Stranger Realm by Jack Castle

Author:Jack Castle [Castle, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781979468060
Publisher: CASTLE BOOKS, Inc.
Published: 2017-12-07T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

“Kidnapped”

“Cheeves… Cheeves… are you in here?”

Maddie eased open the door to the luggage car. This hadn’t been her first visit to car #5, but it was the first time she had stepped more than a dozen feet or so inside.

Her mom was still sleeping. She had waited, like forever, for her mom to wake up. She must’ve been pretty worn out, Maddie thought. So she had taken it upon herself to tiptoe out of the room with shoes in hand; but not before kissing her mom on the forehead and tucking her in a bit more under the covers first. Leaving her snoozing mother behind, she went off in search of her friend Cheeves, who had gone missing for the better part of yesterday.

I hope he’s okay? Maybe he fell off?

Behind her, the door swung closed of its own volition, and for a second Maddie was bathed in darkness. Before she could cry out, the four lanterns mounted on the walls must have sensed her presence and flickered to life.

Will you knock it off, you big baby? You’re about to turn nine; and that is much too old to be afraid of the dark.

A piece of luggage fell over and Maddie glimpsed a shadow hiding in the back.

“Cheeves?” she asked timidly. “Cheeves, is that you?”

Of course it’s Cheeves. Who else would be hiding in the luggage car?

The three men who stepped from the shadows were not Cheeves. They were three of the scariest looking men Maddie had ever seen in her life. Two wore hideous, brown masks that made their eyes appear like empty, hollow sockets. They wore leather armor. One carried two, old-looking pistols tucked into a sash tied about his waist, and the other a long weird-looking rifle. She couldn’t make out the third man, but she saw enough to know he wasn’t like the other two.

“Uh, hello there.”

“Top of the morning to ya there, lass.”

The greeting was spoken by the third unseen man. Maddie watched as he stepped into the light. He wasn’t a very tall man, certainly not as big as her dad. I wish he were here right now, he’d sock these guys good. He wore striped pants, a flashy shirt, a golden ascot, and a funny, bowl-shaped hat. Tipping it to her, he said, “As you may have guessed by my accent, my friends call me Irish. You may call me…” He tapped his chin with the large blade of his knife, as though he were giving it some serious thought “…Mr. Irish.” Smiling at her with a smile that didn’t look like he was really happy, he asked, “Do ya like that name there, wee darlin’?”

Maddie took her first step backward, and took another when she realized the two men behind ‘Mr. Irish’ weren’t wearing masks, but their actual faces. She suddenly felt the urge to pee. “Uhmmm… Please excuse me, but I have to be going now,” she said, turned, and bolted for the door.

A curved blade flipped through the air, missed her head by inches and slammed into the door where the handle was.

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