Night of the Purple Moon Read Online Free PDF

shuffled closer. “Yes, I’m here with my neighbor, Kevin. Kevin Patel.”
    Mr. Couture looked up through watery slits. “There’s a damn truck in the front yard.”
    “We know. It was an accident. The driver…” Abby couldn’t finish.
    “Nobody answers their damn phone,” the old man said in a voice that grew raspier by the word. “Where are the damn police? We pay their salaries.”
    She and Kevin traded worried glances.
    “Where’s Mrs. Couture?” Abby asked.
    The old man sighed. “She’s watching the damn comet.” Abby swallowed hard, thinking his wife was dead in the backyard. Then his head lolled to the side. “I’m so thirsty.”
    Kevin straightened. “I’ll get water.” In a flash he was gone. Abby wished he hadn’t left her alone with Mr. Couture. He was very sick. They needed to get him to a doctor, but how?
    She was eyeing the map of delicate blue veins on the top of his hand when out of nowhere the gray cat jumped onto the bed. She lurched back and drew in a sharp breath. The cat curled up by his feet.
    When Kevin returned with a glass of water, he whispered in her ear. “His wife is dead.”
    Abby couldn’t bring herself to deliver the news to Mr. Couture. To help him take a drink, she placed her hand behind his neck and guided him forward. He was burning up with a fever.
    “Thank you, Susan,” he said after wetting his lips.
    “That’s Abby Leigh,” Kevin said. “Abigail Leigh.”
    “Who are you?” he barked at Kevin.
    “Kevin Patel. I live next door to Abby.”
    “That’s my Susan, damn it.”
    Kevin shook his head. “No. Mr. Couture, that’s—”
    Abby made a motion for Kevin to be quiet.
    The old man murmured something and settled his head back on the pillow.
    Abby wondered if this was how her father had died, feverish, in pain, hallucinating. Had he called out strange names in the night, afraid and alone? She pinched herself. If her tears started now, they might never stop.
    The grandfather clock broke the stillness, ticking.
    Kevin looked out the front. “Hey, I see Emily. She’s standing next to Jordan. They’re looking out the window.” Kevin waved the flashlight back and forth.
    Abby thought that one good piece of news sometimes leads to another. She felt a tiny bit of hope that this nightmare would soon end. And when it was over, she and Jordan and Touk would live with Mom in Cambridge and never again return to Castine Island.
    Suddenly Mr. Couture shot up in bed as if a bolt of lightning had fired through his body. Chills rippled down Abby’s back, all the way through her legs to her feet. His face glowed, and his eyes were clear. Strangely, he seemed cured. He pointed a shaky finger at her and cleared his throat, opening his mouth to speak, but before he uttered a single word, he collapsed backward.
    The cat let out a mournful wail. Mr. Couture was dead.

DAY 3 – NEWS FROM AFAR
    Abby dragged herself out of her sleeping bag in Toucan’s room. Was it possible that she had just experienced the longest nightmare of her life? She went to the window. The fan of bright violet light unfolding on the eastern horizon and the silhouette of the lobster truck across the street told her that was not the case.
    She had slept fitfully, worried sick about Mom, thinking about Dad, reliving Mr. Couture’s strange, sudden death, and wondering what they should do.
    She tiptoed around Emily and Toucan in the cot, both sleeping soundly, snuggled close to each other, and stepped into the hallway. No sounds came from Jordan’s room where the two boys camped.
    Downstairs Abby turned on the radio. More white noise. No bars on her cell phone. She checked the TV and computer. Neither one worked. They had no connections to the outside world… if there was a world left out there.
    Abby avoided the front window, not wishing to see Mr. Marsh, and she steered clear of the breezeway to avoid seeing her father. She peered out the kitchen window. A few purple, puffy clouds were floating