Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [138]
Just as he felt certain he could go no farther, the flashlight caught a sliver of glittering white up ahead. Snow—it clogged the tunnel. In one last mad rush of panic, Nick clawed, pushed, tore and dug his way to the surface. Suddenly, he saw the black, starlit sky. And despite the miles he thought he had traveled, he realized he hadn’t even left the cemetery. Instead, he rose from the ground like a corpse among the tombstones. Less than three feet away, the black angel hovered above him with a ghostly radiance that looked like a smile.
CHAPTER 88
Christine’s neck ached like it usually did when she fell asleep on the sofa. She saw branches sticking through glass. Had the storm sent branches through her living-room window? She had heard a crash. And there was a hole in the ceiling. Yes, she could even see stars, thousands of them right there, sitting on top of her house.
Where was Grandma Morrelli’s afghan? She needed something to stop the draft, to prevent the cold from swirling up around her. Timmy, turn up the furnace, please. Hot chocolate, maybe she could fix nice steaming mugs of hot chocolate for the two of them. If only she could push the furniture off her chest. And where were her arms when she needed them? She could see one of them lying next to her. Why couldn’t she make it move? Had it fallen asleep like the rest of her?
Those annoying headlights made her eyes sting. If she could just find the plug, she could shut them off. They made the branches dance, a slow-motion rumba, bumping and grinding glass. It was too hard to keep her eyes open, anyway. Perhaps she could fall back to sleep if only that rasping sound would stop. It came from somewhere inside her coat, from somewhere inside her chest. Whatever it was, it was annoying and…and painful…yes, it was annoyingly painful.
What was President Nixon doing in the headlights? He waved at her. She tried to wave back, but her arm was still asleep. He came into her living room. He moved all the furniture off her chest. Then President Nixon carried her back to sleep.
CHAPTER 89
Timmy watched his sled drift downstream. The bright orange looked fluorescent in the moonlight. He crouched in the snow, hidden by the cattails along the riverbank. All that catapulting practice on Cutty’s Hill had paid off, though his mom would kill him if she ever found out.
He was feeling pretty confident. He only now realized he had lost a shoe in the jump. His ankle hurt. It looked funny, puffed up, almost twice the size of his other one. Then he saw the black shadow, spiderwebbing its way down the ridge, clinging to roots and vines, stretching and gripping rocks and branches. It moved quickly.
Timmy glanced back at the sled, now regretting that he hadn’t stayed in it. The stranger came to the river’s edge. He was watching the sled, too. It had drifted too far away for him to see inside. But maybe the stranger believed Timmy had stayed inside. He certainly didn’t look as if he was in a rush anymore. In fact, the stranger just stood there, staring at the river. Maybe he was trying to decide whether to jump in after the sled.
Out here in the open the stranger looked smaller, and although it was too dark to see his face, Timmy could tell he wasn’t wearing the dead president’s mask anymore.
Timmy burrowed down farther into the snow. The breeze coming off the water brought a wet cold with it. His teeth started chattering and the shivers crawled over his body again. He hugged his knees to his chest and watched and waited. As soon as the stranger disappeared, Timmy decided he would follow the road. It looked all uphill, but it would be better than the woods again. Besides, it had to lead somewhere.
Finally, the stranger looked as if he was giving