After playing the game, watching a
few Pixar shorts, and reading Kyle’s favorite bedtime story twice, Ana finally
turned off the light to his room and blew a kiss as she shut the door. She
stood outside for 30 seconds, but he didn’t make a sound. Good. Maybe he really
would fall right asleep.
She walked into his parents’ room
and looked around, just at what was out. She personally made a distinction
between observing and snooping. She didn’t open drawers or
medicine cabinets. After walking around the upstairs, she stood outside Kyle’s
door for a few more seconds, but heard nothing.
Downstairs, she poured a soda and
settled at the kitchen table to do her homework. She pulled her phone from her
back pocket and smiled at the list of text messages from Karen on her lock
screen. She was just about to reply when she heard a noise. “Great,” she
muttered. Kyle must have woken up after all. She lay her phone on the table and
stood up, grabbing a glass of water to carry up to him.
She climbed the stairs and felt
her shoulders twitch when she saw Kyle’s door open. He hadn’t called out for
her. Maybe he had gone to the bathroom on his own. She shook her head. That
didn’t seem like Kyle, but maybe he’d ben sleepy enough to forget his parents
were gone? Her brows furrowed. That didn’t seem like Kyle either.
She walked in his room and reached
for the light.
#
She woke with a foggy feeling in
her head and felt the sofa under her before she opened her eyes. Sofa? She’d
been sitting at the table. No, she’d been walking into Kyle’s room. She sat up,
eyes wide. She was lying on a brown leather sofa in some sort of office. The
overhead lights were off, just one light on the desk. There was no one else in
the room with her.
Jumping up, she reached for her
phone, then remembered she had left it on the kitchen table. Great. Where was
she? Where was Kyle? What was going on?
She walked to the door and pressed
her ear against it. There was no window, so she carefully pushed down the
handle, opening the door a crack to peek outside. There was a long hallway,
again with no overhead lights except for the soft emergency lighting. That
wasn’t too creepy.
No one in view to the left, and
she couldn’t hear anyone to the right, so she opened the door wide enough to
peer around it. There was an empty cross hall opposite her, and another at the
end of the hall she was on. She crept out and closed the door quietly, then
crept into the cross hall. She could see the red Exit light at the far end. She
needed to get out of here. She needed to find a phone and call 911. She needed
to find Kyle.
TBC?
Dogs in House
|
Houdini, Brindle
|
|
|
Time writing
|
45 minutes
|
|
|
March word
count
|
9,110
|