Читать книгу In The Dead Of Night - Linda Castillo - Страница 5

Sara Douglas wasn’t afraid of the dark. She was a big girl, after all—almost eight years old. She didn’t believe in monsters or the bogeyman or things that went bump in the night. But lying on her frilly bed, watching the lightning flicker outside her bedroom window, she was scared.

She clutched her little blue hippo and counted the seconds the way Mommy had told her. One. Two. A yelp escaped her when thunder crashed. She slapped her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes tightly. The thunder seemed to go on forever, like the approaching footsteps of some giant beast.

Sara wanted to slide into bed with her sister, but Sonia was spending the night at her friend Jonie’s house. Sonia was nine years old and never got scared. She laughed at Sara’s fear of thunderstorms and called her a ninny. That made Sara mad, but she still wished she were here.

The curtains at the French doors that opened to the balcony billowed with a sudden gust of wind. In the darkness they looked like restless ghosts. Sara jerked the covers up to her eyes. Another flash of lightning speared the sky. Thunder cracked so hard the windows rattled.

Throwing off the blanket, she slipped from her bed and darted to the French doors. It wasn’t raining, but the treetops swayed like spindly fingers. Taking a deep breath, she ran along the balcony toward her parents’ room, her bare feet slapping against the tile like little flippers.

One of the French doors to their room stood open a few inches. Yellow light slanted out like a sunray. Voices floated on the wind. Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Nicholas. Sara liked Uncle Nicholas. He smelled like peppermint gum and told funny stories that made her laugh.

Putting her eye to the two-inch opening, she peered into the room. Mommy and Daddy and Uncle Nicholas were standing around the table in the sitting area, looking at some papers. But they weren’t laughing. Their expressions gave Sara a funny feeling in her stomach. She wanted to go inside. She wanted her mommy to hold her while Uncle Nicholas told funny stories.

But Mommy was crying. Uncle Nicholas looked mad. He was shouting, the veins on his neck standing out like snakes beneath his skin. Daddy’s face was red, his hands clenched into fists.

Sara wanted desperately to rush in and throw herself into her mother’s arms. But she couldn’t move. Her feet seemed to be frozen to the ground. She didn’t know why, but the thought of going inside frightened her even more than the storm.

She started to cry. Lightning flickered. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the tree branches claw at the night sky. She set her hands over her ears to block the inevitable crash of thunder, but she knew it wouldn’t help.

Thunder exploded. Three times in quick succession. So many times that Sara thought it would never stop. Holding her hands over her ears, crying, she shoved open the French door. Another kind of fear gripped her when she entered the bedroom. The kind that made her legs feel shaky and her stomach go tight.

Fear transformed into terror when she saw the gun. Death exploded from the muzzle. Once. Twice. Each shot was as bright as lightning. Louder than thunder. And more terrifying than any storm.

She saw a shocking bloom of red, as brilliant as the roses that grew in Mommy’s garden. The world spun as if a giant tornado had picked her up. The room blurred into an eddy of terror and lightning and thunder.

“Mommy,” Sara whispered.

When her mommy didn’t answer, the night rushed in and swept her into its dark embrace.