and shut herself inside.
She found the switch and flipped it up. The single incandescent bulb strung from the ceiling filled the room with passable light.
For a few moments, Christy stood still, taking in the silence, aware that she’d just broken some law likely punishable by time in a jail cell.
The thought fell away as she scanned the room. Twenty feet wide by ten deep, Austin had said, and he was dead accurate about such things. Two wooden wheelchairs, some rusted IV stands, dirty bottles, and some wheeled trays in the corner to her left. A bookcase filled with old medical books stood along the wall beside them, spines wiped of dust. Austin had scanned most of them. He stuffed his mind with more information than most people could read in five lifetimes.
A gurney and two hospital beds were stacked on the wall in front of her. Some old crates full of medical stuff of some kind.
The west side of the storage room had interested Austin more. Another old wooden wheelchair, wiped clean of dust by the seat of Austin’s pants. He liked to balance on two wheels and think. An old writer’s desk hugged the far end, complete with old writing pens and an inkwell supplied by Austin.
He was a writer. The desk had drawn him. Of all the artifacts in the room, she understood this attraction the most because she, too, was a writer of sorts if filling journals counted as writing. Sometimes she thought she was trying to make up for her forgotten childhood by writing down every detail of her life now.
Four old, plain wooden coffins were stacked in pairs along the wall. Yesterday she’d sat on a fifth casket and leaned against the wall for an hour, talking with Austin.
A quick scan of the grime-smeared concrete floor revealed no sign of her locket. She walked over to the desk, searched it quickly, and then crossed to the coffin.
Nothing on its surface, nothing along its base. Her heart began to sink. She was about to turn away and search the floor near the desk—she’d spent some time there, sitting in Austin’s wheelchair, flipping though a medical journal—when she saw the gap between the coffin and the wall.
Christy bent over the casket, supporting herself with one hand. Peered down the crack. Too dark to see, so she pulled out her cell phone.
The tiny battery icon in the corner of the screen glowed red. She’d have to charge it when she got back. Should have plugged it in last night. She thumbed to the flashlight app and brought the bright screen up to the gap.
Her silver locket lay along the base wall, glinting like a tiny star. Her heart soared.
Shoving her phone into her back pocket, she grabbed the wooden box, found that it was quite light, and tugged it back from the wall several feet. It was strange how finding the little $19.99 piece of jewelry affected her. This was her life, caged in a silver heart: a fake picture.
How lame was that?
Christy hurried around the coffin and stepped behind to retrieve her necklace. She was already leaning down with her right arm extended when she planted her foot on the wooden floor.
One minute she was reaching for the locket, the next she was falling. Forward and down. Through a trapdoor in the floor.
But it wasn’t the initial fall that got Christy. It was her survival instincts.
In that first split second, she knew that she was too far off balance to abort her fall, but she impulsively threw both arms wide anyway, grabbing for the coffin on one side and the wall on the other, hoping to stop herself from going through.
Her head slammed into the wooden trapdoor that had opened under her.
The impact elicited another knee-jerk reaction, this one to save her head. If she hadn’t grabbed for her head, she might have stopped her fall.
She free-fell less than a second before landing on hard concrete, this time with her hands and feet first. She grunted and rolled into her right shoulder, still pushed by adrenaline and the basic call for survival.
The trapdoor slammed shut
She found the switch and flipped it up. The single incandescent bulb strung from the ceiling filled the room with passable light.
For a few moments, Christy stood still, taking in the silence, aware that she’d just broken some law likely punishable by time in a jail cell.
The thought fell away as she scanned the room. Twenty feet wide by ten deep, Austin had said, and he was dead accurate about such things. Two wooden wheelchairs, some rusted IV stands, dirty bottles, and some wheeled trays in the corner to her left. A bookcase filled with old medical books stood along the wall beside them, spines wiped of dust. Austin had scanned most of them. He stuffed his mind with more information than most people could read in five lifetimes.
A gurney and two hospital beds were stacked on the wall in front of her. Some old crates full of medical stuff of some kind.
The west side of the storage room had interested Austin more. Another old wooden wheelchair, wiped clean of dust by the seat of Austin’s pants. He liked to balance on two wheels and think. An old writer’s desk hugged the far end, complete with old writing pens and an inkwell supplied by Austin.
He was a writer. The desk had drawn him. Of all the artifacts in the room, she understood this attraction the most because she, too, was a writer of sorts if filling journals counted as writing. Sometimes she thought she was trying to make up for her forgotten childhood by writing down every detail of her life now.
Four old, plain wooden coffins were stacked in pairs along the wall. Yesterday she’d sat on a fifth casket and leaned against the wall for an hour, talking with Austin.
A quick scan of the grime-smeared concrete floor revealed no sign of her locket. She walked over to the desk, searched it quickly, and then crossed to the coffin.
Nothing on its surface, nothing along its base. Her heart began to sink. She was about to turn away and search the floor near the desk—she’d spent some time there, sitting in Austin’s wheelchair, flipping though a medical journal—when she saw the gap between the coffin and the wall.
Christy bent over the casket, supporting herself with one hand. Peered down the crack. Too dark to see, so she pulled out her cell phone.
The tiny battery icon in the corner of the screen glowed red. She’d have to charge it when she got back. Should have plugged it in last night. She thumbed to the flashlight app and brought the bright screen up to the gap.
Her silver locket lay along the base wall, glinting like a tiny star. Her heart soared.
Shoving her phone into her back pocket, she grabbed the wooden box, found that it was quite light, and tugged it back from the wall several feet. It was strange how finding the little $19.99 piece of jewelry affected her. This was her life, caged in a silver heart: a fake picture.
How lame was that?
Christy hurried around the coffin and stepped behind to retrieve her necklace. She was already leaning down with her right arm extended when she planted her foot on the wooden floor.
One minute she was reaching for the locket, the next she was falling. Forward and down. Through a trapdoor in the floor.
But it wasn’t the initial fall that got Christy. It was her survival instincts.
In that first split second, she knew that she was too far off balance to abort her fall, but she impulsively threw both arms wide anyway, grabbing for the coffin on one side and the wall on the other, hoping to stop herself from going through.
Her head slammed into the wooden trapdoor that had opened under her.
The impact elicited another knee-jerk reaction, this one to save her head. If she hadn’t grabbed for her head, she might have stopped her fall.
She free-fell less than a second before landing on hard concrete, this time with her hands and feet first. She grunted and rolled into her right shoulder, still pushed by adrenaline and the basic call for survival.
The trapdoor slammed shut
Similar Books
