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johannahreardon.com
Category:
Mystery/Suspense
ISBN-10: 1491023449
Type: Fiction
Pages: 176
Copyright: July 17, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781491023440
Price: $2.99 (eBook)
Imagine waking up in an abandoned house next to an unconscious man you'd never met. When that happens to gritty, fearless Maggie, the mystery that has long hovered over the small town of Summerville begins to unravel.
"God already knew the truth, and Tim felt confident that God wanted him and Maggie to know the truth too."
Imagine waking up in an abandoned house next to an unconscious man you'd never met. When that happens to gritty, fearless Maggie, the mystery that has long hovered over the small town of Summerville begins to unravel.
"God already knew the truth, and Tim felt confident that God wanted him and Maggie to know the truth too."
Excerpt
Maggie opened her eyes and wondered how she’d ended up on a merry-go-round. And why the merry-go-round had wallpaper hanging from the ceiling. She tried to sit up, but quickly gave up that idea as the merry-go-round turned into a tilt-a-whirl.
She remained flat on her back and looked out of the corner of her left eye. She saw a sparse room that held only a rush-bottomed wooden chair that had seen better days. On the wall was an ancient, yellowed print of a ship on a stormy sea. She glanced away from it quickly, not wanting to stare at anything that reminded her of seasickness. Carefully shifting her gaze to her right eye, she sucked in her breath quickly, which caused things to spin out of control and gave her the feeling that she’d never eat again. A man was lying on his side. She didn’t recognize him and he seemed to be in worse shape than she was.
Turning her head as slowly as possible, she gradually moved onto her right side. The man was turned away from her and was as still as could be. If he was breathing, it was so shallow that she could neither see nor hear any sign of it. He had a thick head of dark brown hair that needed a trim and wore a green T-shirt tucked into his blue jeans. Oddly enough, he had on no shoes and his left sock had a prominent hole in the toe.
Maggie stayed in that position and stared at the man for a full ten minutes as she waited for the merry-go-round to stop. She glanced around the room for any other information. There was no sign of his shoes, and the only other thing she could see was the closed door beyond his body. It had two locks on it and a large gap between the door and the frame, which was the only place where light entered the room. The scars all over the door made it look as though someone had beaten it with chains at some time or another. Or perhaps a child threw blocks at it or kicked it many years ago. And she noticed that one of the locks was broken, and the other was on the outside of the door instead of the inside, like most rooms. It was chilling to think why. Ten minutes is a long time to develop theories about a scarred door, and Maggie pretty well covered that territory until she didn’t want to think about it anymore.
She finally was able to pull her thoughts together enough to ask, Where am I, God? And how did I get here? Neither her thoughts nor her prayers could get past that. Eventually, she attempted to sit up again. She gradually pulled herself up onto her elbow and stayed there for five or six breaths. Then she lifted herself into sitting position. Her head pounded fiercely, but thankfully, the spinning was gone. She scooted her back to the wall and sat there for another ten minutes.
There really was nothing else in the room except for dust bunnies and house spiders busily making webs in the corners. She looked down at her pants and saw they were covered with dust. Clearly no one had used this room in a very long time. Maggie slowly raised her hand and felt her head for bumps. She found a huge one on the left side. That explained the merry-go-round sensation. She finally had the strength to stand, although it made her feel as if she was on the ship in that print on the wall, which she resolutely refused to look at. When she felt stable on her feet, she walked over to face the man.
He had a pleasant face. His eyes were closed, so she couldn’t tell their color, but he had a Roman nose and a strong chin and mouth. She decided that he must be in his late twenties or early thirties. She knelt down to check his pulse; to her surprise, he had one. And now that she faced him, she could see that he was breathing very shallowly.
She shook him gently, but he didn’t respond. So she went to the door and tried to turn the handle. It didn’t budge. Someone had evidently thrown them in here and locked the door. She had no idea who would have done such a thing. She struggled for her last memory. The only thing that came to mind was heading to the theater to meet coworkers Friday night after work. What in the world had happened?
Maggie pressed her ear to the door to see if she could hear anything, but the silence permeated everything. She couldn’t even hear traffic noise outside. Where was she?
She checked her pockets to see if there was anything in them to pick a lock. She found her keys and tried to jam them into the lock to see if they would budge anything, but they didn’t even fit in all the way. So she steeled herself to check the man’s pockets. It made her feel that she was violating him somehow, but she resolutely checked them all. There was nothing in any of them.
Maggie sat down again to think and slowly looked up at the print on the wall. When her niece was two, she’d accidently locked herself in her bedroom. Maggie had unwound a coat hanger to jiggle the lock enough to get her out.
She walked over to the print and took it down. It had been hung by a wire that was attached with two screws. She tried to unwind the wire from the screws, but her hands wouldn’t work normally and the wire hurt her fingers. Using one of her keys for leverage, she finally got the wire off and thought it just might work.
She stuck it into the lock and within a minute had opened the door. ’But now that the door was open, Maggie was afraid to walk out of the room. She couldn’t hear any noise, but someone was likely in the house. She stood there with the door open as she breathed in and out twenty times, prayed for grace and strength, and then tiptoed out the door.
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