The Skull Ring by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online Page A

and his libertarian worldview, not to mention the obligatory dog chuffing here and there among the pages and occasionally bloated, pompous prose. But the book had helped her forget her troubles. Spence was reliable for that, as solid as a dictionary.
    She tried the pillow again.
    Not so bad this time. She was almost ready to try the dark, but decided to sleep with the light on. Just once more wouldn't hurt.
    She thought of the tape, tried to remember setting the VCR. She could remember. She could see herself punching the buttons, Channel 27. And she'd gotten the hair-oiled preacher from hell.
    Oh, well. Everybody made mistakes.
    Her thoughts spilled into nonsense, Rick's face, the lake at the club where she'd met Mitchell, her dead adoptive parents, a teacher she'd had in the sixth grade who had worn green suspenders, Mickey Mouse, images skipping by faster and faster on the preview screen of dreams.
    She was nearly asleep when she heard a crack outside the window. The sound of a damp stick breaking.
    She held her breath, kept her cheek against the pillow. Listened. Listened.
    A scrabbling sound on the outside wall. How close was the baseball bat?
    It's nothing, Julia. Probably the neighbor's boxer, leaving you a stinky present for tomorrow. Or a raccoon. You live right by the WOODS. Remember wildlife?
    A swashing across the window screen. The boxer couldn't reach six feet off the ground.
    It's a Creep.
    Should she pretend that she hadn't noticed, turn off the light as if preparing to sleep? In the darkness, she could reach the bat unobserved. She could roll to her feet and wait by the window for the Creep to come through. Then—
    What? Whammo , like a steroid-stoked Mark McGwire in his prime feasting on a rookie pitcher's fastball?
    No. She could call the cops.
    The cops.
    First cop: "You see anything?"
    Second cop (playing his flashlight beam on the ground outside the window): "Hmm. Looks like some kind of animal tracks."
    First cop: "What kind of tracks?"
    Second cop: "Damn. I just stepped in dog crap."
    Sometimes a cigar was just a cigar.
    Sometimes noises were only noises.
    She reached out, switched off the light without looking at the window.
    Swash against the screen.
    She couldn't resist looking.
    Eyes.
    A scarce glint of fire on them from the distant streetlight, weak between the curtains.
    But eyes .
    And a face behind them?
    She eased one hand off the bed, tensing, ready to scream, to reach for the Louisville Slugger, the phone, anything.
    The eyes were gone.
    She lay in her own sweat, trying to convince herself that she'd imagined the eyes, that she was safe as milk. Dr. Forrest warned her about letting her fantasy world intrude on reality. Dr. Forrest wasn't going to like hearing about nonexistent eyes at her bedroom window.
    The wooden blocks had been real. But, if she closed her eyes, she could picture herself selecting them off the toy rack, paying the cashier, taking them home and arranging the letters on her table. Then forgetting so she could scare herself later.
    That sounded crazy, multiple-personality loopy, and she was not ever going to be crazy. Dr. Forrest wouldn't let her. Better to pretend that the blocks had never existed. No Creep played tricks on her except the one inside her head.
    Julia would leave that part out of the journal she would start in the morning. And if she didn't want to imagine eyes at her window, the best thing was to shut her own eyes and watch the imaginary silent movies on the backs of her eyelids.
    For a moment, she longed for Mitchell’s presence in the bed beside her. Better the devil you know.
    She lulled herself into a shallow, exhausted sleep by the second reel.

 
     
    CHAPTER SIX
     
    " How many did you say?" Julia asked.
    The manager of the animal shelter took a draw on his cigarette, exhaled, and made a futile attempt to brush cat fur from his sweater. "About thirty or so. Might not seem like much, but if you're the pet owner . . . "
    Thirty dogs and cats reported