A Place So Wicked by Patrick Reuman (life books to read txt) 📕

She smiled. “Come downstairs for a minute.”

He stared at her for another moment before speaking. “Yeah. Sure. I’ll be right down.”

He closed the window and headed for the bedroom door. He peeked out quietly, not wanting to wake his parents. But he didn’t peek long. After just a second, he hurried out, closing the door behind him, then moved down the stairs in a few swift steps. Something told him that if he didn’t move quickly, he would wake from this dream and find himself back in his bed, alone and without Addy.

When he pulled open the door, she was still out there, standing right there waiting to greet him. Even in the dim light, her teeth glowed brightly in the small crack between her lips. Her hair was in a mess, like she had just gotten up from bed on a whim and come running across the street. It dangled in front of her face in a careless way, a few strands hanging down in front of her eyes. He preferred it, he thought, to the fixed and ready version that he had always seen until then.

“Thanks for coming. It’s pretty cold out here,” she said, her arms wrapped around herself in an embrace.

Standing in the doorway, he knew it was a bad idea. He would get in loads of trouble if they got caught, but the words came out anyway, as if they needed to escape as badly as he wanted them to. “Did you want to come inside?”

Her smiled widened. “No. No thanks. I was actually hoping you would come out here with me.”

20

Trevor couldn’t believe it. Already, he was back to feeling just as shitty as he had been earlier that morning, before going to the doctor. Well, maybe not quite as shitty, but he was definitely getting there. He was laying in the fetal position wondering, for the first time since this all started, if he was going to die. Feeling like this, this constant pain and draining agony, just wasn’t normal.

It felt sort of like he had just got done with the most intense workout of his life except he hadn’t worked out at all. Not only that, but he had a whole new symptom, one he hadn’t had before. He felt dizzy.

The room seemed to be moving, all of it. The window drifted ever-so-slightly. The closet door couldn’t seem to stand still. The darkness that retracted into the corners of the room, away from the light that poured in through the windows, felt alive.

He took in a deep breath, his mouth dry. He wanted a cup of water, but he didn’t want to go downstairs. Here, he had the window and its light. Out there, in the hall, it was windowless and dark. Unsafe.

If he had cancer, he reasoned, there were treatments. He wasn’t sure what cancer felt like, but something told him that this had to be close. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. The ceiling wasn’t moving; that was in his head, a part of the dizzy delirium that had crawled out from the depths of his mind, brought on by whatever bastard sickness was gripping him.

If he shut his eyes, which he did right then, it would all go away. How could the world spin if he wasn’t there to see it? But even after his eyes were closed and the light was gone, the pain in his stomach remained, its tendrils snaking their way around every bone and muscle in his body, leaching the energy from his soul.

He heard a sound. It was a door opening. When he opened his eyes, allowing the madness back in, he saw that it was not his bedroom door that had opened. But he knew that. The sound had come from too far away to be his, echoing to his ears from somewhere else in the house, but somewhere not all that far.

The old floorboards in the hall groaned. There were squeaks and then the patter of footsteps. Something sprinted down the stairs. This wasn’t in his head. He sat up, the room coming to a standstill.

He didn’t know who or what had just walked down the stairs. It could have been one of his family members. Or even a burglar. Could have been…something else. What he did know was that he was thirsty, very thirsty, and needed to go downstairs anyway.

He also wanted to know what had just made those sounds in the middle of the night. Surely, everybody else in the house had to be sleeping. He was awake because his body was going insane, but the others, all except Robbie, seemed to be just fine and should, just as any normal person was, be sleeping.

He trembled, just now realizing that his entire body was shaking. He was afraid; of the dark, of his sickness, of whatever just went downstairs. He slammed his fist into the bed, making a soft, quiet thud. He was so frustrated, with everything, but mostly with himself. He needed to grow up. He needed to become a man.

The dark was not alive. All the dark was was the absence of light. It was a simple, scientific fact. The only reason some people were afraid of it was because they couldn’t see very well in it. Well, news break, he thought, there were light switches down there, he was in his own house, his family was there, and there was nothing to be afraid of in the god damned dark.

He stood from the bed, almost stumbling. He held on to the corner of his bed as the vertigo faded. Snap out of it! He walked to the door, grabbing the handle. The cold of the metal felt invigorating, a new sensation, one other than the plaguing pain and exhaustion.

The hall was dark,