Metamorphosis Read Online Free PDF

fading with it.
    He lay the clipping on the chair with the mail and went out, hurrying across the street and up onto the walk to the front porch, where he was half hidden by darkness and shrubbery. There was a small glass window in the front door, but it only afforded a view of an entry hall with an umbrella stand. It seemed to him that he could see a faint aura of light along the inner edge of the hall, and he put his hand on the doorknob. Of course it was locked. He moved back along the front window to get a better look past the edge of the curtain, trying to remain out of sight from the street, and he glanced over at Beverly’s house. Her curtains were drawn across the windows.
    There was the heightened sound of rain behind him again, and the smell of wet and rotted vegetation, and he realized that the wind was blowing the warm rain up onto the porch, soaking the paper flyers and leaves and throwaway newspapers that littered the concrete. He wondered what he was doing there—why he had bothered to cross the street at all. He thought of his father, sitting in his chair, waiting for the rain and watching the street, going out into the evening when his mother was away. And now he was doing the same thing, knowing that his interest in this was more than mere curiosity. Let well enough alone, he told himself, but right then the light inside, apparently in a back bedroom, glowed again, more brightly than it had before, as if drawing energy from the rain, or, he thought uneasily, from the attention that he was paying it.
    He pulled on the edge of the window frame, unsuccessfully trying to slide the window open. It tipped just a little at the top, though, as if it weren’t locked, but was merely painted shut along the sill. He banged his fist hard into the bottom of the frame half a dozen times, working his way along the sill and feeling the paint crack loose. He rattled the window and yanked on it, working it open a couple of inches, pulling leaves and debris out of the runner before forcing it farther along. When the opening was wide enough, he climbed through, working the window closed behind him to hide the fact that he had just broken in. There would be no way to explain it to anyone if he were caught, he realized. He wasn’t sure he could explain it to himself.
    He left the window open and stood still, listening hard, and for the first time it came into his mind that there might be someone here. But the light didn’t seem to him to be associated with human activity, and he could hear nothing aside from rain against the roof shingles. Still, he had found it easy enough to get in….
    The house smelled dusty and closed-up, and there was the faint odor of mould, as if the roof or the plumbing were leaky. Away to his left there was an arched doorway into what looked in the semi-darkness to be a kitchen. Ahead lay a hallway, the layout very much like his parents’ house, with bedrooms and a bathroom off the hall. He stepped as quietly as he could into the hallway, and saw that the light was glowing steadily now, in the room at the end. The door stood open. He could see the foot-end of a bed and part of an upholstered armchair, its mahogany arms glowing faintly. The light reminded him of fireflies, or of a candle, but not wavering like a candle flame.
    Say something
, he told himself, but the thought of speaking seemed alien to him, and he stood for a moment with his mind empty, neither willing to go back out through the window nor ahead down the hallway.
    He became aware of the heft of the paperweight in his pocket, and he wrapped his fingers around it and took it out, walking silently along the hallway now toward the gauzy light, listening to water running in the rain gutters and gurgling out the downspouts into flowerbeds. The still air smelled of long-empty perfume bottles and dust. As he drew closer, the open door revealed more of the room—a bureau dresser, a flowered bedspread, the closed door of a closet.
    He stood