The Athena Effect Read Online Free PDF Page B

darkened. She heard Phil come up the stairs and tensed up, relaxing when his bedroom door clicked shut. After an hour or so had passed she slipped down into the kitchen and made herself a plate of food, standing in front of the microwave and watching it spin around in circles. She still couldn’t get over the miraculous device.
    “Need some help with that?” Phil said, startling her. He came in to stand right behind her in the small kitchen.
    “N-no thanks,” she stammered.
    He reached in the refrigerator and pulled out a beer, patting Cal’s rear end with his other hand just as the timer went off. She jumped.
    “Want one?” he asked, holding it out to her.
    “No thanks,” she repeated, beating a hasty retreat.
    She started eating in her room, going out of her way to avoid crossing paths with Phil. When Angie was around she could relax, but her aunt worked nights, and that was when Phil started drinking. He was overly friendly when he was drinking, always trying to get her to talk, or join him for a beer.
    One night, after hunger drove her from her room, Phil insisted that she sit and watch television with him. She perched on the edge of the couch nervously while he put a movie on. Within a few minutes everyone on the screen was naked and on top of each other.
    Cal jumped up in shock, and Phil reached out and grabbed her wrist.
    “Stay and watch it with me,” he pulled her towards him, radiating a deep maroon lust.
    She wrenched her arm away and bolted for the stairs. He followed her halfway up, “Hey! Lighten up– I was only kidding around!”
    From then on, whenever Angie wasn’t around Cal went to great lengths to avoid him, keeping her knife at the ready. The more she shied away from him, the more he seemed to like it, and she could feel his eyes following her constantly. She told her aunt what had happened, but Angie brushed it off, saying that Phil was just a big jokester, and meant nothing by it.
    Cal started wandering the neighborhood at night, loathe to be alone in the house with her aunt’s creepy boyfriend. She considered running away, but she was afraid. She had no money, and no-place to run to. She felt trapped, tied to her aunt’s house as sure as the poor pit bull that stood guard at the decrepit house down the street.
    She passed by the dog’s house nightly, stopping to visit with him on the occasional times she found the poor animal left outside. Sometimes they huddled together for comfort, two creatures at the mercy of forces they had no control over.
    Her favorite place to go was an old cemetery a few blocks away, a secluded spot on a hill alongside a wooded area. The old gravesites did not frighten her, and it was nice and quiet there, away from the road. She was drawn to the small wild space, haunting the dark woods as silently as an owl. She rarely came across anyone else, and it was the closest thing to home she could find.
    One moonlit night she heard footsteps approaching and slipped into the bushes, pulling the hood of her sweatshirt over her light hair and holding perfectly still. A lone figure entered the cemetery, pacing nervously in an anxious cloud of greenish fear. It was the boy from school– the motorcycle rider that shared her name– and she watched him from the shadows with interest, wondering what on earth he was doing in the cemetery at night.
    Three men approached from the opposite direction and he straightened up in anticipation. His color went silvery white with tension, and a little shiver of bitter fear ran down her spine. She could hear them speak when they met, and she strained to listen to what they were saying to each other.
    A harsh voice asked, “Where’s Jarod?”
    “He’s out of town… He asked me to do the drop.”
    “Who the hell are you?” The man asked him, looking around suspiciously.
    “I’m his brother.” Cal reached in his jacket to hand over a thick Manila envelope. “He says it’s all there,” he said.
    The man took the package,