The shelves around me started to creak and I backed out of the aisle, watching as the books rattled against each other. When I got out of the aisle, I turned towards the exit and began to move my trembling legs towards it.
“Bad boooooy,” an old raspy voice hissed behind me.
I knew I shouldn’t look, but I did, and my spine felt like it’d turned into a rod of ice.
A bone-thin old woman floated a foot off the ground. Her wrinkled, dented face was sunk in purple light and her hair swirled above her head like wispy snakes. I took a step back and her mouth spread in a black, ear-to-ear grin.
My hands started to tremble and my stomach felt like I was going down the world’s steepest roller coaster.
I turned and started running.
“You’re a bad booooy,” hissed against my eardrums as I ran past the reading tables and a chair slid in front of me. I stumbled over it, banging my shin hard against the seat. I scrambled back to my feet, made it to the doors, and shoved them open. Lunging through, I put my hands on my waist, shut my eyes, and breathed heavily as I listened to the slow creak of the doors shutting.
When the doors settled back in place, I opened my eyes and looked up the stairs.
Alec was gone.
And a wrinkled twenty-dollar bill was laying on the first step.
My heart was still beating fast and my legs quivered like Jello. It didn’t surprise me that Alec had taken off. But at least he’d paid up.
I then realized that I was still clutching the book.
Setting the book onto the floor, I walked to the steps and picked the money up. I folded it in half, slid it into my back pocket, and checked my watch.
My mom should be waiting out front by now.
I took a deep breath, let it out, and ran up the steep corridor of steps. When I reached the top I shoved the door open and ran back out into the hallway. My footsteps echoed through the building and I had no interest in going all the way back through the school to the front entrance. I hadn’t seen a soul other than Alec since the buses took off, but who the hell knew what went on here after the students left? I just wanted to get out of this place as fast as possible and I headed straight for the side entrance right across the hall. Pushing the door open, I hurried through and into the chilly October air. The eight-space parking lot where some of the teachers parked was empty and I started to jog along the sidewalk that wrapped around the school. A silver BMW appeared on the road that stretched around the building and pulled into the parking lot. I stopped and watched as the car glided up to me.
It was my mom.
The car stopped next to me and I opened the door and got in.
“Why weren’t you waiting at the front of the school—and why is your face so pale?” she asked.
“I just … I don’t know; you wouldn’t believe it,” I said and leaned back against the leather seat.
“I swear, Stan, sometimes …”
My mom started to swing the car around the parking lot and I looked back at the school. A faint purple glow flowed out of the three thin windows than ran along the ground at the bottom of the school wall.
The cold sweat on my chest returned and I closed my eyes and felt the push of the heavy car in my stomach as my mom accelerated away. If I didn’t like going to school before, you can be sure I never wanted to go anywhere near the place after that!
The white-and-blue cottage sat on a stone-covered hill about thirty feet from the shoreline. There wasn’t another home within a hundred yards of it and when I hopped out of the Jeep and walked to the front door the only sounds I heard were the ocean tide and the soft breeze blowing across the black, paved driveway. It really was a hell of a deal for $800 a month and if I couldn’t get a novel done over the summer I’d probably never see another advance for a very long time.
When I got up to the patio I lifted the welcome mat, and like Tony, my realtor, had promised, the keys to the front door were waiting underneath. I took the keys, unlocked the door, and stepped inside. To my relief the house looked just like the photos online. A clean, white hallway with a hardwood floor ran straight to a big glass doorwall that showed the beach and the sparkling blue sea. There was a small dining room to my left and a staircase on my right, which I assumed would take me to the bedroom. I walked to the doorwall and looked around the room. It was basically an indoor patio with three framed photos of different types of seashells hanging on the far wall and a light green recliner in the corner with a square wooden lamp table next to it.
This was where I’d write.
I went back to the Jeep, got the rest of my bags, and brought them upstairs. The second floor was simple. A single hallway with a bedroom facing the ocean and a small bathroom right across from it. The bedroom itself was tight but cozy with a quene-sized bed taking up most of the space. I set my bags in the walk-in closet and went over to the window. It was now just after 7:00 p.m. and orange streaks of light from the setting sun glistened across the sea.
Perfect.
I went back downstairs to the doorwall, unlocked it,
