From the Indie Side Read Online Free PDF

was different—off. The colors washed out.
With the sunrise, a gray world was revealed to her. Heavy fog
crowded her window, hiding what was outside. The entire world
reduced to a square of roiling gray.
    If only it blocked out the sounds,
too. It seemed that as the gray light grew stronger, more
people were venturing outside. Emily heard doors, an occasional
scream. A car horn blasting across the street. Terse yells from a
woman to her family. And as before, the loud voices soon became
tortured screams. And ended with the sound of a body falling.
    She tried to cover her ears, to close off all
the sounds. Her eyes began to burn, watering more than just
emotional tears. And the itch on her skin was starting to burrow
underneath, becoming painful. She wondered if their house was
simply going to melt, and then wondered how long before they’d
melt, too.
    This is just temporary , she told
herself as she dressed.
    Soon Emily was gripping the stairwell railing
for the last time in her life. As she neared the bottom steps, the
notion of saying goodbye to her room crossed her mind. It was
silly, and maybe a little sentimental, but for a sixteen-year-old,
sentimental was sometimes everything. Her parents’ voices—and
another scream—kept her moving forward. But she’d become clumsy,
missing the last step, and fell hard onto the foyer’s wood floors.
Immediately, blood rushed to her ankle, making it feel warm and
swollen.
    “Mom!” she began, but stopped when she saw
her mother’s body lying on the floor. Emily’s heart leaped into her
throat. Had the poison—or whatever it was—killed her? Her
mother’s face was hidden beneath her hands, but then Emily saw that
her shoulders were shaking with a run of sobs.
    “Dad?”
    Emily’s father was at her mother’s side, his
face tight as he tried to remain composed. “Barbara, I’m going to
fix this,” he insisted, wiping away a string of spittle from his
chin. “I promise!”
    More tortured screams. But the sound was
louder this time, and seemed just outside. Emily stepped to the
front door and heard a woman’s voice. Her heart beat harder as she
leaned in closer.
    “I’m dying… Please help me, I’m dying,” the
woman rasped. Her voice had the same throaty, pained quality as the
others. But Emily knew this voice—Ms. Quigly, she was sure of it.
Ms. Quigly must have come from next door, making it across the lawn
and to their front stoop. She’d probably gone outside for her cat
and gotten caught up in the fog. The poison had her now. At once
Emily’s mother jumped up, her hands reaching for the door. But her
father rushed by, pushing Emily out of the way.
    “Don’t you open that door!” he screamed. “It
isn’t safe!”
    “We have to help,” her mother pleaded. Emily
pushed between them and took hold of the cold handle. What
difference would it make? She’d open the door for just a
moment—just long enough for Ms. Quigly to get inside. Not since she
was three or four could she ever recall feeling a disciplinary
hand, yet before she could turn the knob, a sharp sting struck the
top of her hand. She pulled back and darted a hurt-filled look at
her father. A crazy mix of fear and alarm in his expression made
her back away.
    “She’s already dead,” he told the both of
them. “Ms. Quigly died before she reached our door. She just
doesn’t know it yet.” Emily watched as her parents clung to one
another, waiting. Her mother flinched when Ms. Quigly called to
them again. They all flinched when the scratchy sound of
fingernails ran the length of their front door. Fear and shame
pressed on Emily’s chest, making it hard to breathe. When the sound
of Ms. Quigly’s body fell against the door, she knew their neighbor
was dead.
    “I hate you for this,” Emily’s mother said,
leaving for the kitchen. Her father’s head slumped and he pushed
his hands over his face. Seeing him like that scared her. Emily
pawed at her arms, and saw the first visible signs