Posted by Night Manager on August 22, 2008 at 3:00pm
WINTER GHOST P4We RunShe’s hurt, I say, but no one answers.She needs help, I say, but the door remains shut.I stare into the spy-hole and… I swear it’s staring right back at us. It’s a small dark hole in the old battered door set in the bowel of a nasty knot in the wood of the long twisted middle plank. A tiny ring a brass sits just inside the knurl, marking it as more than just a natural hole in the wood. But there’s no glass in it. The center is shadowy… gray… I can’t see anything beyond it.My breath shudders and I can feel my heart begin to hammer. Hot blood pulses up my arms and down my legs warming my hands and feet just enough… heating my skin just enough… to remind me how very cold I am. The hairs on my arms stand on end.The doorknob… it’s the kind that’s a handle with a thumb catch on top that you depress. The catch looks funny. It’s too low… almost like an invisible thumb is already depressing it.I glance back to the eyehole and then down again to the handle. Had it moved a little? I can’t tell… my heart is thumping behind my ears now.Something’s wrong. Why won’t… he… open the door?I take a slight step away.But… what about her? She lays quiet in my arms. This isn’t right. I know I should be trying to get her inside but I feel…… I feel like…I take another step, this one farther back and down a step. Snow slips up underneath my jeans, cuts through my socks and climbs up my ankles. The wind begins to whisper behind me, like the anticipation of a crowd about to roar. The falling snow begins to shift a bit, the thick fat little clumps spiraling downward sideways now.The eyehole continues to stare at me. Is it darker? I look away… I… don’t want him to know that I’ve noticed.NO! There’s nothing TOO notice. This is stupid. She’s cold… I’M cold; get her inside.I step up once again. I raise my hand to knock.The latch clicks.I run like hell.
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