Double Cross [2] by Carolyn Crane Read Free Book Online Page B

chip cookie dough ice cream yesterday. Now
that
was exciting. It’s time for you to leave.” I go and hold the door open for him.
    “I’m sure I’ll enjoy having that ice cream with you.” This in a tone like it’ll be really fun, in a dirty way.
    I feel my face heat up. I hate it. I feel like I’m betraying Otto.
    He comes nearer, his smile mischievous. “I can’t wait to be inside you for it. I think it will be delicious.”
    Just like that, I lift my hand and I slap him. The high, loud sound startles me. His eyes widen.
    The insides of my fingers sting, and my heart beats like crazy. I’ve never slapped anybody. I didn’t know I had it in me.
    “I’m with Otto,” I say. “I’m committed to him.”Packard’s right cheek is slightly pink, I notice with some surprise. “Do you have no sense of decency?”
    He pauses, seems to think about this, then turns and walks out the door.
    I slam it behind him.

Chapter

Five
    A DIM, ENCLOSED STAIRWELL —wide, with a metal banister up the center, and graffiti all over the cement block walls.
What is this place? Why is it familiar?
My heart pounds out of my chest as I breathe in mold and pigeon dung. Down below is the silent opening. It used to be a row of doors. One still hangs crookedly by a hinge, more decoration than door, with smashed chicken-wire glass still in it. Beyond, tall grasses sway in the moonlight.
    With my bare foot I feel for the first crater in the cold stone steps. It’s like walking on badly damaged teeth, but I know the good places to step, and I move down easily to crouch near the broken doors.
    I’m on hyperalert, and I don’t know why. It’s as though I’m trapped inside a fierce river current of unfamiliar thoughts and feelings, and they’re all about protecting this place.
    A sound. I freeze. A crack—somebody or something stepped on a branch. I stay quiet as a ghost. Treetops rustle. Night birds call and whir. Another branch crack, and the rustle of wings.
    A coon.
    I breathe. Relief.
Nobody’s coming
. I turn to go back up the steps. Back upstairs where it’s warm. I picture shoes around a small fire. Food in cans.
    Halfway back up the steps, something in the wall catches my eye—a new crack, jutting down like dark lightning through bright graffiti.
    Alarm. Guilt. Heart pounding out of my chest.
No, not there.
    I scrabble across; sharp pain in my heel. Glass. I’ll get it out later. I have to see.
    The next thing I see is a hand—my hand, but not my hand—holding a lighter up to the crack, though it’s more like a crevice; you could shove an apple in there. Breath, coming too fast. Closer now. I press an eye to the gap, thumb working the lighter’s rough metal circle until a flame brings heat to my cheek, my eye, and light to the inside.
    Bile rises into my throat when I see the ends of three dead, leathery fingers sticking right out of the broken wall into the gap, that seems a mile wide now. One has a creepy curved nail. Another has its fingernail hanging by a hair. The last is exposed to the knuckle, with no fingernail. No—the fingernail is embedded in the other side of the crack. I can’t breathe. My throat won’t work at all. I’ve dropped the lighter and I’m stuffing dead leaves and gravel in there. Anything to block it up.
    I wake up gasping, coughing, neck thick with panic, eyes watering.
    I put my hand over my chest, hoping to calm my heart, which is thumping dangerously hard.
    Just a dream.
    The red numbers of my clock come into view: 3:34 a.m. I tell myself that I’m not there—I’m here.
    Here.
    I breathe deep, nightshirt clinging cold to my spine, trying to shake the horrible image out of my mind. Fingers. I don’t want to go back. There’s a body in there.
    I rub my face. I’ve never had a nightmare like that—so strange, yet horrifyingly real and familiar. It was so clear,and it moved almost in real time, not dreamtime. I picture the hand holding the lighter. Its knuckled shape reminds me of