7 Minutes in Heaven by Tracey Ward

Author:Tracey Ward [Ward, Tracey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-02T16:00:00+00:00

chapter nineteen

I wake up in the dark. The fire is out. The TV is off. Kyle’s house across the street is gone; eaten by the night. It’s silent. So quiet my ears are ringing, searching for sound.

I sit up with a grunt, pushing the blanket off with more effort than it should take. I feel sluggish and strange. I’m almost dizzy when I stand up. Disoriented in my own home.

“Mom?” I mumble, though I don’t know why. No one is down here. I can feel that I’m alone, the same way you know in your gut when you’re not. There’s no one else downstairs. They must have gone to bed without waking me up. They ate dinner without me too. I should be starving, but I’m not. I don’t feel anything. Not a sliver of fear from the dark or a rumble of hunger in my stomach. Even my fingers that have been achingly cold all day feel fine.

It’s a weird sensation.

I pull out my phone to check the time.

2:32 a.m.

“Why didn’t they wake me up?” I grumble irritably. I make my way through the darkness by memory. The sound of my own breath is my only companion. Even the light from my cell phone doesn’t give me enough to go on safely. I keep waiting to crack my shin on some low table edge that I’ve misjudged or to stumble on Dad’s big boots kicked off haphazardly by the door.

It doesn’t come.

Finally, my fingers make contact with the cold bannister leading upstairs. I follow it nimbly by practice. Each stair is measured out perfectly in my mind, and when I hit the landing, I can count the steps to the left that I need to take to reach my bedroom.

There’s not a sound from the bedrooms on either side of mine. Not a snore, a cough, a fart in their sleep. Nothing. Even my doorknob is silent as I turn it, stumbling into my bedroom that’s lit with a dull red glow from the power strip by my computer.

The house has an eerie empty feeling to it that I just can’t shake. The longer I stand in my room listening for sounds of life inside or out, the more freaked out I get. There’s nothing. Literally nothing. Not even the gentle hum of my computer. Not a rustling of hot air in the vents.

Pure silence.

“Mom?” I call out hesitantly. I don’t want to wake her but I want to hear her voice. I need to know that she’s here. I move to the doorway, heading for the hall, but my body feels sluggish. I feel dizzy and afraid of something I can’t see because there’s nothing. “Dad?”

I knock on their door quietly.

No answer.

I can’t feel the knob in my hand as I take hold of it. It’s like it’s not even there, but I can turn it slowly. Their door slides open without a sound.

“They’re not in there.”

“Jesus!” I shout, spinning around on my heels.

Ashley is standing at the other end of the hallway.

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