Eerie by Blake Crouch Jordan Crouch Read Free Book Online Page A

back down, and tell you that everything’s okay. That there’s nothing in your room. That, as real as this may feel, it’s in your mind.”
    All the fight was leaving her.
    She looked scattered and helpless.
    Don crossed the living room, which had fallen into near-darkness now that the fire was dying.
    He stopped at the bottom of the staircase.
    “Which room, Paige?”
    “Please don’t.”
    “Which room?”
    “Turn right at the top of the stairs, round the corner, and go down to the end of the hall. My bedroom is the door at the end.”
    “Grant, would you come with me?”
    Grant followed Don.
    The staircase lifted out of the foyer into darkness.
    “She’s cracked,” Grant whispered as they climbed.
    Each step creaked like the hull of an old ship.
    “She doesn’t look well, and this paranoid delusion about something keeping her in the house is disturbing.”
    “So what do I do?”
    “Consider an involuntary commitment.”
    “Seriously?”
    “I can help you with the paperwork.”
    “Great. Maybe she can room with Dad.”
    The meager light that warmed the foyer fell away behind them.
    They climbed the last few steps into complete darkness and stopped, waiting for their eyes to adjust.
    Grant looked over to where Don stood, but could make out nothing of his shape.
    “Let’s find a light switch,” Don said.
    Grant heard him shuffle over to the wall and begin feeling his way along it. Grant followed suit, groping across wallpaper but his fingers only grazed a few picture frames. He continued down the hall and then around a corner, both hands guiding him along like a caver without a light. At last, he barked his shin against the leg of a table, rattling its contents.
    “You okay?” Don called from the other side.
    “Yeah.”
    Grant’s fingers moved across the surface of the table until they came to what felt like the base of a lamp.
    He followed it up, found the switch.
    Weak yellow light filled the hallway, barely enough to reach the far end.
    The ceiling was high and the walls so close together it almost looked like an optical illusion. Grant was struck with a fleeting imbalance, like standing in a funhouse, the proportions all wrong.
    The carpeting was thick, burgundy, and old.
    The wallpaper peeled in places, the Plaster of Paris underneath far more appealing than the maudlin floral print. Along the opposite wall, a cast-iron radiator belched out waves of heat that did little against the chill. Grant had fumbled down the hallway farther than he realized. The bedroom door loomed straight ahead, its thick frame detailed with scrollwork that matched the wainscoting.
    It sounded like Paige had begun to cry down on the first floor.
    Johnny Cash punctuated the moment with a muffled rendition of “Ring of Fire.”
    Grant’s heart jolted.
    He turned to find Don staring down at the wailing cell phone in his hand.
    “It’s just Rachel,” Don said.
    “I think Paige is crying. I’m going to head back down.”
    “Sounds good. Let me deal with this call, and then I’ll handle things up here.”
    Grant walked quickly back toward the staircase, secretly glad to be leaving that drafty hallway.

Chapter 10
    Paige was curled up on the couch, and as soon as she saw him, she turned away and wiped the mascara stains from her cheeks.
    Grant sat down on the hardwood floor at eye level with his sister.
    Laid his hand carefully on her shoulder.
    “I don’t know how I got to this point,” she said. “You ever feel that way?”
    “Absolutely. I’ve had my share of spinouts. All that matters is you’re moving forward. Things are going to get better.”
    “I sound like a crazy person.”
    “You should’ve seen me a few years back.”
    She wiped her cheeks again and rolled over to face him.
    “But did you ever feel like you didn’t know what was real?”
    He shook his head.
    “It sucks.”
    “You and I have never been crybabies about anything, but we haven’t exactly lived the nuclear family