Hideaway Hospital Murders by Robert Burton Robinson Read Free Book Online

she
thought. Any woman would be thrilled to have her body. Or any
man.
    She went to the closet, picked out a sexy
outfit and carried it to the bed. But as she walked past the
dresser, she accidentally knocked something off. It was her
favorite perfume. She cringed as it hit the wood floor. But the
bottle didn’t break. It just fell on its side and began to roll.
She noticed that the rolling sound changed as the bottle went
under the bed. As though the flooring under there was
different.
    She put her robe back on and knelt down to
retrieve the expensive perfume, which was halfway under the bed.
Once she had picked up the bottle, she ran her hand across the
flooring. It felt the same as the rest of the floor. She knocked on
it. It sounded hollow. Then she tested the floor where she was
sitting. It sounded solid.
    Carnie’s curiosity was revved up to a
cat-like pitch. She didn’t know what she expected to find, but she
could think of nothing else until she found it. She pushed with all
her might until the heavy bed broke free and started to slide. She
managed to move it over against the wall.
    Carnie knocked on the floor in several
place, identifying the hollow-sounding area. Then she went to her
suitcase and pulled out a Bowie knife, and began to search for
cracks in the seams of the flooring, near the edge of the hollow
rectangle.
    Finally, she found one. She dug the knife
down into it and began to pry. She saw movement. Not much—but
enough to convince her that she was looking at a secret door.
Something was hidden down there. Something forbidden. She had to
find out what it was.
    After nearly an hour, she got the door
opened just a crack and worked her fingers inside. She yanked on it
with all her might, until every muscle in her well-toned body
ached. Then she heard a ripping sound, as it flew up and open. The
musty odor enveloped her body, and she fell away from the opening
and started coughing. She grabbed a towel from the bathroom,
covered her mouth and nose, and cautiously inched her way to the
large hole in the floor.
    All she could see was the top of a
staircase, leading down into the creepy darkness.

    Chapter 8

    Carnie stood with the towel
over her mouth and nose, looking down into the large opening in her
bedroom floor. Well, it wasn’t her bedroom. It was a guest
bedroom in the home of her sister’s fiancé. Maybe even he didn’t know about
this secret underground place.
    She just had to see what was
down there. So, she pulled the towel away from her face a little,
took a sniff, and decided she could bear the musty odor. Then she
took off her robe and threw on some shorts, a shirt, and tennis
shoes for her journey into the unknown.
    There appeared to be a light switch near the
bottom of the stairs. Hopefully the lights down there would work.
Just as she was about to take the first step down, her cell phone
rang and startled her. She went to the dresser and picked it
up.
    “ Hello?”
    “ Hey, Sis. Are you going to
the Longview Mall with me?”
    “ Uh, no, I don’t think
so.”
    “ Ah, come on, Carnie—Elmo
loaned me a credit card, and it doesn’t even have a limit. We can
go crazy. How can you resist that?”
    “ It’s just that my
stomach’s feeling a little queasy.”
    “ I’m sorry. You need some
Pepto-Bismol?”
    “ No. I’ll be okay. I just
need to lie down for a while.”
    “ Okay. Hope you feel
better. I’ll buy you something.”
    “ Thanks. Have fun. But take
it easy. If you come home with a couple of mink coats, he may have
second thoughts about marrying you.”
    “ Yeah, yeah. See you
later.”
    Carnie put the phone in her pocket and began
to walk down the stairs, half expecting a spider or a snake to
attack her. She could cut the beating heart right out of a man’s
chest without flinching. But crawling critters gave her the
creeps.
    When she reached the switch, she flipped it,
and lights came on. At the foot of the stairs was a wall. She made
a U-turn and walked back past the