Cry Baby Hollow Read Online Free PDF Page B

was finished, she unpacked her overnight bag into neat piles on the sofa and then started to put everything away. Toiletries were easy enough, but after climbing up into the loft and finding only a queen sized bed and night stand, she was at a loss as to where to put her clothes. The bed was on a low pedestal that had a few drawers underneath, and the built-in sofas in the conversation pit lifted up to reveal storage bins, but there was nowhere to hang anything.
    She thought she might be able to hang a rod in the utility room but when she went to check, she realized the door was gone. She had been so awed by the cabin’s transformation that she hadn’t even noticed. Between the kitchen nook and bathroom door, there was nothing but a line of recessed, built-in book cases. She walked into the kitchen. It had a gas range with an electric oven and a combination microwave/vent above it, a dishwasher that had two drawers that could be used separately, a white farmhouse sink, a snazzy little side by side refrigerator with a glass door and stainless steel trim, as if it had been taken from an upscale convenience store, and open shelving covering all the walls. There was little in the way of cabinet or counter space, and the only light came from a skylight in the roof, but she would only be feeding herself, so it was more than adequate.
    She closed her eyes and tried to remember what it had looked like before. She saw her mother, hair in a ponytail, making them both hamburgers. The counter had been Formica instead of granite, the appliances had been mustard yellow, and instead of a skylight there had been a florescent light on the steeply pitched ceiling, but while the room had certainly been spruced up, none of the space from the missing utility room had been added to it.
    She walked to the bathroom and the mystery was solved. There was pocket door she hadn’t noticed partially hidden from view by the shower stall. She slid it open and found that the little room, which had originally held a full sized washer dryer, a utility sink, and a counter, had been gutted and turned into a modest walk-in closet. It had built-in shelves and drawers, high and low hanging bars, and in the back corner there was a small single unit washer/dryer, like the ones used in Europe.
    She walked back out into the main room, bundled up her things and carried them into the closet. She placed her small suitcase on one of the top shelves, carrying in the teak stairs from the tub to be able to reach, and pulled on a pair of cut off sweat pants, a lycra jogging top with a built in bra, and her running shoes.
    After the incident with the deer in the fog, she was reluctant to go out into the woods alone and that reluctance was exactly why she decided to run to Vina’s instead of driving or calling. She had learned over the course of her life that if you were afraid of something, you did it anyway, and if you were really afraid of something, you did it a lot. Familiarity was the best cure for fear. She grabbed her iPhone, strapped it onto her arm, and headed out.
    Out front, Joe was sitting on the tailgate of his truck, drinking and looking at the half-dug hole where the mailbox was going to be. She put her headphones on and turned up the volume so she wouldn’t have to talk to him, and then sprinted past.
    Aubrey alternated sprints with fast walks every other song and concentrated on not losing her footing on the gravel road. She passed Joe’s, and then came into a more thickly forested section where the lake was invisible behind a dense curtain of trees. She crossed the culvert where one of the mountain streams emptied into the lake, and then pulled up short. There was a fresh looking gravel driveway to the left, heading away from the lake, and a recently cleared patch of land. A massive, red, four-door pickup was parked there and as she stood panting, a man hopped out of it and ambled toward her.
    “Hey there,” he called.
    She wanted to run off, but he