Chapter 7

James joined in on the commotion. He grabbed the lady and pinned her on the ground before she could make any excessive movement.

Linda rested her two upper limbs on the ground. They were weak from all the struggling. She wasn't in a hurry to sit up when she found out James had held the lady down.

She didn't ponder on whatever was happening to them but instead just breathed. Her breath went from ragged and fast back to its regular rate.

"Help me to find anything that could be used to tie her. " James said

"There is literally nothing that could do that... And she could still get away ... Don't you see how aggressive she is" The lady was still shaking aggressively that sometimes she looked as if she would get free from James' hold.

"I can't keep on doing this "

" What if we kick her out of the room?"

"No! That's too cruel! Even for a psycho! No one deserves to face the cruel fate of meeting the thing that is out in the corridor" Speaking of the giant it was supposed to be crashing their wall by then. Or did it change its mind?

"What if we lock her in the toilet?"

" How are we going to do our toilet business if she's in there? And you know that you can't lock the toilet from outside the toilet "

"What are you guys doing? Let me go" The lady said in a calm voice. She wasn't growling anymore.

After hesitating a little James stood up and helped her get up. "This allergy must be really tiring. You went berserk on us."

"Oh. I'm so sorry. I didn't know that. I fell asleep for a while" The lady was confused. One minute everything was blurry and she couldn't see and the next thing she was waking up from a sleep she didn't know when she entered. She wiped off some of the drool that was around her lips.

"I'm so tired," She said as she went ahead to sit on one of those pillow things. She was shivering and her head was banging consistently as if someone was hitting it with a hammer nonstop. "I'm so cold" was all she could say as she lay down and closed her eyes.

On closing her eyes she could listen perfectly to the things going on in the room. The movie was still playing but the volume was low... Drops of water still trickle really slowly from the mouth of the tap of the toilet sink.

"What is going on with me?" She murmured to herself.

For a while, she listened as though she was trying to detect something. She knew she felt something strange deep into her consciousness... Then she fell asleep... But that wasn't what James and Linda saw.

The lady sprung up even more energetically than she was before and ran towards the nearest person; James.

James felt infuriated. "When will this all stop?!" He screamed as he pushed his legs into her face sending her falling backward. But her back barely got to the ground when she stood up and ran towards him again. Her eyes were plain and those bulging vessels were prominent in her face.

The night was nearly perfect but it got ruined by this mess.

He grabbed one of the pillow things and charged at her.

"Don't hurt her! " Linda yelled from where she stood since James let the lady get free from his hold.

If James wasn't busy trying to pin down the crazy lady he would have screamed about how ridiculous what she just said was. "How about you tell the crazy lady not to hurt me? How about that?" But he was too busy for that.

He jumped on top of her using one of the pillow things and pressed it down on her face with all the strength he had. "You're starting to annoy me"

"What is wrong with you?" Linda screamed and knocked James out of the way. And just then the lady got up as if she wasn't almost suffocated to death a few seconds ago and tried to pounce on her. But luckily for Linda, her reflexes were on point at the moment. She ran towards the toilet with the lunatic on her tail and lured her into the toilet. It was easy to trap the lady in the toilet because although her moves were aggressive and wild it all just ended there. They weren't intelligent and thought through. If you were observant enough you could predict it and kind of find your way through it. But it all depended on having strength, stamina, and fast reflexes... Linda had none of them at the moment but had the most important of all; survival instincts. Her survival instincts provided her with all three for a few seconds of luring the apparently unintelligent lady.

Immediately she locked the door the attacks stopped. She was half expecting the lady to break the door open and pounce on her as she pulled on the door via its knob preventing it from being opened.

James was dragging the huge sofa towards the toilet. He was about to block it so the crazy lady would remain there.

"What's the emergency contact in Nigeria?" James asked after carefully placing the sofa in front of the toilet while Linda held the door knob.

"How do you expect me to know? Those kinds of things don't work in Nigeria!"

"We need help. Can you call anyone?"

Linda raised an eyebrow at the supposed mockery of a question. Of course, she could call someone! He wasn't the only human being she knew.

"Yes now. I can call someone "

"Okay. We need to get out of here"

"Obviously"

James ignored the sarcasm in her voice and continued. " And maybe we'll take turns in holding the doorknob"

"Yeah. Sure. Cos I can't keep doing this"

James was staring at the sofa unsure what he could do with it. It couldn't block the whole door. What if it pushed the door down? And then they would be left with Mrs. Insane. No way! The best choice was to hold the door knob.

"And we could sit on the sofa as we hold the door," Linda said

The next few hours were just them taking turns to hold the door knob. They couldn't get themselves to talk to each other. Except for the "once in a while" reminder from James that they had to wait just a little bit longer before they'd go out to the corridor and then find their way home, they were too drained of energy to talk to each other.

The food-filled trays were still at the other end of the room, unaffected by the whole commotion. But that wasn't what they craved to replenish their energies. They wanted out ... To get away from all the madness they got themselves into.

"Who would have thought that the first time that I decide to come out at night will literally be the end of me?" Linda said when she left the doorknob for James because it was his turn. She sat down on the sofa which was directly in front of the door.

James didn't reply because he was too annoyed and tired.

For the past few hours since locking the lady in the toilet, they just did nothing but space out. It was the worst moment in their entire lives. Even Linda who enjoyed alone times at her university accommodation felt miserable.

Minutes later after Linda dosed off on the sofa James followed suit leaving the door unguarded. Did it even need to be guarded?

"Yo," Linda was whispering when she woke up and saw a snoring James. Luckily for them, the lady was still in the toilet. She was shaking him quietly while hoping he doesn't spring up and scream and alert the lady.

But he didn't wake up so she decided just to hold the door knob.

"I don't think you need to hold the door knob," James said when he woke up and found her holding it. Her face was filled with drops of sweat. "You're really sweating"

"I'm really hungry James" She was looking emaciated. Like someone drained her of the little fat that was in her body a few hours ago.

"You can go and eat nah," James said as he turned his back to her. He was trying to find a comfortable lying position but his body was tired of lying. His whole being hated every aspect of the room.

"I can't let go of this. Whatever that allergy is, it must be really serious. I don't want to face her again. "

That was when James began to ponder the whole situation seriously. It was crazy but he could use logic to connect one or two dots. The man that attacked the huge guy outside, the giant, the three people, and then the lady; all had something similar. They all behaved, unlike humans... They were equally aggressive and had the same physical features: pale faces with bulging vessels beneath them and their eyes looked like they lacked pupils except for the lady and the man outside. He could barely see the man outside but he saw the others clearly. And witnessed the way the lady's pupils became paler. It couldn't just be an allergy.

What if something crazy was being released into the air through the air conditioners that made them behave that way? Was Linda the next? She looked like she was going to faint anytime soon. Her cheekbones were gradually getting prominent and the skin below her eyes was getting darker.

"What is it? " Linda asked when she noticed how oddly he was looking at her. Was there something on her face?"Is anything on my face?"

"Nope. You can leave the door. I think she has calmed down. "

James also thought about the fact that they never struggled with the lady to get the door open. Was that the level her insanity had gone to? Nothing logically could explain the way she behaved more than insanity. But the giant outside was beyond logic.

"Has she called back?" James asked Linda who still refused to let go of the door.

They had tried calling some people in their contact lists but it wasn't going through. Linda had only one person to call and although the phone was ringing on the other end her friend, Amanda did not pick up.

"I think we should just risk it and go out... Run as fast as we can before they can pounce on us or eat our flesh!"

"Nope! We should wait a little"

Her eyes widened like they did whenever she was angry. "What do you mean by that?! You've been saying this for a while now !! Are you not tired?!"

" I thought you were the one that was insisting that I should stay. Why are you suddenly changing your mind?"

"Suddenly? It's almost 2:00 pm and I'm tired of staying here!!! I got to go home. I smell like shit"

James understood where she was coming from. She was talking from the perspective of someone who hadn't seen the monstrosity outside in the long corridor.

"You think I want to stay in here with your complaining ass!!! Hmm!! Never!! We just cannot go out there !"

"We could just run or something! I hate it here!"

Linda was irritated... So irritated that she felt like she was starting to lose her reasoning. She had been looking at the plane old room it was making her really ansty. The white walls with two brown rectangular lines drawn diagonally. It was too simple so It did nothing to calm her down but instead, it made her feel like she was suffocating. She was so irritated she overlooked so many facts that were staring her in the face.

James never backed down at even the slightest chance of opportunity. He was relentless and stubborn... That was why he got so many opportunities that he was enjoying. But why then? Why was he taking his time then?

That was when it occurred to her. She was paying attention to the wrong thing. Somehow she always wanted him to tell her things first and not because she asked him. That way it will seem more natural. And not like the encounters she had with people in the past when she had to initiate every single conversation.

"What was it you were running from?" Linda asked him totally ignoring the fact that she was called a complainer.

"We don't have to go out" All James could think of was every weird thing he had encountered in the past seven hours. But he couldn't get himself to admit the fact that there was a giant out in the long corridor. Not just a name he called her because she was tall for a girl but a literal giant that was three times their size and even five times bigger than them when it came to the circumference of their body. Something that looked like it was going to squash them if they didn't escape. Something that was supposed to be human but wasn't.

"I'm going," Linda said letting go of the handle and matched towards the door while setting her mind to expect anything. If they didn't get out of there she thought her mind would explode into a million pieces.