Read Online Don't Make Me Beautiful by Elle Casey - Free Book Online Page B

glass, but he ignores the blood, the pain, and everything else as he struggles to get his cell phone out of his front pocket.
    “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
    “Hello, this is Brian Jensen and I’m standing on the front porch of …,” he leans out and looks at the number on the front of the house near the door, “…thirty-two Fresno Street, and there’s a woman inside her house who’s passed out and there’s blood.   She needs an ambulance.”
    “Are you the homeowner, sir?”
    “No, I’m a neighbor.   Can you please send someone quick?   I’m afraid she might be … dead.   I’m not sure.   She’s not moving.”
    “Can you check for a pulse?”
    “No, I’m outside.   But just wait a minute.   I’m going in.”
    “Sir, is there anyone else at the home?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Hold the line while I call the house,” the operator says.
    Brian’s at the front door when the woman comes back on the line.   “They don’t appear to have a home phone on record.   Have you tried the doorbell?”
    “No.” Brian realizes how ridiculous it is that he hasn’t bothered to do that first.   Surely the guy who lives here needs to know his wife is passed out on the floor.   She’s obviously sick.   Maybe she hit her head or something when she fell.
    Brian rings the doorbell several times and bangs on the door with his fist.   “Is anyone home?!” he yells.
    No one answers.
    “I don’t think anyone’s home but her,” Brian says to the operator, breathing heavily in his panic.   He tries the handle, but the door is locked.   “I’m going to see if they have another open door somewhere.”
    “Sir, I don’t recommend you break into the home.”
    “I hear ya, but I’m doing it anyway.”
    Brian runs around to the back and tries the door he finds there.   It’s locked up tight as well.   “The back door’s locked too.   I’m going back to the front.”
    “The ambulance is on its way along with a police officer.   Can you stay on scene until they arrive?”
    “Of course.”
    “Do you want me to stay on the line with you?”
    “No.   Thanks for your help.”   Brian hangs up without waiting for a response.
    Going back to the front, he scrambles to pull the cardboard off and the curtain through the hole again.   He leaves blood on the curtains in his attempts to see inside.
    “Ma’am, an ambulance is on its way, okay?   Ma’am, can you hear me?”
    He’s about to look away when he sees her index finger move.   It’s just the slightest twitch, but he’s sure he saw it.   “I see you moving!   I know you’re alive!   They’re coming, okay!   They’re coming!”
    A low moan comes from inside the house, from the woman.
    Brian’s breath catches in his throat as her hand moves again, this time to slide out across the carpet.   It leaves a smear of blood behind.
    She moans again, this time an agonizing sound that makes Brian’s skin crawl.
    “You’re going to be okay.   I called nine-one-one.”
    Her moaning turns into a strange keening, like a growl and a sob blended together into something almost animalistic.   The sounds of a siren in the distance reach Brian’s ears.   He’s frozen in place, holding up the curtains and peering inside, as her head slowly turns.
    The ambulance pulls into the driveway as her face comes into view.   Brian needs only one second to take in the sight of the horror before him before the blood in his veins goes cold and the words fall out of his mouth unbidden.
    “Oh my god … what happened to your face?”

Chapter Fourteen

    ROCKING, ROCKING, ROCKING.   HER BODY is rocking and it hurts.   It hurts!   She wants to scream it, to say it to someone who will make it stop, but she can’t.   There’s something covering her face.   John is finally doing it.   He’s suffocating her!
    She fights to get him off, screaming with the searing pain that slices through her body.   Her hands come into contact with