SHUDDERVILLE TWO by Mia Zabrisky Read Free Book Online Page A

We’re different, you and me. Okay, fine. But we’re similar, too. I felt it when I held you close, when we kissed. I felt your feverishness, your restless desire to wander and roam. To get away from here. But you’re stuck, aren’t you? I’m a wanderer and you’re stuck. I’m an adventurer and you’re not. But I’m giving you an opportunity. Come with me, Delilah.”
    Her pale face trembled a bit.
    “How stuck are you? You’ve been stuck here forever with them, haven’t you?”
    Her high forehead wrinkled like fine linen.
    “When I first met you, want to know what I thought? I thought, this little lady doesn’t look like herself. She doesn’t look like who she really is. She looks like a person who’s trying desperately to be someone else. And that’s a sad and pathetic thing—that’s what I thought. Her ego is all mashed up and she’s ground down like a raw stump. Red and sore. But then, as I got to know you better, I saw huge depths to you. Vast complexities. You could be somebody. You could blossom. I know it for a fact. I’m not making this up! You’re stuck in this house and you’re stuck with these kids who keep sucking you back to this house, right into the pit of your despair, day after day, when the sad fact is you just don’t belong here. You belong with me. Let them fend for themselves. They’ve got special powers, right? Let them use their damn powers, they’ll survive. But you’ve got to leave, Delilah. They’re killing you. They’re sapping you of your strength. Make a choice. Now’s your chance. Come with me. How long have you been stuck here inside this house? How long have you been taking care of them?”
    She gasped in a burst of nerves.
    “How long?”
    Frightful tears sprang to her eyes.
    “How long?”
    She was smothered in an amber light, caught inside a sepia-tinted photograph. The little girl made a tiny noise and moved like a shy queen. The boy sniffed his fingers. They were all stuck. None of them was happy.
    “We could be together, you and me,” I told the widow—only the widow. I kept pouring this slender ribbon of bullshit out into the room. “We could just head out over those hills together—do you have any idea what’s beyond those hills, Delilah? Do you?”
    She clenched and unclenched her fists, and all I felt was disgust, but I hid it well.
    “They’re only kids, but they’re greedy. Needy.”
    She winced—I was almost there.
    “Sucking all the life out of you. All the juice… all the…”
    Isabelle opened her turtle eyes and stared at me. Slick black tar. Wet licorice.
    Delilah must’ve smelled it on me. The fear. Something resolved in her eyes. It happened so quickly I didn’t have time to back-pedal. It was too late.
    Delilah nodded at Olive. “Do it,” she said. “Do it, Olive. Make him disappear. Make him go away!”
    The little girl lit up joyfully. “Okay, Mommy.” She scowled at me before scrambling onto her sister’s bed and untying Isabelle from the bedposts, and that weird little creature began to rise into the air. Straight up in the air.
    It was all happening so fast.
    All my plans and dreams were over.
    This was it. This was the end.
    I wasn’t ready. Not by a long shot.
    I lost my shit laughing at them.
    Isabelle levitated straight up, but Olive grabbed her hand at the last minute, before she could float away to the ceiling, and held her suspended above us like a helium balloon. Isabelle bobbed and drifted on the string of their joined arms, while Olive reached for me with her other hand. She grabbed hold of my ear, and I felt instant sparks and a deep electric burn race across my scalp.
    Somebody was screaming, but it wasn’t me. I swear to God. It wasn’t.
    Delilah covered her shocked mouth like she was embarrassed for me.
    The fear ripped out of me.
    Sunlight glared through the window, only it wasn’t sunlight—it was a piss-yellow light coming from those two wormy girls. A swirling luminescence beamed straight from