Читать книгу Half-Minute Horrors - Литагент HarperCollins USD - Страница 8

ERIN HUNTER

The Babysitter

The phone rang, echoing around the white-and-silver kitchen that was as glossy as a hall of mirrors. Jess was surrounded by a dozen reflections of herself as she went to pick up the handset.

“Hello?”

For a moment there was no answer, just the faint sound of someone breathing. Jess thought of her friends laughing as they told her not to accept the babysitting job from someone she’d never met. “They probably live in a creepy old house in the middle of the woods!”

They didn’t. They lived in a top-floor loft with a view of the city that made Jess feel like a bird. The white leather sofas smelled of plastic wrapping.

Then a little voice said, “I’m coming home,” before the line clicked off.

Was there another child Jess didn’t know about?

The phone rang again. “I’m coming home!” Now the voice sounded old, tired, and fretful. There was a tap of footsteps. Climbing marble stairs. Like the ones that led up to the loft.

Jess looked down. Something was brushing her leg. It was the phone cord. It had fallen out of the wall.

The sound of scratching at the door. Like a dog. In her hand, the phone rang. “I’m home!” rasped the voice, older than sand. “Did you wait up?”