The Betrayal

The crunching of the leaves underneath the tires of the car made it official; it was autumn.  The time of year where no green is found on trees, only reds, yellows, oranges and browns.  The radio sang to them their favorite songs from the 1980’s.  The scent of car cleaner was overwhelming, resulting in a window open just a crack to let the cool, crisp air inside.  The road in front of them was cracked and faded with age.  Not a soul nor car to be found.  The sun blinded them as it got ready to disappear for the night, the only breaks were when it was hidden behind the endless trees.  Taylor, driving, had her lanky fingers wrapped tightly around the steering wheel, eyes only on the road in front of them.  The thoughts running through her head were solely how they should not be doing this; they had a physics test the next morning, but still, she drove.  Olivia, slouched in the passenger seat was hypnotized by her phone, all surroundings went unnoticed.  Only to see where they were did she look up.  After what seemed like forever, they reached Taylor’s grandparents’ house.  “Personally, it looks kinda creepy to me.” Taylor declared.  The doors clicked open simultaneously.  As they each stepped out of the car onto the smooth gravel , both of their phones dinged.  Looking down, they read what it said and gasped.  “Did you just get what I did?” Taylor asked.  Just then, a crackle sounded from the trees next to them.  Olivia, hurrying, opened the trunk of the car and grabbed both of their stuff.  Taylor sprinted towards the door, “You grabbed my stuff too right?” she confirmed.  “Yea, just hurry up!” Olivia exclaimed.  Taylor scrambled to get the key hidden under the potted plant on the doorstep of her grandmother’s house.  Finally, she managed to unlock the door and they both entered the house.  Freaked out, Taylor automatically turned on the lights.  She scanned the room and noticed the blue rug right away.  “Your grandmother has a very strange taste in furniture .” Olivia commented.  “That she does.” Taylor replied.  Olivia trudged over to the television set and turned it on. “Let’s watch ‘Wheel of Fortune’” Taylor suggested. “That’s the most boring show on the planet.” Olivia chided.  Taylor heard a creak of a floor board upstairs and jumped.  “We should make sure all of the doors are locked.” she declared.  She went around the whole house locking all of the doors.  She sat back down on the couch and could not stop bouncing her leg out of nervousness.  “Can you not?” Olivia barked.  “Sorry, just a little freaked out.” Taylor explained.  “It’s fine.  We are safe in here.” Olivia reasoned.  “You don’t know that for sure.” Taylor challenged.  She glanced nervously at Olivia.  “Championship match” Olivia solved the puzzle, attempting to change the subject.  Taylor looked back at the television and watched some more.  A knocking at the door startled them both.  Taylor stood up, slowly walking towards the brown wooden door.  Squinting her eye, she looked through the peep hole, but there was no one there.  She hesitantly opened the door, but the front step was vacant, only the welcome mat was to be seen.  Confused, she went back inside, surveying the outside as she shut the door.  “Who was it?” Olivia questioned.  “Nobody was there.” Taylor replied.  “Strange.” Olivia spoke slowly.  “We should go to bed now.” Olivia suggested.  “Okay,” Taylor agreed, “but let’s keep the lights on.”  “Okay, goodnight.” Taylor let Olivia have the guest room, so she walked up the worn, old stairs.  With every creak , Taylor jumped out of her skin, terrified.  She kept the television on as she fell asleep on the coal colored leather sofa.  Taylor jolted awake, but she had no idea why.  She could hear the whistle of the wind and wondered why a window or door would be open, since she made sure that all of the windows and doors were locked just last night.  It was still dark outside, so she was still scared.  Nervous that she was going to run into an intruder, she went upstairs to get Olivia.  Carefully pushing the old door open as to not make it squeak, she entered her  grandmothers’ guest bedroom.  However, Olivia was nowhere to be found.  Becoming concerned, she darted back out into the hallway and checked the whole entire house.  The purple bathroom upstairs, the blue bathroom downstairs, the kitchen, even the backyard. Olivia was nowhere to be found. She climbed the stairs back up to the guest room and noticed that the window was opened a crack.  Worried, she pulled her phone out of her back pocket to call the police; there was no signal.  Taylor sprinted down the stairs and pulled out Olivia’s laptop from her backpack that was laying up against the couch.  Pressing the power button, it wasn’t turning on.  After multiple tries, she gave up, figuring it was dead.  As soon as she layed Olivia’s backpack back where it was, the power went out.  With her heart racing, she reluctantly went down to the basement.  Using the flashlight on her phone, she scanned the walls for the fuse box to try to turn the power back on.  When Taylor finally found it, the door was opened.  A bang sounded almost directly behind her.  “Olivia?” she called out.  There was no answer.  Taylor dropped to the floor, attempting to hide from whoever was in the basement with her.   Her callused hands from many months of working in the woodshop at school scrambled to find her phone that was lying on the cracked cement floor.  Finally getting her phone, her shaky fingers tried dialing 911, but again, there was no signal.  She figured it was worth a shot, since she could think of nothing else to do.  Placing the phone silently back onto the floor, she peaked over the stack of patio chairs she was using as cover and scanned the room, looking for signs of movement.  Taylor came to the realization that someone had turned the power off on purpose.  Noticing that the basement door to the outside was opened just a crack, she began to crawl on her hands and knees towards it.  Making it outside, Taylor stood up, brushed the dirt off of her hands and knees and breathed a sigh of relief.  SNAP!  She turned around quickly, her long hair slapping her face in the process.  “Hello?”, she called out.  Nothing.  “Is anybody there?”, her voice shaky.  Still nothing, only the call of an owl responded.  “Well hello, Taylor…”, a familiar voice sounded in the distance.  Taylor thought for a minute and was shocked.  “Olivia? Is that you?” she questioned.  “You bet.” Olivia answered confidently.  She came out from behind a tree with a smirk across her face.  She took a knife out of her back pocket and…