Dark Room by Tom Becker

Author:Tom Becker [Tom Becker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847156457
Publisher: Stripes Publishing
Published: 2015-09-24T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Darla froze, waiting to hear someone’s voice call out. But no sound disturbed the shadows. Lights went out all the time, she told herself, it didn’t have to mean that something was wrong. So why was her heart racing in her chest? Darla slipped into the adjoining alcove only to be confronted by the mirror Annie had shattered. Tiny fragments of her own face stared back at her.

As Darla looked into the broken glass, she felt herself being swallowed up by a mind that wasn’t her own. She was transported from one darkened room to another, where a girl with bright blond hair and a white tank top was slumped lifelessly in a chair. Her head was bowed, hiding her face. She let out a groan of pain, and Darla looked down and saw a knife in her own hand, blood on its blade…

A sudden sound wrenched her back to the present. Footsteps, soft as a breath. There was someone in the gallery with Darla. And they were trying very hard not to be heard. Had the person watching her in the mall followed her here? What did they want with her?

“Annie,” Darla whispered to herself. “Where are you?”

The footsteps were drawing nearer. Darla edged along the wall, drawing further back into the gallery. In the next alcove, the oversize doll’s house sat in the middle of the room. Darla crept over to it and opened up the front, pulling her knees up to her chest and squashing herself inside. In the darkness it would be almost impossible to see her without looking closely through one of the windows. It would have to be enough.

Darla waited. Seconds stretched out into minutes. The gallery remained silent.

And then she heard a floorboard creak.

Peering out through the dollhouse window Darla could just make out a figure moving stealthily around the alcove, little more than a shadowy outline in the darkness. With careful, even steps they circled the dollhouse. A hunter’s stealthy tread. Darla couldn’t bear to look – she closed her eyes and silently mouthed the Lord’s Prayer to herself over and over.

“OurFatherwhoartinHeavenhallowedbethyname…”

The footsteps paused.

“ThykingdomcomethywillbedoneonEarthasitisinHeaven …”

Slow, shallow breaths.

“Giveusthisdayourdailybread…”

The intruder had to be standing inches away from her. Darla was a tight ball of terror.

“Andforgiveusourtrespasses…”

One footstep, and then another. Whoever it was, they were leaving the alcove. Had they seen her? The footsteps grew firmer even as they went away, before the bell above the gallery entrance rang out. Darla slumped her head against the side of the dollhouse.

“Hello? Is anybody there?”

Darla almost burst into tears at the sound of Annie’s voice. Suddenly the gallery was flooded with warm light, and she could hear footsteps. Pushing open the dollhouse, Darla unfolded her cramped limbs and walked stiffly out of the alcove. Annie was standing in the middle of the gallery, a paper bag in her hands.

“Darla, honey?” she said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost! What’s wrong?”

Darla’s story came out in a rush, a nonsensical garble of words in her ears. When she told Annie about hiding in the dollhouse, the artist’s eyes widened.

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