Read Online A Night at the Asylum by Jade McCahon - Free Book Online Page A

her
coat.
    “Maybe.” I folded my arms over my chest,
realizing I’d left my own jacket in the car. Thank God I still had
my cigarettes. “Do you have a lighter?” I asked, but she only
stared at me, puzzled.
    “What’s with you?” She narrowed her eyes at
me inquisitively. Once again she had tapped into the turbulent
inner-workings of my brain.
    “Do you think Raymond…” I shifted my weight
nervously from one leg to the other. “Do you think him not being
here has anything to do with all that?”
    Jamie sighed. “I don’t know, but we’ll find
out soon enough. Please, just promise me you’ll talk all this out
with him…not just about what happened tonight, but everything. Get
it out in the open already. Out of the closet. You’re killing
yourself.” She smirked. “And the suspense is killing me .”
    “I will.”
    “And while you’re at it get me a date with
Hotty McPiercings over here,” she giggled wistfully, nudging me
with her shoulder.
    “He’s as good as yours.”
    Cole stopped just ahead of us as his phone
rang. We were almost to the top of the hill, the dewy grass
staining the legs of our pants, soaking cold through our shoes. To
our left was a grove of gangly, leafless trees; a few more steps
and we’d be overlooking the tall, foreboding building and its
deteriorating grounds.
    Cole’s face brought us up short. “It’s
Raymond,” he mouthed, pointing at the phone. As he talked, we
listened to his conversation with growing horror. “You’re at the
hospital? What happened?”
    Jamie and I exchanged troubled glances.
    “Is he okay?” Cole grimaced. “Dude, you’re
cutting out. I can’t hear you.”
    My heartbeat was an exercise in acrobatics as
I listened. Jamie’s fingers closed apprehensively around my
wrist.
    Finally Cole hung up. “It’s Jon,” he
explained, shaking his head. His dark blue eyes were full of
concern. “He got hurt somehow. Raymond’s at the hospital with him.
I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t hear him and we got cut
off.” He shrugged and shoved his phone back into the pocket of his
khakis.
    “What?” I stammered. Raymond’s brother , Jon, was in the hospital? My bewilderment was at an
all-time high now. The lack of sleep, overabundance of stress, and
post-caffeine crash were all hindering my ability to process yet
another unexpected turn of events. Despite my nagging worry about
Jon now, however, I was relieved that Raymond seemed to be
fine.
    We all stood staring at each other awkwardly
for a moment. Looking down the hill, I could see the decrepit old
building sulking in the dark, waiting. It was a strange, random
realization, but I suddenly knew I couldn’t go any further.
Something inside was holding its breath, anticipating the second I
would step through those doors. A sense of fear washed over me so
forcefully that it pushed me backward. I was certain that if my
eyes stayed glued to those jagged spires, those gaping black
windows, I would catch a glimpse of some gnarled shape reaching a
claw-like hand toward me…
    “Ow!” Jamie cried as I backed into her,
tramping right on her ankle.
    “I can’t go in there.”
    “What the – what did you say?” She raised an
eyebrow at me. “Are you okay?”
    “Fine. Just…tired.” I cleared my throat
loudly. “Gotta be at the restaurant pretty soon, you know. We
should go.” She opened her mouth to protest but I took her
shoulders and shoved her away from the building. “Now.”
    “Wait...I’m gonna go up to the hospital to
see what’s going on, anyway,” Cole said as he half-jogged after us.
“It didn’t sound too serious, but maybe Raymond could use some
help.”
    “Great,” Jamie pounced, shooting me a look of
defiance. Asylum or no asylum…she didn’t care as long as she was
following Cole around. That was sort of a relief. At least it kept
me out of that building for now. “We can all go together. I’ll
drive.”
    “No!” I shouted much louder than was
necessary.