(SMSHC)

The autumn wind picked up leaves of various colors and sizes, twirling them around
faster and faster, until finally spitting them out to fall loudly against the side of the
old brownstone medical building on Ronson Court, where they would eventually
disappear, until next year. As Jake and Sam made their way to the back of the
building, a light rain began to fall, wetting the outside of their warm jackets with a
layer of beaded water that reflected the streetlight like a prism. It was October the
28th, a saturday night, and three days before Halloween. But it was the only time
they'd be able to pull off this contest without drawing attention to themselves, as
saturday night meant that no guard would be on duty to interfere with their plans.

Jake had teased Sam ( Samantha ) for the last time. Seems it was going to come
down to this no matter what. She always had to show him that she could do anything he could do, only better. He loved her, but her feminist-tomboy-ish side
drove him up the wall sometimes. Now of course, it had come down to the fear
factor bull# that, even if he had wanted to, he couldn't back out of because he'd
lose his friends' respect as well as hers. They had bragged out loud in front of God
and everyone that they weren't easily scared, and after a few more cold beers the
challenge had emerged from one of their friends, and thus the bets were on. Who
could last the longest without getting scared, Jake or Sam? The contest had been
put together by two former employees of Hilltop Hospital who claimed to have the
perfect location for the festivities. They were given directions to the brownstone
medical warehouse and told to be there at 11:00 P.M., October 28th.
And now they were here.

It began to rain harder as they neared the back door. Tom Sheridan and Kevin
Tooms stepped out of the shadows and greeted them with sissy-like boos and
growls, but to no avail. They were too pissed to be scared. They were pissed at each other and determined to not let anything or anyone keep them from winning
this contest. Tom and Kevin picked up on this immediately and stopped their lame
attempt to disrupt their concentration, producing a key that opened the basement
door as quietly as could be expected. They all went into the dark hallway and the
heavy metal door was closed and locked again. Tom led Jake and Sam up three
flights of stairs and then down a long hallway to a room at the end. As they passed
other rooms they noticed that although a thick coat of dust rested on everything,
the rooms and building seemed to be completely devoid of any furniture and
equipment. That is, until they got to the room at the end of the hallway.

Entering the room, Jake and Sam saw the lungs. Two of them, one on one side, one on the other. Iron lungs! Old iron lungs. Probably from the 1950's. Yet they
appeared clean and operational. Tom and Kevin walked over to the lungs and
released a latch that let the top of the lung open vertically. "Here we go guys, let's
get this show on the road," Kevin hollered. "Come on, get in guys, we've got to be
out of here before midnight when the contest starts officially," yelled Tom.
Without further comment Jake went to one lung and Sam to the other, and they
both climbed in. Laying on their backs, they were given a push-button device to
hold and then their hands were duct-taped together. Last minute instuctions were
explained. When the tops to the iron lungs are closed at exactly 11:55 P.M. and
Tom and Kevin leave the premises, the contest begins. The first person in an
iron lung to press the "scared" button loses, and the contest will be over. The
winner will be the one who doesn't press the "scared" button first. Tom and Kevin
will go back down to the basement and monitor the buttons. If Sam's button were
to be pressed, a red light would accompany the buzzing sound. Likewise, if it was
Jake's, a green light would accompany the buzz. The tops were lowered and
latched, effectively sealing in Jake and Sam. Each lung had its own electrical plug
that was plugged into its own electrical outlet. Tom and Kevin re-checked all the
connections and made sure that the iron lungs were in fact pumping air.
Satisfied, they knocked on the exterior of each lung and waved goodbye to the
two contestants, then left the room.

There was very little room to move around inside the lung. And with their hands
taped together, resting on their stomachs, they prepared for a long night, trying
to get as comfortable as possible. A plexiglass window three inches above their
heads let in whatever light it could find, but the darkness was almost total. They
could only hear the pumping of the air inside the lung, as no other sounds existed
anywhere near them. It had begun.

At approximately 1:30 A.M., the storm arrived outside. Rain came down sideways
as the wind blew it against the windows and doors. Thunder and lightning rattled
the neighborhood. But inside the warehouse it was quiet and still. Inside the iron
lungs it was pitch dark, except when the lightning lit up the room from time to time.
When the first lightning had come, both Jake and Sam were startled out of an
early nap, the lightning coming in right through their eyelids! After a while they got
used to it.

Laying there in the dark, Sam had her first experience with claustrophobia. She
never much liked tight, enclosed spaces anyway, but the darkness added a
sinister feeling to it all. She didn't think she was scared of it, just uncomfortable
with it. She took deep breathes, moved around as much as she could, and shut
her eyes every so often. Still, a little panic seeped into the lung with her.

Jake didn't like the dark! He had expected a little bit of light. Especially with the
plexiglass window right in front of his eyes. But he could see nothing. Absolutely
pitch-black nothing! He lifted his head too fast in the dark and it banged against
the glass, causing his eyes to water. At the same time lightning lit up the old
warehouse, catching him unprepared. A shiver went through him initiallly, and then
he began to use the lightning as a reference point and slowly calmed down.

At 2:20 P.M. , both Sam and Jake felt movement. The lungs were moving! In the
dark! Someone was pushing the iron lungs around and around on their wheels.
Someone was in the room with them! Someone knew they were latched shut inside! Jake wondered about Tom and Kevin. Hey?

[edit on 12-10-2006 by SIEGE]

[edit on 12-10-2006 by SIEGE]

Nice siege, but hey come on, i hate being kept in suspense!!

Im waiting....

"I don't get scared" Part II

The iron lungs crashed into each other, then became still again. Inside, both
contestants were frantically pushing their "scared" buttons and screaming as loud
as they could. Jake had received a badly bruised knee from the crash and Sam
a deep gash along the top of her forehead that dripped blood onto the padded
headrest.
Outside of the iron lungs, the room appeared to be quiet and still, quite tranquil.
No screams could be heard coming from the inside of the lungs, yet they appeared
to be moving slightly, as if someone was trying to get out.
Downstairs, in the basement, red and green lights flickered on and off, over and
over again. The buzzing was constant.

Thirty or forty minutes went by, but still no one came to let them out as was
planned. What the hell was going on? Jake wanted out now, and he didn't give a
damn whether he lost to Sam or not, he'd had enough of this crap. He listened
for any sound that might mean help had arrived, but heard nothing. He sensed no
movement. Sam began to really think about her claustrophobia, and her panic
mounted. She knew that she had pushed the "scared" button so many times that
the contest should have been over long ago, but still no one came to release them
from the lungs. What was going on? Were their friends playing a prank on them,
getting back at them? They had promised to be there so this wouldn't happen!

Another thirty minutes passed, yet the room remained still and quiet. Inside the
iron lungs, only the pumping sound of the air making its way through the machine
could be heard. The screaming and yelling had stopped, basically because both
contestants had come to the realization that it was completely futile. They knew
no one could hear them. They wondered why no one had come yet. Had something
happened to Kevin and Tom? Where the hell were the rest of their friends?

Two more hours went by before their questions had any answers. Trapped inside
the iron lungs with no way to move or maneuver, they were caught off guard when
the first head slammed hard against Jake's viewplate, and then again into Sam's
viewplate. Jake was definitely scared now! He thought he saw Tom's face as the
head slammed again and again into his plexiglass viewplate. Someone was
holding Tom's head by the hair and banging it over and over again into his viewplate. Blood smeared over the plexiglass, at times making visibility almost
impossible. Sam screamed as Kevin's face appeared in her viewplate, then began
to slam against it. His severed head beat against the glass until she thought he
began to look like a bloody beet. Then suddenly it was over. The heads were gone
and the banging was too. Only streaks of red trailing across the plexiglass gave
tell-tale signs indicating something gruesome had just occurred. Otherwise, it was
quiet, still, and dark.

It's funny how scary silence can be. Sometimes you can hear yourself sweat. The
fear inside you wants out so bad that it's like a loud roar in your chest, and then
your ears. Swallowing doesn't help, and its own amplification only serves to
unsettle you more. You strain to hear anything and everything, to reassure yourself
that you are sane. But when you can't hear anything it's eerie.

Jake thought about another hour must've passed when he heard what sounded like
a drill. The sound was hair-raising as the carbide drillbit ripped into the outer steel
shell of the lung, rending the sheetmetal into crinkles of distorted metal ribbons.
He felt oblivious to the invasion until he realized it was Sam's lung they were
drilling.
Sam was screaming again, loud and shrill. The drillbit had penetrated inside the
iron lung and seemed to be searching for human tissue. It bounced off her hip,
taking some of her flesh with it, and she screamed again. She was crying now too,
and her terror was turning to anger as the drillbit opened yet another hole in the
metal, landing against her leg, boring into the skin. She felt blood flowing now from
two or three wounds. Another hole, this time in the left shoulder. And another.
She began to toss around inside the lung trying to avoid the drill's new paths.
And then it was Jake's turn. The first penetration into his lung got him right in the
ear, and he had to force his head away from the drillbit until it went for another
spot. His blood began to flow all around him as he moved to play dodgeball with
the drillbit. And just as suddenly as it started, it stopped.
The air pumps shut down! It now became deathly quiet. Not even the sound of the
circulating air anymore! Nothing! Jake and Sam knew now that they would always
be scared of things from now on, for the rest of their lives. Lightning again lit up
the room as the storm outside continued. What time of day was it? Surely night
had passed into day by now, but the darkness remained to block their senses.

The axe came out of the dark unseen, splitting the plexiglass viewplate and sending
tiny shards of plastic into Jake's face. This time he screamed too, and moved arouind inside the lung as best he could to avoid a direct hit in the face. He couldn't
catch his breath and that panicked him. The axe fell again and again, raining hard
blows down on the now damaged iron lung. He heard Sam's lung being struck and
figured her situation wasn't any better than his. Her screams though sent goose-
bumps down his spine. Finally it was over again, and this time the silence was
welcomed like a blessing. Sam was assessing her situation when she heard her
name called. "Sam, are you there? Sam, it's me, Jake, are you okay? Sam?

"Jake, I can hear you, I'm okay" "Jake?"
"Is your viewplate broken Sam?"
"Yes it is."
"So's mine. At least now we can hear each other."
"What the hell is going on Jake? Why haven't they come to let us out?"
"I don't know Sam, something's gone wrong. Terribly wrong."

They talked quietly with each other for awhile, enjoying the feeling of togetherness
that permeated their words. They weren't alone anymore. As their conversation
trailed off, they heard for the first time the approach of something evil. It came
down the hall, and as it entered the room what little light that did exist vanished,
and they held their breathes and didn't move a muscle. The iron lungs were
wheeled out to the middle of the room. The exterior locking mechanism, or latch,
was activated, and even in the pitch-black darkness they could feel the cover begin
to vertically lift. They were being freed!
As the cover hatch locked open, Jake and Sam both sat upright for the first time in
approximately eighteen hours. They didn't speak until they were satisfied that whatever had come into the room had left. Stretching down to the floor, Jake's legs
found the strength to stand upright, and he shuffled over to the wall to find the
light switch. Softly, he whispered to Sam that he was going to turn on the light.
Blink ! "Oh my God Sam, you look like the living dead!
"And you look like hell cowboy, bloody hell!"
They made their way down to the basement only to find the lights blinking and the
buzzers buzzing. Kevin and Tom were not there. Nobody was there. Sam reached over and shut off the lights and the buzzers. Quiet again.
Jake found the key to the basement door beside the electrical board, and they made their way out of the building, shutting and locking the heavy metal door from
the outside this time. It was still raining hard as they walked hand in hand back to
the trees where the leaves had been captured by the wind and taken away.

No one ever knew what happened to Tom and Kevin, and they were never seen
again. Their friends never felt comfortable around them again, and drifted away.
Jake and Sam married and had two kids. They enjoyed each other and the kids
all year round, every year, except in October, when they stayed at home most of
the month with the doors locked. They never bet again on anything, and never
celebrated Halloween even once.

A nice lttle tale indeed, SEIGE...severed heads, axes, an unknown assailant and a couple of buddies never heard from again.

I liked the setting for your story...an echoing chamber of horrors on a stormy night, lightning flashes illuminating the cold scene outside of those steel chambers and their screams failing in that lonely place.

And you finished it on Friday the 13th too !!!