Chapter 3: The Popcorn and the Footprints

The singing from Theater 3 had stopped twenty minutes ago, but Leo could still hear echoes of it in his mind—a lullaby sung in a voice that belonged to no human throat. He'd retreated to the lobby and positioned himself behind the concession stand, using its bulk as a psychological barrier between himself and the hallway of horrors.

His hands had finally stopped shaking enough to hold his phone steady. 11:47 PM. Thirteen minutes until his next scheduled task: the midnight lobby sweep. The rules made it sound routine, almost mundane, but Leo was beginning to understand that nothing in SilverGate was mundane.

He'd been trying to rationalize what he'd seen in Theater 5, constructing elaborate theories involving hidden projectors and psychological manipulation. But the singing from Theater 3 had shattered those fragile explanations. There had been dozens of voices in that chorus, maybe hundreds, all harmonizing in languages that predated human speech.

A sharp crack echoed through the lobby.

Leo's head snapped up, scanning the darkness beyond his small circle of phone light. The sound had come from somewhere near the theater hallway, like wood splitting under pressure. He waited, barely breathing, but heard nothing more.

11:52 PM.

He pulled out Dennis's list and read rule four again: "Sweep the lobby at midnight, 2 AM, and 4 AM. If you miss a scheduled cleaning, check the bathroom immediately. If there are wet footprints leading to the stalls, do not follow them."

The bathroom. Leo hadn't even noticed it during his initial tour. He swept his phone light across the lobby and spotted a door marked "RESTROOMS" near the back wall, almost hidden behind a life-sized cardboard cutout of some forgotten movie star whose face had been scratched away by time and vandalism.

11:58 PM.

Leo found the janitor's closet where Dennis had shown him earlier and retrieved a push broom that looked older than he was. The wooden handle was worn smooth by decades of use, and someone had carved initials into it: "S.M. - Don't let them win."

Sarah M., he realized. The same Sarah who'd carved her warning in the maintenance closet.

Midnight arrived with the sound of a bell tolling somewhere deep in the building—though Leo was certain he hadn't seen any clocks with chimes. The sound resonated through the walls, seeming to come from everywhere at once, and in its wake came an oppressive silence that made his ears ring.

He began sweeping, starting near the front doors and working his way back. The lobby was larger than he'd initially realized, full of alcoves and corners that his flashlight couldn't fully penetrate. With each push of the broom, clouds of dust rose into the air, carrying scents of decades past—old perfume, cigarette smoke, something sweet and rotten that made his stomach turn.

As he worked, Leo became aware of sounds from the theater hallway. Not the singing this time, but something else. Footsteps. Slow, deliberate, and definitely not human. They had a wet, sliding quality, like someone walking in bare feet through puddles.

He tried to ignore them, focusing on his sweeping, but the sounds grew louder. Closer. And they were accompanied by something else now—a voice calling from the direction of the projection booth above the lobby.

"Leo!" The voice was Dennis's, but wrong in subtle ways. Too cheerful, too welcoming. "Leo, can you come up here? I need to show you something important!"

Rule three flashed in Leo's mind: "If you hear your name called from the projection booth, do not respond. It is not who you think it is."

"Leo!" The fake Dennis called again. "The real rules are up here! The ones that will keep you safe!"

Leo kept sweeping, his jaw clenched tight to keep from responding. The voice in the booth grew more insistent, more desperate.

"Leo, please! There's something you need to know about the contract you signed! About what happens to people who don't follow the real instructions!"

The wet footsteps from the hallway were getting closer now. Leo could hear them in the lobby, circling around behind him. He didn't dare turn to look, focusing instead on the steady rhythm of his sweeping. Push, pull, step forward. Push, pull, step forward.

"LEO!" The voice in the booth screamed now, no longer trying to sound like Dennis. It was something else entirely, something that had learned human speech but couldn't quite master human emotion. "ANSWER ME WHEN I'M TALKING TO YOU!"

A crash echoed from Theater 3, so loud it shook dust from the ceiling. Then came the screams—bloodcurdling shrieks of agony and terror that seemed to go on forever. They were human screams, Leo realized with horror. Someone was in there, someone was suffering, and the rule said he couldn't open the door no matter what he heard.

"Help us!" A woman's voice from inside Theater 3. "Please, God, someone help us! The door's locked! We can't get out!"

More voices joined in, a chorus of the trapped and dying. Men, women, children—all begging for rescue that Leo couldn't provide.

The wet footsteps stopped directly behind him.

Leo's whole body tensed, but he kept sweeping. Whatever was standing behind him, he couldn't acknowledge it. The rules were the only thing keeping him alive, and he'd already seen what happened when they were followed exactly.

Something cold and damp touched the back of his neck.

Leo bit his tongue hard enough to taste blood, but he didn't turn around. The touch traveled down his spine, leaving a trail of moisture that soaked through his shirt. Fingers—long, webbed fingers—traced the outline of his shoulder blades with delicate precision.

The screams from Theater 3 reached a crescendo, then cut off abruptly. The silence that followed was somehow worse than the noise had been.

"Such a good boy," whispered a voice directly in his ear. The breath that carried it smelled like stagnant pond water. "Following the rules so nicely. But we know you want to look. We know you want to turn around and see what's standing behind you."

Leo pushed the broom forward with mechanical precision. His phone showed 12:23 AM. He was almost finished with the lobby sweep.

The wet fingers moved to his throat now, not choking but caressing, feeling for his pulse. When they found it, hammering against his neck like a trapped bird, something behind him made a sound of satisfaction—a wet, bubbling chuckle that spoke of drowned things and forgotten depths.

"Soon," the voice whispered. "Very soon, you'll make a mistake. They all do. And when you do, we'll be waiting."

The presence behind him vanished so suddenly that Leo stumbled forward, catching himself on the broom handle. He spun around, but the lobby was empty. Only shadows and silence, and the lingering smell of stagnant water.

His phone showed 12:24 AM. The midnight sweep was complete, but Leo's relief was short-lived. He'd been so focused on the entity behind him that he'd lost track of time during the cleaning. Had he started exactly at midnight? Or had he been a minute late?

The thought sent ice through his veins. Rule four was specific about timing, and the consequences of missing a scheduled cleaning were explicitly outlined.

Leo pulled out his phone's flashlight and checked the timestamp on his photos. He'd taken one picture when he first grabbed the broom: 12:01 AM. He'd started the sweep a minute late.

"Shit," he breathed, then immediately regretted speaking aloud in this place that seemed to feed on sound and fear.

According to the rule, he needed to check the bathroom immediately. If there were wet footprints leading to the stalls, he was not to follow them. The implication was clear—if there were no footprints, he was safe. If there were... well, the rule suggested that not following them was the key to survival.

The bathroom door was wooden, painted institutional green, with a brass handle tarnished black with age. Leo approached it slowly, every instinct screaming at him to turn around and pretend he'd completed the sweep on time. But the rules were absolute. Breaking them or ignoring them seemed to carry consequences far worse than following them, no matter how terrifying that might be.

He pushed open the door.

The smell hit him first—chlorine and mildew and something else, something organic and foul. The bathroom was larger than expected, with a row of sinks along one wall and stall doors along the other. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, casting everything in stuttering, epileptic shadows.

And there, leading from the entrance to the last stall, were the footprints.

They were wet, glistening in the fluorescent light, and definitely not human. Each print was elongated, with what looked like webbed toes and strange, claw-like extensions. They gleamed with moisture that seemed to move and flow even as Leo watched, as if the prints were somehow still fresh, still being made by an invisible presence.

The trail led directly to the last stall, whose door stood slightly ajar.

Leo's throat went dry. The rule said not to follow them, but he was already in the bathroom. Did that count as following? Where exactly was the line he couldn't cross?

From inside the last stall came the sound of dripping water. Slow, steady, hypnotic. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Leo took a step backward, toward the door, but froze when he saw his reflection in the mirror above the sinks.

It wasn't his reflection.

The thing in the mirror was tall and gaunt, wearing clothes that might once have been a janitor's uniform but were now stained with substances Leo didn't want to identify. Its face was partially obscured by shadow, but he could see enough to know it was smiling. And in its hands, held across its chest like a badge of office, was a shovel. The blade was caked with dark soil and darker stains.

Rule seven: "The reflection in the bathroom mirror may not always be your own. If it's holding a shovel, do not make eye contact."

Leo looked down at the floor, his heart hammering. In his peripheral vision, he could see the thing in the mirror moving, leaning forward as if trying to get a better look at him. The shovel scraped against the glass with a sound like fingernails on a chalkboard.

The dripping from the last stall grew faster. Louder. And now it was accompanied by something else—a wet, sliding sound, as if something large was moving around in there, disturbing pools of standing water.

Leo backed toward the door, keeping his eyes fixed on his own feet, refusing to look at the mirror or follow the wet footprints to their source. The thing in the mirror laughed—a sound like gravel in a cement mixer—but Leo didn't look up.

He reached the door and pushed through it, stumbling back into the lobby. Behind him, the bathroom fell silent, but he could feel the presence in the mirror watching him, waiting for him to make the mistake of looking back.

Leo checked his phone: 12:31 AM. He'd survived his first major mistake, but barely. The wet footprints had been there, and he'd seen the thing with the shovel, but he'd followed the rules. He hadn't made eye contact, and he hadn't followed the prints to their destination.

But as he walked back toward the concession stand, Leo couldn't shake the feeling that he'd learned something important about SilverGate. The rules weren't just about survival—they were about maintaining boundaries. Lines that shouldn't be crossed, doors that shouldn't be opened, reflections that shouldn't be trusted.

And every rule he followed successfully seemed to make the entities more interested in him, more determined to find the crack in his resolve that would let them in.

From the bathroom came the sound of a shovel striking concrete, again and again, as if something was digging its way up from below.

Leo walked faster, but he didn't run. Running, he was beginning to understand, might count as breaking a rule he didn't even know existed yet.

Behind him, the digging sounds grew more frantic, more desperate.

Something was trying very hard to reach the surface.