Last Wild Boy by Hugh MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page A

firm. She closed the tin tightly and placed it back on the shelf carefully.
    Nora decided to return to the long, narrow service corridor where Minn’s hole was. As she entered the hallway, she felt a sudden chill breeze, which seemed to originate from somewhere farther down the corridor. She took a few steps past Minn’s hole, then stumbled as her foot landed on something hard. She held the lamp down in front of her and shone its light on the floor to see what it was. The moment her eyes focused enough to discern what had tripped her, she let out an involuntary cry and almost dropped the lamp.
    The unmistakable form of a human skeleton was propped against the wall in front of her. Nora had never seen a dead body, let alone a skeleton, and the sight of it terrified her. But something about it was strangely intriguing, as well, and she couldn’t help but take another peek down at the sad pile of bones beneath her feet. A discoloured paper notepad lay on the floor next to the skeleton. Nora steeled herself, then bent down picked up the pad, trying her best not to look at the skeleton. She fanned the dust off the pad, then tucked it into the waistband of her jeans.
    The fresh breeze felt a bit stronger here. Nora wondered where it was coming from. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a moment, then inhaled deeply and leapt over the skeleton. She ran the rest of the way down the corridor, until she reached a pile of concrete boulders, metal pipes, steel girders, and debris that reached from the floor up to the ceiling. A cave-in.
    Nora spent a few moments looking over the damage, trying to see if there was a way over the pile. It didn’t look like it, but she decided to climb up and see if she could shift some of the debris out of the way. I wonder if Minn tried this, too, she thought to herself. Probably. She would have done anything to find a way out of here.
    Nora tried putting the lamp down on the ground so she’d have both hands to climb, but its glow didn’t reach far enough for her to climb very high before she would be in complete darkness. She’d have to bring it with her. She picked the lantern up with her left hand and steadied herself against the pile with her right, then shifted her left leg up onto a boulder and shimmied up on top of it. Her knee scraped against the concrete and she winced as she felt the burn from where the rough boulder had scraped off the skin. She’d have to be more careful. With considerable effort, she managed to climb almost to the top of the pile without hurting herself again. She was just about to try shifting some of the boulders out of the way when a sudden gust of strong wind blew out her lamp, leaving her in complete darkness.
    Nora panicked. She grasped at the boulder in front of her, trying to secure herself against it. But as she did so, her left foot slipped from its toehold and she slid down, dropping the burnt-out lamp as she groped wildly at the rubble in front of her for a hold. She heard the lamp smash on the ground beneath her just as her hand grabbed on to a metal support wire sticking out from a boulder. She gripped it with all of her might and managed to steady herself. She let out a sigh as she found a boulder just beneath her outstretched legs that was large enough to stand on.
    Nora dropped down onto the boulder and caught her breath. She wanted to scream, but she was afraid that she would wake Adam, even from this distance. She thought of him lying alone in the room up ahead and gritted her teeth. “I’m okay,” she said to herself quietly. “I’m okay.”
    Nora’s jeans had ripped as she’d fallen, and she could feel blood dripping down her leg. She touched her wound with her finger, but she couldn’t tell how deep the cut was. She patted at it with the sleeve of her shirt to dry it off as best as possible, then carefully reached down with her foot, searching for something she could step down onto.
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