Endurance - Jack Kilborn [41]
Could that hunter guy be in my closet?
Kelly pictured him standing behind the door, waiting silently for her to go to sleep. So he could sneak up on her and kiss her with that disgusting mouth.
Kiss her, and worse.
Kelly had never kissed a guy. Not even on the cheek. She didn’t want her first to be that awful man.
I’m imagining things. He’s not in the closet.
He can’t be.
Right?
“Come here, JD.” Kelly said it softly.
JD didn’t come. He looked at her, then back at the closet.
Kelly set her iPod on the nightstand and swung her feet over the edge of the bed. She held her breath, listening for any sounds that could be coming from the closet—
—and heard someone cough.
JD barked once and lunged at the closet door, scratching at the knob. Kelly quickly stood up and backed away, to the bathroom. The wooden floor was cool under her bare feet, and she felt nearly naked in her sleep tee shirt, even though it had three-quarter sleeves and hung past her knees.
The Shepherd continued his attack on the doorknob, even biting it, and though JD had never been able to open a door before Kelly had an unrealistic belief that he might this time.
“JD, come.”
The dog glanced at her.
“Come. Now.”
He trotted over, tongue hanging out, tail wagging. Kelly patted his head, surprised by how reassuring it felt. Then she knelt down and hugged his neck, both of them eyeing the door.
The seconds ticked by. Kelly began to wonder if she’d imaged the cough.
Could it have been something else?
Old houses made noises. There were water pipes, and furnaces, and any number of things that made sound. At home, when Mom flushed the toilet, Kelly could hear it from the basement.
Maybe it wasn’t a cough. Maybe someone upstairs had turned on the shower.
Or maybe someone did cough, but it came from the room next door, not the closet.
JD pressed his cold nose into Kelly’s neck, making her flinch. She stood up.
I should open the door to check.
While Kelly didn’t consider herself a tomboy, she was far from a sissy. Kelly preferred SlipKnot to Hannah Montana, and would much rather watch the Saw movies than High School Musical. She could pick up snakes and frogs without screaming, unlike other girls in her class, and during a sleepover was the only one who could spend a full two minutes in the pitch-dark bathroom with the Ouiji board Sue Ellen Wilcox’s brother swore was possessed by Satan. The only irrational thing that scared Kelly was heights.
Is being afraid of the closet irrational? Or common sense?
“It’s irrational,” Kelly said. Her mother loved the word irrational. And if she were there right now, she’d march over to the closet and show Kelly how irrational her fears were.
Drawing on that, Kelly walked toward the door.
The floor creaked under her feet. Though only a few yards separated her from the closet, it seemed like it took a very long time for her to get there. Each step closer increased Kelly’s apprehension. When she finally reached out and touched the knob, her throat felt like there was a walnut stuck in it she was unable to swallow.
Just open the door.
She tightened her grip, but still hesitated.
What if I open it, and the hunter is standing there?
Kelly looked back at JD. He’d stayed next to the bathroom, still as a picture.
Maybe I should listen to the door first.
The girl carefully placed her ear against the cool, rough wood. Again she held her breath, listening for sounds.
A few seconds passed.
Kelly heard nothing.
Mom’s voice appeared in Kelly’s head, like it did whenever she stepped onto a diving board. “You’re being irrational, Kelly. What’s the worst that can happen?”
Crack my head open and drown?
Or in this case,