The Girl Who Survived(4)

On.

Off.

On.

Click, click, click.

The light growing fainter each time she turned the flashlight on.

She couldn’t just sit here and wait while the batteries in the flashlight died. What if Marlie never came back?

Kara wanted to rattle the door handle frantically, to scream and flail at the door. She reached for the handle again, her fingers curling over the cold lever. But she stopped herself. It would do no good. And probably cause unwanted attention. No, she had to be smart. She had to find another way to escape.

Determined, she climbed up the rickety steps again to the attic, where a single round window mounted high above and the faint moonlight cast the dimmest of light through the dusty, forgotten boxes piled everywhere, The boxes and crates were marked with words scribbled on them, some of them Kara could read: Books. Clothes. Office. Or marked with names: Sam Jr. Jonas. Donner. Marlie. Her sister and brothers. No box for her, the youngest, the only child of both mother and father. Not yet. She heard the rustle of something, something alive in the far corner. Tiny claws on the wood floor. A squirrel? Or a mouse . . . or a rat?

She shivered and was sorting through the box again when she heard it—a horrid, bloodcurdling scream rising up from a lower floor.

“AAAAHHHHHGGG!”

Kara jumped. Nearly peed herself. She sucked in her breath as the horrid wail echoed through the house.

What was that? Who was that?

Marlie?

Mama?

Or someone else?

Thud!

The house shook.

Something really big had fallen.

Kara’s mouth turned to dust and she blinked against tears.

Was it a body?

Someone hurt and screaming, then falling?

Marlie?

“Mama,” she mouthed around a sob.

Don’t be a baby.

Pulse pounding, fear nearly paralyzing her, she forced herself to sweep the flashlight’s thin beam over the boxes again and spied the one marked Office. It was closed, cardboard flaps folded but gaping. She shone the light inside and saw yellowed papers, an old stapler, envelopes, a tape dispenser and a pair of dusty scissors. She picked up the scissors and a paper clip that held some papers together, then silently made her way down the stairs to the door.

As she’d seen Jonas do at the locked bathroom door when she’d been spying on him, she took the paper clip, straightened it as best she could, and slid it into the small hole beneath the lever. She’d tried it once before on Sam Junior and Donner’s room and it had worked and now . . . she wiggled the tiny wire, working it inside the lock as she strained to hear any other noise coming from the other side of the door.

Come on, come on, she silently said to herself, pulling the wire out once before sliding it back through the hole and twisting gently . . . feeling it move. With a soft click the lock gave way and fighting back her fear, she took a deep breath, held her scissors in one hand, and pushed the door open.





CHAPTER 2


The hallway was empty.

And nearly dark, the only light coming from the far end, where a shadowy illumination crawled up the staircase.

I don’t think we’re alone. . . .

Kara licked her lips, as she had a hundred times before when she was sneaking around this old house. She made her way to the smaller staircase and crept down the steps in the darkness, her skin feeling too tight for her body, her lungs barely able to draw in a breath.

She slipped onto the second floor and was vaguely aware of the music again as she crept into her bedroom. It was empty, but as she shined her flashlight’s beam over the room, she noticed the pile of clothes were still on Marlie’s bed. Folded clothes and boots near her open suitcase. Her own bed was as she’d left it, the covers thrown back and crumpled.

But her sister wasn’t inside.

She bit her lip.

Fought fear.

Heard the strains of the same Christmas carol seeping through the house.

“. . . All is calm, all is bright . . .”

Barely breathing, she made her way along the hall to Jonas’s room. It was the smallest of the bedrooms and even messier than usual. The bed unmade, junk on his desk, clothes and games tossed over the floor and . . . Oh, God! An unblinking eye reflecting her flashlight’s beam.

She dropped the flashlight and bit back a scream. Shrinking backward to the door just as she realized she was looking at the stuffed head of a deer that had been mounted on the wall and now lay on the floor, antlers propping it up.

Crap!

Her heart felt as if it might fly out of her chest.

It was just the deer. Long dead. Stupid dead animals were mounted all over this cabin and they’d always creeped her out. She snagged the flashlight and swept the beam over the rest of the mess. Not far from the stag’s head, pushed against a half-drunk bottle of Gatorade, an eagle was sprawled, feathers everywhere, and she realized the bird hadn’t just fallen from its perch on the wall but had been sliced and . . . beheaded. The body with its curled talons was still attached to the stand, but the head was separate, the sharp beak digging into the carpet, glassy eyes condemning.

Her insides turned to water and she raised the beam of the flashlight to the wall over Jonas’s closet, to the spot where a sword had been mounted. The weapon was a relic from some long-ago war. The weapon was never supposed to be handled, never to be taken down from its spot on the wall.