Haunted Shadows 1: Sickness Behind Young Eyes by Jack Lewis Read Free Book Online Page B

My heart banged and I jerked my head away. I realised it
was the cover of the book, and that I had fallen asleep on the desk whilst
reading. There was a dripping sound behind me, the sound of water beating
rhythmically against porcelain.
     
    “Time for some sleep,” I said, as if
announcing the idea to the room would break the creepy spell that seemed to
have taken hold in it.
     
    The dripping grew louder, the water
doing the best it could to get my attention. I walked across the floorboards
and heard them creak underneath my bare feet. Sometimes it sounded like there
were two creaks at once, as if someone walked behind me and lifted their feet
at the same time as mine. As I got to the bathroom the dripping sound faded.
     
    I stopped and listened. My pulse
throbbed inside me and my arms felt sensitive, as if something was playing with
the hairs on them. I swallowed. Suddenly, staying in Jeremiah’s room didn’t
seem such a stupid idea. Even if it meant on his floor.
     
    No , I thought. That’d just confirm every single
thought he has about you.
     
    A hand banged against the bathroom
window and spread its fingers across the glass. I jerked away, almost backing
into the door. Another look, and the hand became the spindly branches of a tree
as the wind toyed with it.
     
    The room was silent, the shadows
having nothing to say. I listened again. I knew that fear was in the mind, and
it was in every person’s power to feed it or let it starve. I held in a breath
and tried to cut off my fear’s supply of food, tried to make wither away.
     
    See? There’s no sound. Shadows are
just shadows.
     
    Something dripped behind me. I span
round, my breath catching in my chest. Then I saw that it was the sink in the
corner of the bedroom. Globs of water formed on the spout of the tap and then
fell onto the cracked porcelain. I let out a sigh of relief.
     
    I walked over to the sink and twisted
the tap. It struggled against the turn, as if it hadn’t been touched in years.
The sink was dirty and scratched with age. Disgustingly, there was black hair
wrapped in the plughole.
     
    “For god’s sake Marsha, you old cow ,” I said.
     
    I’m not the sort of person who can
leave mess until morning. If something needs doing, it needs doing now.
Although the idea of touching someone else’s hair made my stomach turn, I knew
that I wouldn’t be able to sleep knowing that it was there, the strands tangled
in the plug and trying to crawl down the pipe.
     
    I grabbed the bin from the bathroom
and put it next to the sink in my bedroom. I turned my head away, as if
avoiding looking made it less disgusting, and grabbed the hair. It was black
and wet, and it seemed to be wrapped in loops around the metal of the plug
hole. It wouldn’t come away on the first tug so I had to get a firmer grip and
pull. Despite being wet the hair was tough, and it took a good few pulls with
most of my strength to break it away. Finally, after another tug, I felt it
start to snap and tear. It felt like pulling off a strip of Velcro.
     
    As I pulled at the hair more and more
of it came out. First just a few strands, but quickly more. They became thicker
and thicker, each clump of it sodden with stinking water. It was like a wig
that had been left in a muddy puddle, and the musty smell was enough to hang
heavy in the air.
     
    The putrid water slashed over my arms
and onto my clothes. I started throwing hair in the bin beside me, but the more
I put in the more there was in the plug. I tugged at it and pulled a slimy
snake-like bunch of it. It slapped down on my arm and water flicked off,
spraying my face and chin. A few drops landed in my mouth, and I gagged as I
tasted the rank liquid on my tongue.
     
    My heart thumped. Where the hell was
all this hair coming from? Why hadn’t Marsha sorted it? As the stench worked
its way up my nose and my arms were splashed with rank water, I wanted to shout
out. It felt like it would never end.
     
    I reached to the