Walking After Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

the occasional glimpse of broad, bruised shoulders and blood-streaked, hard-muscled bare arms, she could feel him, everywhere. He wasn’t a lot taller than she was – maybe a hair under six feet – but, God, he was broad. And he felt strong.
    He was tense, seeming to test the air almost like a dog.
    What kind of creature was he? Was he even human? Visions of vampires and werewolves and zombies careened lightning-fast through Summer’s mind. Which was stupid, she told herself fiercely. Of course he was human. He was just a man. A violent, cruel man clutching a scalpel with which he had threatened to cut her throat. The stark truth made her mouth go dry. It was a toss-up, but on the whole she thought she would prefer a vampire or his brethren.
    Panic threatened to swamp her again. Summer squeezed her eyes shut. Oh, God, was she going to die tonight? She wasn’t ready to die.
    „Move.“
    Opening her eyes, Summer obeyed. With every step she took along the plush center hallway, her fear increased.
    What would happen when she led him outside? Foolish to hope he would simply let her go.
    „Please…“ she whispered as they reached the front door. He loomed close behind her, his harsh breathing swooshing past her cheek, stirring the few strands of her hair that had eluded his hold. His breath smelled stale.
    Daring to glance over her shoulder, Summer immediately wished she had not. In the bright light of the overhead chandelier, the apparition that met her gaze was as frightful as anything Stephen King could have conjured up: Frankenstein’s monster in shades of purple instead of green, the face so hideously distorted by bruising and swelling that the humanity of his features was almost obscured. His mouth was twice the size of a normal mouth, skewed down and to the left, with a line of dried blood snaking down from the left corner. His nose was huge and misshapen, the nostrils ringed with dried blood. More blood, black and crusty, was smeared across his cheeks and chin. The left side of his forehead down to the bridge of his nose was so purple, it was almost black, and the area around his left eye had swelled into a big puffy mask of discolored flesh that reduced that eye to little more than a slit. His right eye wasn’t a lot better; it wasn’t as discolored as the left, but it seemed to be swollen completely shut. She was surprised that he could even see.
    He could. He was glaring at her, and the menace in that one viable eye was the most terrifying thing she had ever encountered. If she had ever had any doubts that he could, and would, kill her without a second thought, they vanished when she met his gaze.
    „If you screw me over…“ He didn’t finish the almost whispered threat. He didn’t have to. The scalpel pressed against her pulse again, harder than before, and for an instant, a hideous instant, she thought he would slice her throat there and then and be done with it.
    „I won’t. I promise.“
    Her shaky answer was met with a grunt and the shifting of the scalpel so that it no longer touched her skin. The large, blunt-fingered hand holding it moved to rest on her right shoulder. From the corner of her eye, she could still see its gleaming silver threat.
    „Open the door,“ he said, and she did, because there didn’t seem to be anything else to do. For a moment they stood poised together in the doorway. His naked body pressed against her back, her buttocks. She could feel the bulge of his genitals against her hip, and barely managed to repress a shudder. His grip on her hair tightened as he seemed to listen.
    Outside, the night was alive with the hum of cicadas. This was the year for them, of course. They crawled out of the ground every seventeen years, and this was the summer that Murfreesboro got lucky. After the soft hush inside, to be greeted by the endless low chirring sound they made was oddly comforting. It was good to know that there were other normal living creatures in the dark.
    „That your