A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [31]
“No, I’m sure it’s—”
“Kelly, it’s right down the hall!” Sam dragged Kelly toward the darker end of the hall, nearer the center of the ship.
“Wait! Sam, wait!” Kelly yanked her back, stopped her. But the music surrounded them.
They stared at each other. “It’s behind this … no, this door,” Sam put her palm on a door behind her.
Kelly looked at the door across the hall. “It’s … right behind this door.”
“What do we do?” Sam kept her palm on the dark wood. “I can feel the bass.”
Kelly touched the door in front of her as if petting a scorpion. “I … I can too. It’s … all right, what do we do? Go in one at a time?”
Sam shrugged. “We’ll open the doors at the same time. We’ll watch each other. I’ll go in my room first, then you go in yours. You watch me, I’ll watch you. Okay?”
Kelly shrugged. They’d always be in visual contact. It sounded reasonable.
“Okay, ready?” Sam put her hand on the shiny knob. Kelly followed suit, then nodded. “One … two … three … open.” They turned the knobs and pushed the doors in without losing eye contact.
They waited, staring at each other. “Yours looks empty,” Sam said.
“Yours does, too. So … you want to go first or … or should I?”
Sam grinned. “I’ll go first. I love Coldplay.”
“It’s Alabama,” Kelly grinned. “I’m watching you. Keep one hand on the door jamb. Just make sure the room’s empty, then get out.”
Sam nodded, put her hand on the frame of the door and leaned into the cabin, her head vanishing around the doorway for an instant. Kelly held her breath then exhaled in relief when Sam came back. “All clear,” she said. “Your turn.”
“Okay, here goes,” Kelly said, and Sam took a step toward her.
Kelly gripped the door jamb so hard her knuckles whitened with the ferocity of her hold, and then leaned into the dim cabin. The closet door obscured the tiny alcove, so she leaned farther, but still couldn’t see into the closet. She left her hand on the jamb, and looked back at Sam. “I can’t quite see. I have … I have to step in.” The panic in Kelly’s eyes shined bright.
Sam nodded. “I’m right here.” She took another step toward Kelly.
Kelly swallowed hard and stepped into the room as if walking on broken glass. She peered around the closet door, heart throbbing, ears ringing with her own pulse and the indistinct music. In a moment, she saw the closet was clear, let out the breath she didn’t realize she held, and stepped out of the cabin.
“It’s all—”
The hallway stood empty. Sam was gone. Kelly was alone.
Chapter 5
Kelly screamed into the deadening wood and carpet of the corridor.
She didn’t know the sound escaped her. Her vision narrowed into a tunnel and her knees quivered, threatening to collapse. Her vision blurred, and she blinked with frantic aggravation, the tears rolling down her cheeks her only clue that she cried.
She heard a raking, whimpering sound, and started when she found it came from her. Her breathing, in strained little sobs and fearful blubbering, came soft and distant to her ears. She snuffled hard. Something pressed against her sternum and got her attention. Her hands, knotted together and writhing with terror against her chest, moved independent of her remaining thought processes. With her last scrap of rationality she stilled herself, and with deliberate paces, unhurried and quiet, she moved back up the hall toward the juncture of the corridors.
The lights running along the walls were all out. In front of her, the lights beyond the juncture, where Flanagan went before he disappeared, were also out. Kelly drew a deep breath and listened into the dark.
The timbers of the vessel groaned, creaked, ticked. The waves slapped against the hull, lapping and splashing as the ship moved of its own volition through black waters toward some unknown destination. The humming melody of the music still played as background noise, faint, indistinct. She couldn’t identify the song anymore.
Kelly held her breath, staring at the maroon carpet.
Moaning boat beams. Straining timbers as the sea twisted and squeezed the ship. And something