The Little Runaway by Patrick Reuman & Edmund Stone

Author:Patrick Reuman & Edmund Stone [Reuman, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-07T22:00:00+00:00

18

Caleb was right. Ashley Wilson only lived a few blocks away from him. It was a two-story blue house with dead plants hanging from the balcony on the front porch. A loud box fan sat in the porch window spraying air inward.

As they walked up the porch steps, Tera could see that paint was peeling all across the house’s outer walls. The entire scene screamed of the sadness she knew was waiting inside. Boards creaked under them as they stood before the door. Tera thought the floor could be its own security system if the fan wasn’t even louder still.

“Maybe I should do the talking,” Izzy said.

Caleb raised an eyebrow but didn’t argue. He stepped back and let Izzy take position at the door. Tera thought maybe she understood. It might look better if another girl was knocking at the door, not a boy. Parents rarely liked it when someone of the opposite sex came knocking at the door for their child.

Izzy knocked. They waited a moment, but there were no signs of movement coming from the other side of the door, so she knocked again.

The door swung open. A skinny woman stood there in shorts and a T-shirt, a cigarette in her mouth and her hair pulled back in a bun. She looked like she was ready to snap at them and tell them to get the hell out of there, but then she smiled.

“Can I help you?”

The woman looked older than whatever age she really was, like she was unhealthy or hadn’t eaten in a long time. Izzy realized they had all been staring and cleared her throat. “Yes, sorry. We’re friends of Ashley’s. We just…wanted to stop by and talk.”

The woman seemed to consider this. She glanced back into her house and then returned to them with an unsure expression.

“I guess. The place is a bit of a mess, but come on in.”

The woman turned away from the door and led them into the living room, which was the first room in the house, where the box fan pulled the air in from the outside world. She gestured at a couch, and the four of them crammed themselves onto it together. The house smelled heavily of smoke. Tera wanted to gag but pushed back the feeling and tried to ignore it.

“You do know Ashley is missing, right?” she asked.

How could anybody not know? “Yes, ma’am,” Izzy answered. “That’s actually why we’re here.”

She perked up. “Do you know something? Do you know where she is?”

Izzy broke eye contact. “No, I’m sorry. I don’t.”

“We just miss her,” Tera cut in, ending the momentary silence.

Ashley’s mother nodded. “So you came here, I understand. To feel close to her, I guess.”

The kids all nodded.

“Hopefully you have better luck than me. For me, this place is a torture chamber. Everything I see reminds me of her. Every inch of this house holds a memory.” She pointed over to a dresser stand at the other end of the living room. “Ashley used to steal my phone when she was three and hide it in there, in the bottom drawer.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.