The terrifying question had not more than entered my head when from somewhere down the corridor a cold current of air struck me.
I shivered. Some door or window had been opened. Some door—the south door! Was it the south door?
I was standing, gripping the chair back, loath to leave that firm, stationary thing and venture forth into the surrounding blackness that was alive, now, with foreboding and the menace of unspeakable things. Was something moving? Did I hear a stealthy footstep? Was it the thudding of my own heart?
I strove to move, to force my horror-drugged muscles to advance that length of grisly blackness toward—toward Room 18.
I tried to call out: “Maida—Maida—” I kept saying and finally realized that my stiff lips were only shaping the words.
What was happening down there? Was Room 18 claiming another—— Was—— I took a step into the darkness, tore my reluctant hands from the chair, and groped for the wall to guide me past the yawning emptiness of those intervening doors.
With outstretched, shaking hands, I was feeling for some stable thing to guide me, when, in that dead silence, there was a shattering crash of sound.
It was a revolver shot! The crash reverberated through the halls, echoing and reëchoing in those empty spaces and about those blank doors.
Then gradually the frightful echoes died away. The blackness pressed in upon me, more suffocating than before, and again dead silence reigned.
For a moment I must have been numb with shock. Then there were footsteps running, a cry, the clicking of signal lights that did not light, and I was running, stumbling, gasping, bumping into doors, trying to reach the end of the corridor. And Room 18.