Read Online Hushed by Kelley York - Free Book Online

October 3 rd

    He planned on going to class only because if he missed anymore, the phone calls would start rolling in. Ones that involved threatening to kick him out if he didn’t show up. Then his mother would call, screaming about how he was going to flunk out of college and his tuition wasn’t cheap.
    After a few hours of sleep, he felt…not great, but better, and that was something. His phone was dead. He’d listened to Evan’s voice mail over and over, and he couldn’t for the life of him figure out why. Some sort of connection to another human being, some sort of comfort.
    Now that the panic had faded, a cool and calculating frame of mind took over. Mechanically, he got up, dressed, and cleaned the dried blood out of the bathroom sink and off the floor. He skipped breakfast in favor of opening his laptop, writing, printing out pages and putting them into his bag. He took disinfectant wipes and cleaned down the inside of his car. By some miracle, none of it was visible on the dark gray interior.
    Now all he could do was hope he hadn’t left any traces back at Richter’s place. Footprints, hair, anything that could give him away.
    His hands started to tremble as he brought the car to life, and he took a moment to breathe, to steady the tremors. No sense in getting worked up or scared. If he were going to get caught, he’d get caught. Couldn’t do anything about it now. Frankly, he deserved it. But not yet. Not until he was finished.
    Being surrounded by people at school didn’t help. Gonera gave him looks throughout most of class, and he knew she expected him to hand in his rewritten story. He took no notes. Didn’t open his book. Only sat with a stoic calmness in the back of the room and never let his gaze leave the whiteboard. Everyone left, and she was waiting.
    “Mr. Pond.”
    Mrs. STD.
    Archer pushed his chair back and stood, swinging his backpack over a shoulder in the same fluid movement. He strolled over to lay the papers on her desk. She squinted at the first page, skimming. Her head popped up so quickly he half-expected it to snap right off her chicken neck.
    “This is the same story.”
    “No, it’s not.” Archer snatched it away. “It’s different, it just starts the same. No more monsters, and I tried adding in some…creative detail.” As she watched, he flipped to the third page and read aloud:
    “ Rudy isn’t scared like he thought he would be. They don’t even look dead to him, his mom and dad…but more like they’ve fallen into the warm embrace of a sleep they will never wake from. They feel cold to the touch, and their blood is sticky on his hands, which are fishing around in his mother’s stomach. Or her intestines. Maybe those are her kidneys. Rudy isn’t certain, because there’s so much blood he can’t tell one organ from the next. ”
    Archer stopped. Gonera stared at him, jaw slack. He tossed the papers to her desk, smile fading. “While I appreciate your notes on my last story, I’d prefer it if you graded me on the merits of my writing as opposed to my subject matter. You want Polly’s Trip to the Zoo , write it yourself.”
    He left her sitting there, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

    §

    Vivian’s apartment building was a bit more upscale than his. He punched in a code to get inside, scaling the stairs for her floor, flowers in hand. Fire-and-ice: her favorites, the ones he never failed to bring her on birthdays or holidays. Now, they were his attempt at patching the fracture in their friendship. In all the years they’d known each other, never had Vivian simply stopped returning his calls. She could be distant, distracted, but she never outright ignored him.
    He knocked and heard the two voices inside—one male, one female—and braced himself as the door opened. Mickey stared out at him, shirtless, hair wet, indicating he’d just stepped out of the shower. He leaned forward with one arm up against the doorframe, making no move to let Archer