In the Middle of the Night by Robert Cormier Read Free Book Online Page B

doubt at all. The sheer terror in that voice began a stirring down below. John Paul, in panic, advanced a foot or two but the floor shifted violently under his feet, rumbling, crackling, sending him reeling, his arms flailing helplessly.
    He tried desperately to regain his balance, smelled the stench of smoke and heard the screams of children. Standing almost on tiptoe, perched like a bird about to take flight, he felt the floor, with a terrible shudder, give way beneath his feet.

 
    H
e did not wake up all at once but drifted in and out of consciousness. All he remembered later was a rising and falling, a reaching up toward lights that blinded his eyes and plunging down again into darkness. Then, voices, mumbling words he could not understand. Different voices, sharp and loud then soft and murmuring, his mother’s voice once, speaking in French. Then down again into a darkness that was sweet and safe.
    Next came the pain. His head throbbed with the pain, pulsed with it, as if he were wearing a steel helmet that was too small for his head, too tight, threatening to crush his skull. His skull a mass of pain.
    Sometimes the pain receded and went away, and he would drift lazily, carried on gentle waves. When he’d try to move with the waves, he’d find himself paralyzed,trapped, his arms pinned down. He was aware of being connected to something.
Connected
, as if he were part of some terrible machinery. That’s when the panic began, screaming inside him. Until the darkness came. Or maybe the pain. Even the pain was better than the panic.
    At some point he began to dream. Visions filled the darkness, shoutings filled his ears. He was being chased, pursued, tracked down. Shadows behind him, footsteps coming closer, closer. Children shouting and crying. Something terrible chasing him, pursuing him, coming closer while all the time the children cried …
     … Until he opened his eyes, blinking against the brightness of daylight slashing at his eyeballs. He quickly closed them again, seeking the comfort and safety of the dark.
    Next time he woke up, he found his mother and father looking down at him as if from a great distance, their eyes wide with concern and worry. They seemed to be looking at him through a microscope as he lay pinned down on some Biology I glass slide.
    He knew instantly that he was in a hospital bed and that the helmet on his head was not a helmet at all but bandages. His arm was connected to a nearby monitor that beeped and hummed. Another tube was connected to an upside-down bottle suspended in the air. His head did not hurt much at the moment. There was only a dull ache. But his eyes still stung from the brightness.
    His mother’s eyes were wet with tears. She kept saying his name over and over. “
Jean-Paul … Jean-Paul
 …”In the French way. She used to croon him to sleep murmuring his name. But such sorrow in her voice now. He had never heard such sorrow in her voice.
    He wanted to reassure her.
I am fine, Mama, I am fine.
But he was not certain if he was fine or not, and the pressure on his skull became intense and began to brighten with pain.
    “Take it easy, John Paul,” his father said, speaking in English tinged with the old Canadian accent. “Easy, easy …” He never spoke French anymore.
    “Am I okay?” he asked, his voice surprisingly thin. He felt the panic beginning again, a shivering in his spine because they were looking at him seriously, as if they did not recognize him as their son. “Am I going to die?”
    “
Non
 … 
non … non
 …,” his mother whispered, shaking her head vigorously and bending to kiss him wetly on the cheek.
    “You were hurt,” his father said. “A concussion—serious, yes, but a fracture, no. Enough to put you out for a few days.”
    “How long?” John Paul asked. “How many days?”
    His father lifted his shoulders, grimaced, as if reluctant to answer. “Six days—but you are back with us now. That is all that