Whispers From The Dark by Bryan Hall Read Free Book Online Page A

was reassurance enough for Rick.
    James hadn‘t exaggerated; the subdivision was practically a forest.  A graveled road snaked its way through the old growth trees past numerous flattened house sites.  According to James this was one of only three homes built in the place so far and was lived in for only a couple of months each summer.
    A year ago James had done a small plumbing job for the owners and learned where the key to the house was hidden, and that like many other homes in the area it lacked a security system.  It was one of the last jobs James had managed to get.  Like Rick’s remodeling business, James had seen his plumbing business dry up, wither, and die.
    Rick stepped over the threshold and into the foyer.  It was small, a bench on either side of a short hallway that opened up into a massive living room with a hallway leading in out of it in either direction.  Rick didn’t need his flashlight to know that the furniture occupying the room was probably worth nearly as much as his own modest house.  He walked to the middle of the room and stopped when he reached a large, L shaped leather couch and glanced over his shoulder in time to see James click on his flashlight and disappear down the left hallway.
    Rick flicked on his light, letting the beam slice through the room, never resting in one place for more than a breath.  Just as he’d suspected, antique furniture dotted the walls of the room.  A centuries-old china cabinet proudly displaying various glass treasures.  A coffee table made from dark wood with intricate carvings around its outer edge and ornate legs.  A grandfather clock, a grand piano.  Rick had seen them all in various houses throughout the county, homes that dotted the faces and ridge lines of the Appalachian mountains like pimples on the face of a beauty queen. 
    To one side of the room was a large fireplace, its mantel holding a couple of small sculptures that may have been modern; Rick couldn’t tell.  Above the mantle, looking very out of place in the midst of such antiquities, hung a big screen plasma television.
    Rick crept through the room, surveying it for anything of value that was light enough to carry without much effort and anything that would be easy for him to sell with little risk.  The television was too risky, the furniture too heavy and too difficult to get rid of.  He opened the china cabinet and fished out a few baubles that looked valuable and a couple that he was sure Clarissa would enjoy.  He placed them on the couch and continued his hunt, making his way down the hallway opposite the one James had gone down.
    The right side of the hallway held two doors; another stood at the end of the hall.  Opposite them was a sliding glass door leading out to a deck.  Rick turned the knob on the first door and opened it, letting his light enter the room first.
    It was a bedroom - a large one, at that.  A four post bed sat in the center of the room, regal in the pauper glow of his flashlight.  There was a large oak vanity against the wall beside the bed and he immediately made his way to it and, clamping his light between his teeth, began opening the drawers and pilfering through them.
     He’d pocketed a few pieces of jewelry when he heard a loud, quick grunting sound followed by a dull thud that seemed to shake the floor in the silent house.
    Rick froze.  He thought he heard a low muffled moan, but tried to convince himself it was imagined.  Unable to do so, he clicked off his light and waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark.  Finally he stood and crept back into the hallway. 
    He kept his breaths light and shallow as he moved down the hallway, taking twice as long to return to the living room as it had for him to leave it.
    Across the living room, at the end of the opposite hallway, a razor thin sliver of light stretched out from beneath a closed door.
    He glanced around the living room, unsure of what to do.  Finally he set out down the hallway, his