                We all freeze again, assuming we’ve been caught and zeroed in on already moments before salvation is ours, but Kelly waves her hand to calm our immediate emotional storms and points in the direction of the hallway we just ran down.  An identical speaker on the wall crackles with the same ghostly presence of our foe, and we realize Julia is projecting her voice to every room of the house that contains one of these devices.

                “You guys are all really smart, the way you almost got away from me.  I’m so proud of how well you learned,” Julia says next.  “It’s too bad you forgot to learn what I do to pets who don’t love me like they should.”

                “What’s she doing?” Brian mouths.

                Kelly frowns, holding up a finger instructing him to wait.

                “But I know you wouldn’t want something bad to happen to Gina, or baby Julia,” comes the godlike commandment from the intercom.  “Especially while I’ve got them right in my hands, and I'm not letting them go until I have you all again.”

                Without even looking at him, I can tell Brian is foaming at the mouth, his muscles threatening to spasm from acidic rage.

                “So here’s what’s going to happen…” Julia continues easily.  From the way her tone lilts upward, I know she’s got a smile spread over her lips right now.  “…you’re not going to let Ms. Coleridge see you when she comes in now.  You’re going to stay hidden all day until she leaves.”

                There’s something different happening inside Julia.  Her tenor, her words, they’ve transformed from less than a day ago when we heard her speak into something freer.   It’s as though she’s showing us more of herself - the real her.  More honest.  Rawer.

                Unhinged.

                I remind myself to breathe, but it’s difficult.  I already know where she’s going with this, and so do my companions.

                “Tomorrow morning I’ll be waiting in my room.  Come in, and give yourselves back to me, where you belong.  And then maybe, just maybe…” Julia explains happily.  “…I won’t have to have Gina and baby Julia for breakfast.”