The Book of Bad Things by Dan Poblocki Read Free Book Online Page B

boat. But this had been different.
    Cassidy heard a soft humming. Low and barely perceptible. If she hadn’t been standing by the window, she’d never have noticed it. The humming was not melodious; more like the chanting of the Buddhist monks that Mrs. Mendez had played for her world-music class earlier that year. Cassidy listened closely. There were layers inside of it. Different notes. Discordant. Difficult. Like a song the moon might sing while dreaming.
    She imagined Joey in the next room, wondering if he was asleep. Her heart sped up at the thought of confronting him the next day…. Not confronting , exactly. Talking. Acknowledging that something strange was going on between them. She hadn’t quite picked out the words she’d use, and in fact, had only hours earlier fallen asleep scripting fantasy responses to all the ways he might answer her questions.
    Cassidy had just pulled herself away from the bookcase and the window when another sound echoed into the night. Something was moving out on the street, as if bits of gravel were caught underneath a heavy object that someone was dragging up the road toward the cul-de-sac.
    Kneeling at the window’s edge, Cassidy leaned forward until her face met the taut screen. Though the half-moon had already dipped below the horizon, she could make out a dark shadow, human shaped, limping up the road. The figure wore a sort of shift or dress or nightgown. She moved stiffly, as though severely injured.
    Cassidy grasped the window ledge, digging her fingernails into the wood, pinching the tips of her fingers so that she knew she wasn’t dreaming.
    Why would someone be out so late, especially if they were hurt?
    She wanted to run out into the hallway and pound on Joey’s door, to make him see what she was seeing, but she was frightened that the walker would hear her, peer up at her, see her face. That would be a bad, bad thing.
    Screee. Screee.
    The sound grated at her eardrums as the figure moved farther into the cul-de-sac, into the darkness of the trees that surrounded the old farmhouse where Ursula Chambers had died.
    When the shuffling sound was an echo in her memory, Cassidy stood, moving slowly backward toward her bed, keeping the street in sight. Then, just as she reached the mattress, a barking exploded the new quiet. Short. Harsh. Angry. Like the barking she’d heard that afternoon coming from the backyard.
    Another figure, the same shape and size that Lucky had been before he’d died, followed in the path of the first one, dragging its hind leg before it too disappeared into the darkness of the dead-end street.

I’ve read that you should never try to wake anyone who is walking in her sleep. To do so could be harmful to her. The thing is, I can’t find any information about what kind of harm. Will the sleepwalker immediately go insane? Will her brain explode? Will she lose her memory, or even worse, will she slip deeper into sleep and never wake up again? It all sounds silly to me. Impossible.
    I think sleepwalking is probably more dangerous if you leave the person alone.
    Janet and Benji told me a story about their teenage cousin, Flora, who lives on Long Island. Flora has been sleepwalking since she was really young. It started out kind of cute. Flora’s mother would find her going through her closet in the middle of the night. With the lights off. When Flora’s mother asked what she was doing, Flora said she was looking for an outfit to wear to her birthday party. Her birthday wasn’t for another six months or so.
    Another time, Flora woke up while standing in the kitchen. The smoke alarm had gone off because she’d put a jar of peanut butter in the microwave for five minutes. The peanut butter had turned crispy and black. After the initial fright of being awoken by the alarm, the rest of the family came downstairs and opened the windows to clear the smoke. Everyone had a good laugh.
    But as Flora grew older, her family began to worry about the sleepwalking.