Call Me Grim Read Online Free PDF Page B

six, but I’m here. Tingles race over my skin. Who the hell is this guy?
    I stop my car at the front entrance and shift into reverse. This is all too weird, in a bad, horror flick kind of way. I’m going home. Max has probably burned down the house by now anyway, and if he hasn’t, he’s at least wondering where the heck I disappeared to. I’ll pop a few Motrin for the headache.
    Pain seizes my brain, twisting it like a washrag, and I realize there is no amount of Motrin, or even morphine, that will dull it enough to ignore. My stomach heaves, and I swallow against the rising bile in my throat.
    “Fine!” I slam the car door and trudge to the front entrance. The headache vanishes, but I’m too creeped out to be relieved.
    The automatic doors slide open, and warm air envelops me. The smell is the first thing I notice—a mixture of flowers and poop—and underlying that is another scent, something subtle and unpleasant. Something dark.
    The tug in my head lurches me forward. I try not to appear crazy as I stumble past the front desk, but I must fail miserably.
    “Excuse me, miss?” The tall, gray-haired woman behind the desk glares at me over her glasses. “Can I help you?”
    I stop, and the pain brings tears to my eyes. Of course the headache is back. I stopped moving. I try not to wince as I turn around and face the woman.
    “Um, yes.” I have to think fast. How can I get by this woman before my head explodes? “I’m here to see Rosie.” I cross my fingers and toes that there’s a Rosie living at the home.
    “Rosie?” She comes out from behind the desk and stands in front of me. “Well, first of all, there are more than a few Rosies here. And secondly, visiting hours are over at seven.”
    She points to a digital clock on the desk. Seven thirty.
    “I’m sorry I’m so late, but I just got off work and I really wanted to tell her something. In person, you know. I want to see her reaction.”
    The woman’s face remains hard. I’m not convincing her. I need to up the ante.
    “I just got accepted to Harvard,” I blurt out. It’s a ridiculous thing to say and I have to stop myself from burying my face in my hands. Harvard is Haley’s dream, not mine. My grades are so bad I’ve already resigned myself to a few years of community college. But my lie works. The woman’s mouth drops open in astonishment.
    “Wow. Harvard? That is an accomplishment.” Her eyes soften and she whispers conspiratorially. “Okay, I’ll let you in for fifteen minutes, but that’s it. All right? Which Rosie are you here to see?”
    “Um…” My mind searches through the pain for Rosie’s last name. I know she said it. What was it? “Benson. Rosie Benson.”
    I say a silent prayer that there’s a Rosie Benson living here. If not, and this woman sends me on my way, I’m sure my eyeballs will pop and blood will spew from my ears.
    “Rosie Benson.” She writes the name in a ledger, looks up at me, and smiles. She’s all sugar and spice now. “And what’s your name, sweetie?”
    “Err…Tina…um…Benson,” I say. I have no idea what’s going on or why I’m here, but it seems best if I give the woman a fake name.
    She scrawls the name next to “Rosie Benson” and looks back up at me.
    “Do you know which room?”
    “Yeah,” I say.
    It’s a lie. I don’t know where Rosie’s room is, but I’m pretty sure my headache does.
     
    ***
     
    I rap on the door at the end of the second-story hall and wait for a response. A small rectangular sign on the wall labels this room “R. Benson.” A chill runs through me and my teeth chatter together, but the pain in my head is finally gone.
    Something strange is about to happen, more strange than glowing people, a leading headache, or a crazy guy miraculously predicting my death and saving my life. I can feel the strangeness seeping through the closed door. But it’s not in my head now, it’s deeper than that.
    There’s no response to my knock, so I try again and