Uncanny by David Macinnis Gill

Author:David Macinnis Gill
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2017-07-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

LIGHTNING danced through the heavy black clouds that hung over St. Mary’s School. When I got there, the parking lot was empty except for a dark green Saturn station wagon, which belonged to Miss Frances “Frankie” Wilhoite, Devon’s teacher’s aide.

Aftercare had officially ended at six thirty, and almost everyone had gone home. The only light in the building’s windows came from the third floor, where I imagined that Devon had helped Miss Wilhoite tidy up. Devon would be waiting with her lunchbox in hand while “Frankie” texted her “special friend” to explain that she’d be late for their “dinner meeting,” again.

Outside, another bolt of lightning lit the sky. The school building was illuminated in a flash of white light as I ran across the parking lot. I had failed. Ma was going to be heartbroken. What a crappy, crappy daughter I was.

I stumbled through the rain, tears of frustration streaming down my cheeks, while a church bell tolled the half hour. Seven thirty. It was hardly even dinnertime, so why did it feel like the day—and my life—were coming to an end?

At the door I paused to shake the rain from my hair, then glanced over my shoulder.

A single headlight turned into the parking lot.

“Oh, shit!” I yanked the door open and ran down the hallway. I hit the stairs, taking two at a time, then leaped to the next landing and slammed into a tall figure blocking the way.

“Ahh!” I screamed.

“What’s wrong with you, child?” the janitor said. “Why’re you here this late?”

“Mister!” I grabbed his arm. “You have to save me!”

“From what?” The janitor tried to take his arm back. He might as well have tried to extricate himself from a bear trap.

“A stalker!” I pointed at the stairwell. “Following me!”

“Nobody there,” he said, then peered into the darkness. “A storm’s coming, and wind makes this old building moan and groan like it’s full of ghosts.”

I looked down into the abyss. Like he said, nothing. Maybe it was just the wind. “Sorry.” I sighed. “It’s been a really, really weird day. I better get Devon before the aftercare teacher feeds her to the wolves.”

“Devon Conning?” he said. “That girl, more likely she’d be teaching the wolves to sit, fetch, and play dead. Room three-two-two. To the left.”

“Got it.” I ran upstairs to the third floor and made a wrong turn to the right, completely oblivious of the shadow slipping from the blackness below.

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