Ask the Dark by Henry Turner Read Free Book Online Page A

I dug my hand in it, pulling stuff out to feel what it was. There were rings, and a sort’f crown piece just for the front of the head I seen girls wear when they dressed as princesses on Halloween. There was more necklaces, and then these fancy gloves, long ones that go way up to your elbow. And under it all was this ladies’ dress, or two or three of’m, I didn’t take’m out, acting like a pillow so what’s on top don’t get all scratched.
    I closed the box just like it’d been, and I crouched there thinking ’bout the best way to get it out. I couldn’t get it down that tree in the dark, damn thing was heavy. But really I was thinking I ain’t just found forty-eight thousand, but maybe even more, if all these jewels turned out to be real.
    Then the door opened in front of the house and I froze dead still.
    Usually in a house I look first to find hiding places, places to sneak to if I can’t get out quick and know somebody might come looking to see who’s there. But I hadn’t done it ’cause I’d thought nobody’d ever come around, and because it was so dark I didn’t remember nothing of where I’d been, so I had nowhere to run to.
    Coming into that room I’d shut the door behind me. I couldn’t open it now and run out ’cause’f the noise it would make. So what I done was step back maybe a yard, one big swooping step, to where I’d be behind the door if it opened. And all the while I was hearing somebody walking through the house, and damn near shitting bricks as I heard.
    The footsteps stopped awhile and I heard a toilet flush, and then they come on again, footsteps, coming toward me. I was praying to God they might turn away, but the door opened then, pulling air in the room and puffing out them window bags, and me right there behind the door.
    Whoever it was just come in the room and stood there. I couldn’t see hardly nothing, and whoever it was didn’t move. There I heard some shuffling around and some light come on ’cause this man—I could see past the door enough to know it was a man—had a flashlight.
    Flashlight was that new kind that only shines where you point it, else he’d put some sort’f sleeve on the front to narrow the beam. It didn’t light the whole room, but just where he aimed it, down on the floor at the coats. When he’d come in I opened my mouth big, ’cause if you do that you can breathe silent, but I don’t think I breathed at all. I just stood there, three feet behind him, and it was like a crazy dream where you can’t get out, and he was shuffling his hand on the coats on the floor just where I’d dropped’m. Then he laid down his light and piled’m all in his arms.
    All I could think was, If he turns, I’m caught.
    Course, I didn’t know then who this fucker was, and that if he turned I was dead.
    But he didn’t turn, just flicked off the flashlight and put it away somewhere. Then he dumped them coats on top of that box, same one with the jewels in it, picked it all up with a heave, turned out the door and shut it.
    I didn’t breathe yet, and I waited a good long time till after I heard that front door shut and a car drive off ’fore I moved at all. Then I felt my pants leg and laughed, ’cause I’d pissed myself and not even known it.
    I went upstairs, though it scared me to death to do it, and went along to the room where I found the open window, and I went out onto the roof, quiet as anything, putting the plastic back up on them bent staples just like I’d found it, and closing that window just so.
    I come down the tree, went over the board fence, and come out Simon Hooper’s yard. Dodged through other yards, still so scared I could barely think to myself, and sometimes stayed in black shadows four/five minutes, just to be sure nobody saw.
    Took me an hour to get home, I moved so slow, and when I was finally back in my room I stood there breathing hard, still scared as shit.
    Then I felt round my back pocket and laughed out loud. I still had