Free The Gingerbread Boy by Lori Lapekes Page A

arms against her stomach, fighting not to vomit. She was about to turn to see how Daniel had fared from the spinout when a figure lurched into the headlights. Then the man in the road stopped, and gazed straight through the windshield at her.
    The man was Daniel.
    What?
    Catherine’s breath caught in her throat. How could it be Daniel? He was sitting right next to her! Stiffened in terror, she turned to look at the driver with almost glacial slowness to find a grizzly skull staring at her from inside Daniel’s clothes. From this abomination seeped an aura of misery so complete that a scream rose in her throat…
    …and a door heaved open from someplace beyond.
    Out of the darkness a bare-chested figure raced to Catherine’s side, a knife gleaming in his hand. Reality took focus as Catherine stopped screaming and pulled her hands to her mouth.
    “What’s wrong is Calvin here?” the man yelled, glancing around the room for an intruder.
    Catherine shook her head, opening and shutting her eyes. It took a few moments for reality to settle in. She wasn’t in a van; she was sitting up in a bed in the dark in a spare bedroom in Daniel’s house. She felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment.
    “It was just a dream,” she murmured.
    Ever so slowly, Daniel lowered the knife. He looked comical silhouetted against a hallway light with his hair bunched up around his face and pieces of down clinging to the strands. Catherine looked away, forcing back a grin as she then noticed that Daniel had pulled his shorts on backward. He looked confused, then glanced down at himself. Then he looked up with a sheepish expression and pointed a finger in the air. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said, backing out of the door.
    Catherine sighed, shoulders slumping, and rested against the headboard. What a dream that was. Thank goodness it was only a dream. The rawness of the nightmare dissolved into fragments by the time Daniel sauntered back into the room.
    “Which was the worst nightmare,” he asked, sitting near her on the edge of the bed, “your dream, or seeing me race in here looking like a dufus?”
    Catherine lowered her eyes, trying not to chuckle. Daniel tipped her chin with his finger. “You don’t have to answer,” he said, “I’m just glad you’re all right.” He paused, then, “Do you want to talk about the dream? Was it about your old boyfriend?”
    “No. I dreamed we had an accident in your van,” she said. “We almost hit someone in the road. I knew you were driving, but the guy we almost hit was also you.” She shuddered as some of the dream’s horror returned. It was a struggle to force the last part out of her lips. “When I turned to look at you in the driver’s seat, there was a monster sitting in your place.”
    Daniel’s hand lowered from her chin. He clasped his fingers together on his lap, and raised his eyebrows.
    “That was a hum-dinger.” he said.
    Hum-dinger? Catherine thought. Who said words like that nowadays? Daniel was growing more interesting by the moment. “I don’t know why I dreamed such an awful thing,” she finally replied. “I never have nightmares. Maybe it’s from sleeping in a strange place, or maybe its because of the scare Calvin gave me.”
    “Did the monster look like Calvin?” Daniel asked.
    Catherine shook her head, then paused, adding carefully, “No. I got the feeling it was you.” A chill crept down her spine as she remembered the misery that had seeped out of the creature, and dread filled her again. Daniel noticed the goose bumps forming on her arms, and gently pulled the covers over her .
    “Dreams can be something, can’t they?” he asked. He settled back down on the bed next to her. “Sometimes you can go back and pick out one of the day’s events that triggered them. Maybe you dreamed I was a monster because of my bruised face.”
    Catherine nodded. “That’s probably it.” She decided not to tell Daniel that her ‘monster’ had actually been a