Free Sunruined: Horror Stories by Andersen Prunty Page B

nourish his aching calcium-deprived bones, he stood up and said, “Well, I’m going to the mill.”
    “Wait a second and I’ll come with you,” Gina said, already walking toward the bedroom to fetch some pants.
    “No, honey, I’d… rather go alone.”
    A look of hurt pride flooded her sparkling blue eyes.
    “No offense. It’s just, well, since I feel kind of close to the painting, I’d rather go alone. I won’t be gone long. Promise. I just wanna poke around on the inside some, that’s all.”
    “Okay. I understand.” Samuel admired her deep reservation.
    He quickly kissed her on the cheek and left.
     
    Samuel stared at the padlocked garage-type door with growing anger. He picked up a couple of large rocks and hurled them at the rusty iron. There was no way he was going to get this far and then be locked out of the one thing that had become his life for nearly a month. The front of the mill dropped off into the river, making the broken windows there impossible to enter. The back of it was stuck into the mountain. Swearing under his breath, he continued to hurl stones at the unfeeling steel.
    “Why won’t you let me in!” he shouted and then thought, Christ, I’m acting as if this thing were human.
    A voice shouted from behind him, “Hey!”
    Samuel turned, half expecting to see a wonderful peace officer standing there with his little shiny badge in his little blue suit. Instead, it was a slight man in dirty navy-colored coveralls, supporting himself against the handle of a wide broom. “Hey,” he repeated, moving closer to Samuel, his right hand swishing the broom forward while the other hand braced his back as he crept along in the gravel. “Yuh-yuh-you wuh-wuh-want in there?”
    The man was very close to Samuel now. Samuel noticed that his left eye blinked rapidly open and closed while his right eye stared forward, occasionally shooting off to catch some movement in the woods beside them.
    “I guess I want in there almost more than anything, right now,” Samuel told the man.
    “Huh-huh-who are you?” the man stuttered.
    “Samuel Bean,” he said, extending his hand. “And you?”
    “Kuh-Kuh-Kent MMMMMMurr,” he spat out, switching the broom to his left hand and holding out his right. “Huh-huh-Who suh-suh-sent you?” Both eyes were now open wide, boring into Samuel.
    “Who sent me? Whaddya mean?” Samuel asked and then realized that he didn’t want to wait through the man stammering out an explanation. “Well, nobody, I guess. I’m doing a painting. Just decided to come down and check it out. So, you can get me in?”
    “Sure can,” Kent Murr spat out and began walking outrageously slow toward the padlocked door. Samuel followed him, anxiety like lighter fluid on the flames of his anger.
    After what seemed like an hour, Murr finally reached the door. He leaned his broom against the dirty brick of the outside, hunched down, and seized the lock in shaky hands. After several attempts at trying to line the key up with the slit in the lock, Samuel grabbed the tiny key ring with this one single key on it and pushed it in.
    Murr began stammering as Samuel jiggled the key around until he heard a click. “Luh-luh-live uh-uh-up yonder in da da woods…”
    Samuel pulled the heavy door up.
    “She died in there,” Murr said with no stammer. “Still in there,” he added, deftly seizing the key from the lock and moving away.
    When Samuel turned to watch him go, Murr was already a few yards away. “Duh-duh-don’t ferget to cuh-cuh-close up,” the man called from over his shoulder, raising his right hand in a wave of departure.
    “Fucking nut,” Samuel muttered before entering the factory.
    Inside seemed impossibly cold. Inside seemed impossibly damp. Inside seemed impossibly dark and dirty. Samuel decided he preferred the outside, but his fascination and curiosity pushed him farther in.
    Samuel, having felt as clean as a newborn less than an hour before, automatically felt grimy and dirty.