Shadowkiller by Wendy Corsi Staub Read Free Book Online Page B

school down the road from Eddie’s. She showed him how she could get all the way across the monkey bars. Well, she tried, and fell, twice.
    â€œI can do it!” she told him. “Really! I can! I did it while you were gone this week. Watch me! One more try . . .” She fell.
    â€œDon’t give up. You have to keep working at it. It’s all about the rhythm. Get into the rhythm of it.”
    She tried again. Fell again.
    â€œYou have to try harder. I told you, if you put in the effort, you’ll be able to do it. You can do anything. Hard work makes things happen. If you would just—”
    â€œCome on, Daddy!” she cut in, sensing he was about to embark on one of his lectures. “Race you to the slide!”
    They both went down the slide a few times, and then he made her try the monkey bars again. And again. And again.
    Fighting back tears of frustration, she turned to the swing set. “Push me, Daddy! Push me!”
    Up, up, up she sailed, over and over again. Up toward the silvery pale crescent moon in the purple-blue night sky, clearly visible above the tall silo across the road from the school.
    Up, up, up . . .
    Down, down, down . . .
    Now, she was stuck, legs dangling helplessly.
    Behind her, holding her close in his warm embrace, Daddy said, “Come on. I mean it. We have to go.”
    She kicked her legs furiously. “Not yet!”
    â€œStop that. I said five minutes, and it’s been ten. You promised to listen when I said it was time to go, remember?”
    Remember . . .
    What am I supposed to remember? There’s something . . .
    â€œLet’s go. Now.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause I have to work. You know that.”
    â€œI don’t care!”
    â€œStop that. Stop acting like a two-year-old. You know better.”
    She did, of course. She was seven. Old enough to know that Daddy had to leave tonight, and that he’d be away for a long time. Weeks, probably.
    â€œNo!” she shouted. She couldn’t help it. “I want to swing!”
    â€œYou’ve had enough swinging.”
    â€œBut I want to swing up over the moon! I want the dish to run away with the spoon!”
    She waited for a response from him. He liked rhymes. They always made him laugh.
    But he was silent. Suddenly, his hands felt ice cold. And she could no longer feel his heart beating.
    She turned her head, slowly, to look at him.
    â€œDaddy? Daddy . . . ?”
    A scream erupted from her throat.
    He was grinning at her, his rotting teeth protruding from the withered mouth of a hideous corpse with vacant eye sockets.
    And that was when she finally remembered.
    â€œNooooo!” Carrie screamed, sitting up in bed. “Noooo!”
    She pressed a hand against her wildly racing heart, looking around.
    Her bedroom was dark. Too dark. Where was the dream catcher?
    She could barely make out the slats of the blinds across the window—but they were up and down, vertical slats, not horizontal. And a strange light filtered through the cracks. Far too bright for prairie starlight . . .
    It’s city light , she realized, even as she heard the sirens outside, on a street too far below her window, and remembered the rest.
    Her name was Carrie now. She wasn’t in her purple and white bedroom. She was all grown up, in New York City.
    That was just a dream. The same old nightmare, back to haunt her.
    Tears rolled down her face, and she hugged herself, rocking back and forth, back and forth, comforting the lost little girl who still lived somewhere deep inside of her—the little girl whose daddy had died so long ago.

Chapter Four
    New York City
    March 7, 2000
    O n an ordinary Tuesday evening, Carrie wouldn’t set foot outdoors until the tail end of her commute to the opposite tip of Manhattan.
    There was a subway station located directly beneath the World Trade Center concourse, and it had come in