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Chapter Nine: Clare’s Abduction
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Before He Wakes Chapter Ten: Nightmares
CHAPTER TEN:NightmaresPatrick jogs around the lake just before dawn. The campus is utterly deserted, and no lights shine from any of the buildings. No sound interrupts the utter stillness; even his shoes slapping the pavement are silent. He notes with no real surprise that the clock tower by the lake has been replaced by a missile, long and phallic, smoke churning up from the bottom as it prepares to be launched. Distantly he can even hear a robotic voice commencing a countdown. 10 ... 9 ... 8 ... 7 ... 6 ... As the path rises up into the wooded area at the far end of the lake, he slows his pace, lips twisting down into a frown. The trees seem to crowd closer together than he remembered, and they are larger. Monstrous in fact, thick and stretching to the heavens like redwoods. Knots and whirls in the bark look like grimacing faces. The branches reach out for him like sharp-tipped claws, scratching at his exposed skin, dr
Before He Wakes Chapter Eleven: Suspicion
CHAPTER ELEVEN: SuspicionSheriff Hammett lookedup at the knock at his office door. One of the newer deputies, Sanchez, stuck his head in. The man looked vaguely ill and a little nervous. “Um, Chief?”Hammett forced himself not to roll his eyes. He hated the moniker “Chief.” It made him feel like he was one of the Village People. Still, it was what most of his officers called him and he had come to tolerate it, if not accept it. “What is it, Sanchez?”After a slight hesitation, Sanchez said, “They’re back.”Now Hammett did roll his eyes. He didn’t even have to ask who theywere. Over the past few months, there had become only one theyreferred to in the office. Theyare holding on line one. Theyhave been blasting the sheriff’s department on Facebook. Theypublished another Letter to the Editor in the Greenville Newsaccusing the police of ignoring leads. Theyhave sent twelve emails in four hours.Theyare here. Again.Mr. and Mrs.
Before He Wakes Chapter Twelve: Getting Through the Door
CHAPTER TWELVE:Getting Through the DoorClare stood againstthe back wall, fingers plugging her ears, as Patrick used the already dented bucket to beat on the doorknob, denting the bucket even further. A dull, hollow gong! reverberated in the air with every strike.The sound also seemed to reverberate in her bones, making her feel as if her skeletal frame was going to simply break apart and she’d collapse onto the floor, a collection of ivory shards in a loose sack of skin.Of course, she realized this was only the fear talking. Fear that Big Daddy would return and discover what had been done, the hole in the plaster wall and the damaged doorknob, and he would make them suffer for their insolence and disobedience. She realized they’d really gone too far to turn back at this point. They couldn’t repair the hole in the wall. Their best course of action was to continue forward and try to get out of this cell before Big Daddy got back.Be brave, Clare, she told herself. No givin
Before He Wakes Chapter Thirteen: Dinner Time
CHAPTER THIRTEEN:Dinner TimePatrick stood withhis back against the door, watching as Clare bent over, weeping hysterically. What are we going to do now?she’d asked, but he had no response to that one. He could feel the vibrations in the wood as the Doberman launched itself at the door as if trying to use its head as a battering ram, much as Patrick had used the two-by-four as one on the cell door.The two-by-four!He dashed down the stairs, moving so suddenly and quickly that it startled a gasp out of Clare. At the bottom of the stairs, he snatched up the beam from where it had fallen once punching its way through the hole where the doorknob had once been. He held it near one end and gave it a few test swings, as if it were a baseball bat. The thing was lighter than he would have liked, lacking substantial heft, but it did have the wicked nails sticking out of either end.“What do you plan to do with that?” Clare asked. She’d come down the stairs and taken a seat on
Before He Wakes Chapter Fourteen: Confrontation
CHAPTER FOURTEEN:ConfrontationRobert had justleft Manly Hall a little after 8 a.m. when his cell phone rang. Glancing at the screen, he recognized Mrs. Young’s number.He answered immediately and said with desperate hope, “Any news?”Silence from the other end then a sigh. “I guess that answers my question. I was calling to see if you had heard anything from Patrick.”“No, ma’am,” Robert said, feeling near tears again. He’d been in a constant state of crying or just-about-to-cry for the past couple of days, leaving him feeling perpetually exhausted and dehydrated. “So I guess that means the police haven’t come up with anything new?”“No. Well, actually yes, but nothing that helps us. Nothing that tells us anything we didn’t already know.”Robert meandered aimlessly past the library, heading toward the front of campus with no particular destination in mind, his feet moving on autopilot. “What do you mean?”“They located a woman who was walking at the lake Sunday morning,
Before He Wakes Chapter Fifteen: Venturing Out
CHAPTER FIFTEEN:Venturing OutPatrick awoke suddenly, his head snapping up. There was no moment of blissful disorientation when he thought he was in his bed in the dorm, his biggest worry being that he might be late for class. He knew instantly where he was and how dire his circumstances were.Clare slept next to him, her head still on his shoulder. His entire body felt like one big cramp, though the worst of the stiffness and pain resided in his neck and lower back. He gently pushed the girl to the side so that she slumped against door, her chin touching her chest. He rose slowly, his muscles feeling atrophied, as if he’d been immobile in a coma for months or years, his joints creaking like rusty hinges. His left arm was partially numb, beginning to buzz with the pinprick sensation as blood returned to the limb. He turned his head far to one side then the other, trying to work out the soreness. His spine felt compacted, an accordion that had been squeezed in. He walked down two st
Before He Wakes Chapter Sixteen: Linda’s Abduction
CHAPTER SIXTEEN:Linda’s AbductionWhen Linda Childers heard the dingof the microwave, she carefully placed a bookmark in the Ruth Ware paperback she was reading and got up from the cushy recliner, leaving the book on the end table. In the kitchen she took her Banquet meal out of the microwave, sitting it on the counter to cool for a few minutes, while she made herself a cup of herbal tea. She placed the meal and her teacup on a tray and carried it all back to the living room. Settling on the sofa, she placed the tray on the coffee table in front of her. She turned on the television and found a rerun of Murder She Wrote and began to have supper.This was a nightly ritual, though aspects of it changed. Sometimes her frozen meal was lasagna, other times macaroni and cheese, still other times beef stroganoff. The television program varied, depending on what was on, but it was typically some rerun, since she didn’t find most modern shows appealing. If not Murder She Wrote, then To
Before He Wakes Chapter Seventeen: Mommy Dearest
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN:Mommy Dearest“I think I know her,” Patrick said.Clare glanced back at him. “Really? You do?”“Not personally or anything, but she looks so familiar. I think I remember seeing news stories about her disappearance.”Turning her gaze to the woman once again, she scanned her features to see if they sparked any memory, but there was nothing. Not surprising. Clare didn’t pay much attention to the news, local or global, and that had become even truer since she started dating Hank. She could admit that she had turned into one of those girls who thought of nothing but her relationship, doodling hearts with arrows through them and writing her first name with his last name. Silly high school stuff from a girl who claimed not to believe in fairytales but still expected her life to turn out like one.Even after she’d been abducted, such fantasies persisted. After all, most fairytales had a dark period before the happily ever after. Cinderella had to flee the ball, Snow Wh
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