Chapter Twelve - Throwing a Tantrum

It was not a scream that woke Sam that night, nor a scrape, or a tap, or an odd footstep. Somewhere nearby, out in the hall but not in front of his door, someone was throwing a tantrum. There was the sound of pounding on wood. Hitting and, Sam guessed by the heavier sounds interspersed, kicking against something. This went on for several minutes, the sounds getting louder and more frantic. Then they stopped. Sam sat up against the headboard, his sheet pulled all the way to his chin, making a tent with the fabric pulled across his knees. Before he could finish counting to 60, it started again, three booms as something heavy rammed against what Sam knew had to be a door. There was nothing else large enough to hit that was made of wood out there. A scream ripped through the air. At least, Sam THOUGHT it was a scream. Maybe because it was being muffled by the door it sounded distorted, almost like a man yelling but with some other sound at the same time. Sam's terrified brain thought of singalongs during service, all the voices layered on top of each other. But it didn't sound like two people yelling, either.

When silence fell again, it stayed. Sam watched the strip of light devotedly, but nobody passed in front of his door. Was that the sound of someone trying to get out of their room? He let the question circle around his mind for a while. If someone had gotten sick and lost their reason, were they trying to escape? Whomever it was, they had to be injured after all that. There was nothing in their rooms sturdy enough to ram against the door repeatedly without breaking. They must have been hitting and kicking the door, as he had previously thought. Maybe even throwing their body against it when it wouldn't open. Hitting that hard, their body was more likely to break than the heavy doors.

Dawn could not come quick enough. The air was unmoving. Even the manor seemed to be holding its breath. There was no way, Sam thought, that anyone could have slept through that...whatever it was that happened. Especially the scream. Bumps rose up on his arms, his movements tremulous as he tried to rub them away. It almost sounded like a goat. But he had heard enough of those that he knew it was something different.

The door unlocked at the same time that it always did, but Sam did not move from his bed. Normally, he would hear other people shuffling along to breakfast soon after the doors could open, but this morning was different.

It seemed to Sam that many people needed extra time just as he did to steel their self well enough to brave opening their door. Apparently, none of them made it that far. Sam nearly fell out of his bed in fright when his door suddenly opened, and butler's voice called out, "If you don't go to the dining area, you won't get breakfast. Let's do get going, people." The message was repeated several more times as he traveled the length of the hall, opening doors as he went. Sam rubbed his eyes and closed his door to just a crack so that he could get his clothes on in a hurry. When he stepped out of his room, he nearly ran into the new woman across from him. The brusque and able demeanor was gone, and she was visibly shaken.

"What was that last night?" She asked Sam, reaching out to hold onto his arm. "I've never heard nothing that made that kind of sound before, and I've worked in all kinds of places." The drawn-out sounds at the ends of her words were so pronounced that Sam had to concentrate hard to tell what she was saying.

"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "There are weird sounds at night sometimes, butler says some people don't do well with the isolation."

She looked at him contemptuously, her words dismissive. "That was no human, boy."

Sam watched her as she made her way to the stairwell much quicker than the day before, her head looking side to side and occasionally behind her as she went.