Alarums Read Online Free PDF Page A

jaw muscles.
        When she finished, the towel smelled of Burgundy.
        She wrapped it snugly around her breasts and tucked in a corner to hold it in place.
        At the door, she gripped the knob and hesitated.
        Don't clutch up again, she told herself. He's not out there. It's perfectly safe.
        She turned the knob. The lock button popped with a loud, springy ping. She pulled the door open and stared through a gap the width of her head. Lights from the living room, her office, and her bedroom glowed through the hallway. Nothing looked wrong. But it all looked wrong, strangely mutated and alien.
        A voice on a tape, and the world shifts.
        She listened.
        There was the faint hum of her refrigerator, nothing else.
        A drop of water trickled off her rump and skidded down the back of her leg. Reaching a hand around, she smeared it away.
         Wait a while longer, why don't you? Stand here till he calls again.
        She stepped into the hallway. Glanced into her bedroom as she passed its door.
        Nobody jumped out at her.
         Of course not. I've got a bad case of the willies, that's all.
        She stopped at her office door. Saw the cassette on the carpet, the answering machine beside the typewriter.
        First things first.
        At the end of the hallway, she made a quick scan of the living room. Her eyes swept to the door. The guard chain hung in place.
         Satisfied?
        Pen wasn't satisfied, but she felt her shoulders ease down a bit.
        She stepped into the kitchen. From the hallway came enough light for her purposes, but she flicked the kitchen switch anyway to kill the shadows.
        Just above the switch panel, her telephone was fixed to the wall. She wrapped a hand around it and pulled. The metal plate stayed on the wall, its jack hole empty. She placed the disconnected phone on top of her refrigerator.
        One down, one to go.
        With swift long strides, she returned to her office. She carefully avoided the desk corner that had earlier gouged her leg.
        The answering machine. The phone. Their cords dropped off the edge of the desk, hung nearly straight down the gap between the side of the desk and the bookshelves, then curved upward and vanished behind the books.
        Pen sidestepped. She dropped to a squat, held herself steady with one hand on the desk corner, and reached into the gap with her left hand. Her fingertips found the cords. She followed them, twisting sideways, slipping her hand over the book tops. Her towel fell. The phone blared, jolting her heart and ripping her breath away. With a cry of fright and rage, she hurled herself forward. Her right shoulder rammed the desk, shoving it, turning it. Another blast from the phone. Her knees hit the carpet. She squirmed, wedging herself into the gap, shelves digging into her hip and ribs, the desk edge scraping across her right breast. The phone shrieked in her ear. She writhed, teeth bared, whimpering, and her fingers found the phone jack. She yanked it from the wall.
        Silence.
        She eased herself free.
        Her trembling fingers grasped the towel. She dragged it with her as she moved backward on her knees.
        Eyes fixed on the phone.
        The next best thing to being there.
        

CHAPTER FOUR
        
        'This is Friday night,' Bodie said. 'People go out.'
        'I know,' Melanie muttered. She was slumped in the passenger seat, knees up, feet against the dash. She had been like that since they left the service station. Staring straight ahead, but too low to see out the windshield. 'Maybe it was Pen it happened to,' she said.
         Maybe it's no one , Bodie thought. 'Worrying about it won't do any good. Why don't you go in back and try to get some sleep?'
        She didn't answer. She didn't move. She stayed curled up, head pushed forward by the seat back. Bodie wondered how she could breathe