Cancel the Wedding by Carolyn T. Dingman

Author:Carolyn T. Dingman
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins

EIGHTEEN

I retraced my drive up the switchback roads and climbed the gravel lanes that led to the top of the ridge. Before I left the safety of my get-away vehicle I checked around for a weapon of some kind. I was regretting not buying mace years ago when Georgia had told me to. My only weapon was my cell phone so I kept it in my hand as I hiked up to the abandoned house.

The path looked different this early in the day. It was steamy under the trees in the heat and the sunlight was sharp as it broke through the leaves. The house came into view and I approached it slowly, fully expecting Nathan Forrest to materialize at any minute.

I stood at the edge of the eroded path leading to the front door and called out. “Hello? Mr. Forrest?”

The house looked different in this light too. Instead of menacing it just looked sad. Lonely almost. Thud! I wheeled around at the direction of the bang I had just heard expecting—what? For someone to swing down from a tree with a knife in his mouth and an axe in his hand probably. “Mr. Forrest? Are you here?” Thud! This time the bang had come from the other side of the house. I was surrounded. I held my cell phone out in front of me, putting it between myself and the monster sound coming out of the trees.

“Hello! Who’s there?”

Thud! Thud! I was hit and I screamed. It got me on the shoulder. I ducked down instinctively, thinking that someone must be throwing rocks at me. I threw my hands over my head wondering if I should make a run for it when another one hit the ground right in front of me.

It was a huge green seedpod of some kind. The size of a racquetball and just as hard. They were falling from the trees. I was so relieved that no one had been here to witness my ducking for cover from a falling tree nut.

Thud, tink! One of them hit the tin roof of the old house. I picked up the nearest green ball and threw it back at the tree mumbling to myself. “You are an idiot, Olivia. Get it together.” I tried to shake off the feeling of imminent danger and walked over to the front porch.

I climbed up the broken steps gingerly and went into the shell of the house. It was hot and sticky inside and there was a damp smell of mildew. I called out again, for good measure, but no one answered me. I wandered around the house again, trying to get some sense of the people who had lived here. The only thing it told me was that they had abandoned it a long time ago.

Going up the disintegrating stairs to the second floor was tricky, but I managed it by clinging to the wall and testing each step before I put my weight on it. The house creaked with my intrusion and the trees outside continued their assault.

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