The Taken Read Online Free PDF

up like this?
    All this detail? The child was no more than ten, but his dark bowl haircut was like his clothes, all out of place, like something from the seventies. Even in the gloom she could make out the bright reds and yellows on his knitted tank top that sat
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    over a wide collared shirt, patches of dried mud up the sleeves. Her mind felt hot. How come if his hands and face are wet, the mud is dry? Why did my head make that up? How can that be? How can any of this be?
    Taking his finger back from her lips, the boy covered his ears with his fists and whispered. “She’s hurting him. She’s making him cry.” His voice sounded congested, as if he needed his adenoids taken out but no one had ever gotten around to it. “I don’t like it when she makes them cry. She’s going to make him jump.”
    It’s the morphine, kiddo. It’s taking you on a trip. That’s all it is. That’s all it can be. Staring at him, she whispered back the only question she could think to ask. “Who are you?”
    The answer was barely audible. “I don’t remember. He keeps us in the storm.”
    Glancing again at the window, at the weather on the other side of it, he leaned forward to get closer to her, and she realized he smelled the same as the air did earlier that night. Dirty and damp. “They don’t know you can hear them. They don’t know you’re in between. Like us.”
    Staring at him, his words weird and meaningless, Alex could see how wide and scared his eyes were, and despite her own fear she almost wanted to touch him to see whether that garishly old-fashioned shirt felt as rough as she imagined it would.
    But then the lightning flashed again and he was gone. The room was empty. She sat frozen, listening to the clock ticking out the seconds of her life for a full five minutes before she crept out of bed and over to the light switch and flicked it on. Warm yellow light filled the room, bringing with it normalcy and sanity. Leaning back against the bedroom door, Alex stared at 31
    the furnishings and empty spaces that she knew so well and finally let out her breath. God, that was weird. Too weird. Nightmares were one thing, but hallucinations? Those she could live without. Maybe the next night she’d halve the dose and see if it was any better.
    Berating herself for the small edge of fear that came with the action, she flicked the switch again, sending the room back into darkness, and then jumped back into bed, curling up on her side under the duvet. Halfexpecting to hear more giggling, she was relieved to just have the company of the sounds of the rain. Tiredness washed over her as her body relaxed.
    See? Just the morphine. Nothing more.
    Allowing her eyes to shut, she drifted off to sleep, twitching slightly as her lips moved silently, unconsciously reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
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Chapter Five
    “Our father who art in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come… Thy will be done…”
    Reverend Barker is crying as he climbs the stairs of the old church up to the bell tower, which overlooks the village that has been his home for more than thirty years. The words come out in a spray of spit that mixes with the wet air around him. “On earth as it is in heaven.” The village. His first parish. His last parish. His purgatory for a quarter of a century.
    His feet slip on the old stone stairs and he falls heavily on one knee, the pain jarring up his body and forcing him to moan aloud. He has been unsure about what is real and unreal in the madness of the last few hours, but the sharp heat in his leg as he drags himself back to his feet is true, as is the feel of the rough wall under his fingertips, and he dimly accepts what is happening. The devil has come for him. And with that acceptance he realizes that he’s been waiting for it to happen for many years.
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    Outside, the gray of dawn is starting to break despite the thick clouds and heavy rain and as he reaches the top he can hear laughter from downstairs, and