The Man Beneath the Floor

*Ainslee*

Every hair on my body stands on end, a sheen of sweat forming on my otherwise freezing skin. My head swivels in the direction the voice has come from, but I can’t see anything at all, only darkness.

Did I imagine it? Perhaps my fear of being caught by one of the vampires is messing with my mind.

No, I definitely hadn’t imagined the voice that had greeted me as I’d slid into this confined space. “Who’s there?” I whisper into the void my mind has me convinced must be empty. The idea that we are in a small carved out space beneath the church where just about anything could be hiding, including all sorts of creatures, even the dreaded faepires, has me recoiling, trying to put some distance between myself and the inky blackness where what might even be a disembodied voice originated.

My fingers tremble at my side as I consider reaching over to feel through the darkness, but I don’t dare move. I can’t, even if I want to. That panicked paralysis that had held us all at the starting