"your experience so far?" The phone said. Derrek stepped over the sickle, eyes on the stairs.
"Mediocre, the ketchup really broke the spell." A chuckle came from the line. Derrek slowly took the first step.
"True, last minute addition, hard to clean up again. Did you like the dining room?" Derrek cringed as the second step creaked like before. Dining room? Was that the double door or the unknown room?
"Haven't seen it yet." He said, his voice a bit hushed as he took the third step. He counted about fifteen steps to the top. Damn, he'll hear me for sure.
"Oh no, you're missing the full experience. We—" Derrek held the phone a bit further from his hear, listening for the voice. "Put so much effort into that room." He heard silently with an odd tone from the phone, but not ahead of him. Step five. One of the rooms, then. Hopefully he won't hear me from there. Six.
"I'll be sure to get in line for that one." Seven. Another chuckle came from the line.
"Funny guy, are you?" Eight. Halfway. "Really rude of you to handcuff a girl, you know. Not gentlemanly." Nine. He tried listening again, but couldn't hear anything from up there.
"Shooting at a cop is?" Ten. A big squeak came from this one, stopping Derrek from putting more weight on his foot. He hovered on it, holding his breath.
"Well, technically, I wasn't really shooting at you." He released his breath. He hasn't heard. "I thought cops could hear the difference between blanks and real bullets?" Eleven. Damn, not this one.
"Not my first thought when someone is firing at me." Twelve. Thirteen. Derrek stopped, looking at the phone. Have I lost connection? There's still two bars. Why isn't he talking? Has he heard me? Derrek drew his rubber gun. The landing was dark above him, his eyes were still adjusting from the light downstairs. He turned the phone sideways from his ears to cast some light, it wasn't enough to make out anything beyond the final steps and the light switch on the wall.
"Coming up are you?" Crap, enough subtlety then. Fourteen, fifteen. He flicked the light switch with his gun and scanned the landing. In front of him were two doors, heading to the back of the house. To his right another door to a room above the kitchen. A railing was around the stairs where the landing continued deeper toward the front of the house and three other doors, the first on the left above the unknown room, the second above the study and the third, which was on the right, above the room with the double doors.
All doors were closed, no teen either, but he spotted another phone holder in the middle of the landing. Empty.
"The reach on these things is incredible, you know?" Derrek heard a door downstairs open.
God damn. Derrek turned and rushed down the stairs. As he reached the tenth step, he saw the front door swing shut, a dark figure rushing beside the stairs, further down the hall. The lights on the stairs and hallway below were on too, connected to the button from above. That's him! The watcher, Yves. Must have slipped outside while the tractor was still running outside. Watching me. Derrek tried aiming his rubber gun while taking the steps, but Yves already passed his vision. He heard another door open, footsteps following quickly again. Crap, gotta do this the hard way. He hurried on below, taking care not to stumble down the steps.
At the fourth step, he saw enough through the handrail spokes, the kitchen door was still moving. There! He turned at the bottom, jumped over the sickle, and passed through the open kitchen door.