The Devil's Redhead by David Corbett

Author:David Corbett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road

CHAPTER

15

Asleep in Abatangelo’s bed, Shel dreamed she stood alone in an abandoned foundry, her reflection gazing back at her from a rust—spotted washroom mirror. The cement floor, sooty and broken, grated against the soles of her bare feet. The sink was dry and flecked with cold ash. She felt a terrifying premonition that It was about to happen. And yet, in her paralysis, she felt ready. Sunlight broke through a grainy skylight. A sharp, rattled banging rushed toward her through the silence.

She convulsed, bolting upright. Instantly her head rang in pain, worse than before. Taking in gulps of air, she blinked her eyes open, staring through tears. The walls drifted around as sleep gave way to a grating half-sleep. The sense she was returning from a distance lingered, and for a moment the room seemed more remembered than seen.

Light from a streetlamp filtered in through wafting blinds. A smell of winter rain seeped into the room through a window crack.

She was supposed to be up in an hour, an hour when? She found the alarm clock beside the bed and it told her the time was well past five. No, she thought, putting the clock back down. Can’t be. Not possible. Then she remembered, she’d turned off the alarm as soon as Danny’d left. Dumb, she thought. Pissy and dumb.

She rose up on one elbow, rubbing the grit from her eyes. She tried to sit up but her body felt thick, the pain confused her. That was when the pretense fled and the panic set in.

If every fear she had ever known had suddenly assumed bodily form and crashed through the door that minute, she would not have run. She would have said: What took you?

This pain has got to go, she thought, it’s giving you the willies. Wind scraped the roof and windows. The rain had returned, pattering against the building.

She lowered her feet to the floor and tested her weight. Movement had a watery feel; she quivered, standing. Stumbling room to room, she checked the bathroom for painkillers, the kitchen for a bit more liquor, the front room for Danny, flicking the overhead lights on then off.

Feeling chilled, she stumbled to the window and closed it. The room pivoted and folded into shapes, she had to close her eyes finally to keep from falling. Braced by the window frame, she looked down toward the street and spotted in a shallow doorway a homeless man with stone-colored skin, propped on a cane and draped in a blanket, smoking a cigarette. The ash glowed bright red in the haze. A bed of damp newspaper and oily cardboard lay around his feet. As though sensing her watching him, the man’s face rose and he stared up at her window. The blanket fell away from around his head as their eyes locked. He had thin, haggard features, close—cut gray hair, deep—set piercing eyes of a pale blue color.

Good God, Shel thought. It’s Felix.

She gagged and her legs gave way beneath her. Catching

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