Free Seldom Seen in August by Kealan Patrick Burke Page B

access before
anyone noticed.
    Yeah, right .
    There were any number of flaws in his
plan, and though he tried not to think about them, they persisted,
driven by self-preservation to remind him of the risk.
    The door might be alarmed.
    Someone might be waiting inside, hidden
in the shadows with a gun aimed at where Wade now stood second
guessing himself.
    One of the neighbors might be watching
him, a phone to their ear as they quickly related to the emergency
operator what they had seen, and were seeing still.
    Paranoia brought upon him the
undeniable sensation of being watched. He felt it like lying like a
cape across his shoulders. The hair on the nape of his neck
prickled and he glanced back over his shoulder. There were windows
all around him, staring vapidly down from over a labyrinth of
privacy fences.
    He shook his head. Flaws, or not, he
didn’t have a choice. It was hide or keep running and he could only
run so far before they wore him down. He reached out a hand, closed
his eyes for a moment, and gripped the cold metal handle on the
sliding door. C’mon, you sonofabitch , he thought, and
pulled. To his amazement, the door slid open with a soft whoosh .
    He paused on the threshold, listening,
heart hammering against his ribs.
    There was no sound from
within.
    Wade smiled. Another furtive glance
over his shoulder, and he was inside.
     

CHAPTER TWO
     
    The interior of the house offered no
surprises.
    Wade gently slid the door shut behind
him and locked it, then pulled the curtains.
    He turned to inspect his surroundings,
but it was hard to make anything out in the gloom. What he could
tell was that beneath his feet was a carpet that had seen better
days and the air smelled faintly of furniture polish and pine air
freshener. He did not need to know what the room looked like, only
that he was the only one currently occupying it.
    He felt a little better now that he was
off the street and hidden, though he remained intrinsically aware
that this did not constitute freedom. He was far from out of the
woods. Anything could still go wrong, and in cases like this,
usually did. Until he knew that he was alone in the house, he
wouldn’t let his guard down. Even then, he would remain on edge
until a viable long-term escape plan presented itself, if one presented itself and he wasn’t just dawdling here while a
juggernaut of doom bore steadily down upon him.
    Goddamn you anyway, Cartwright ,
he thought, clenching his teeth in frustration. He remained where
he was, standing in the darkness by the drawn curtains,
listening.
    The house was quiet as the
grave.
    Not fool enough to take that as proof
that he was alone, Wade cocked the gun as quietly as he could,
which was not quiet at all, and slowly crossed the room, bound for
the door in the wall opposite. Twice he barked his shin against
furniture that had been lurking in the dark and had to restrain a
gasp of pain. At length, ankle throbbing, he found the door and
beside it a light switch he yearned to turn on, but resisted just
in case it gave him away should someone be waiting for him in the
hall.
    Quietly, he opened the door.
    A naked bulb cast sickly yellow light
down on the narrow hallway.
    There were coats, children’s by the
look of them, hooked over the newel post at the bottom of a short
flight of carpeted stairs. A punctured football sat on one step
beside the naked head and torso of a baby doll. Its eyes were
closed as if sleeping. Wade gave it only the most cursory glance.
He hated dolls, and had ever since that movie he’d seen as a kid in
which one of them had opened its eyes in a darkened bedroom and
grinned at a terrified child. The stupid movie hadn’t even been
about dolls, he recalled, and shook his head as he edged into the
hall.
    Ahead of him was a doorway, the light
from the hall unable to reach very far over the threshold. There’s no one here , Wade told himself. He was alone. He
could feel it, but he knew better than to rely solely on instinct.
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