Read Online The Evil Within by Nancy Holder - Free Book Online Page B

buildings. Still I ran, as if I could run away, even though the blacktop path seemed like just one more dead-end passageway in a maze, and I was a stupid, insignificant nobody who would never find her way out.
    “Let me go, leave me alone,” I shouted, as I crashed through the bushes.
    I flew until my side hurt, and my lungs burned, and my legs refused to go any further. I staggered sideways, catching my balance against a tree trunk, and tried to catch my breath. My surroundings were so dense with trees it still felt like night. It was freezing, and silent. Tears slid down my cheeks.
    I won’t do it. I won’t.
    I cried forever. I cried a lake full of tears, it seemed like. Then, when I thought I was done, I cried some more.
    I turned around, gazing at the thick criss-crosses of branches barely visible in the gloom. One looked the same as the next. I started forward, nearly tripping over a huge rock that hadn’t been in my path before. Stepping to the right, I pushed against a branch, to find it lashed together with another branch, from another tree. Not the way I’d come through, either.
    I moved to the left. Another rock I hadn’t encountered, and then a deep gulley. I made a quarter turn and took a few steps, but it didn’t feel right, either.
    I was lost. Like Troy, who fell last semester in the woods . . .or was pushed.
    “He was found, he was fine, ” I said aloud, over the jackhammer of my heartbeat. Snow sprinkled down like icy powdered sugar.
    I hadn’t run very far. I would be found, too.
    The woods are lovely, dark and deep . The words sprang into my head, like an echo of my mother’s voice. Memmy and I had loved the poetry of Robert Frost, and we’d memorized many of his poems. We played duets together, me on cello, her on the piano. We did so much. Oh, God, I wouldn’t even be here at Marlwood if she had lived. If she had lived. If my life had not fallen apart; if she had been there . . .
    Lovely, dark and deep.
    “Memmy?” I whispered, crossing my arms and sliding my hands into my pits for warmth. If ghosts were people who hadn’t left, why not my mother? “Mom? Memmy?” I called.
    Run.
    I jerked as adrenaline gushed into my system. Then, in my path, there was a small, dark shape. It was like a bundle of shadow and I had almost stepped on it before I realized it was a little bird, dead, its left wing oddly angled. My stomach lurched.
    Run .
    I bolted forward, not even seeing where I was going. A root caught the toe of my shoe and I fell forward, into a net of branches. One of the branches bowed back, then snapped into place, scratching me across the cheek. I shouted in surprise and pressed my hand over the wound, feeling wetness on my fingertips. I swayed for a second, then dropped to my knees and fell forward on my hands. Pine scent and wet earth rose around me like a sack closing over my head. But there was a light stream of sunshine shining onto the icy ground in front of me.
    I took a deep breath and pushed up to get to my feet. I heard something moving through the underbrush. Something big. And stealthy. I remembered that Ms. Krige had warned me about mountain lions, and hysterical laughter threatened to bubble out. I imagined my obituary: Lindsay Anne Cavanaugh, surrounded by evil ghosts, was eaten by a mountain lion.
    I heard more rustling. Closer. My heart shot into overdrive. I was trembling. Without moving my head, I ticked my gaze left, right, searching for a weapon. Next to my right knee, weak sunlight glinted off a rock the size of my fist. About a yard in front of it was a broken branch with a sharp, pointy end. If I could stun it with the rock, then stab it with the branch . . .
    What if I missed? What if all I did was enrage it?
    I looked up at the nearest tree, a pine at least twenty feet tall. Could mountain lions climb trees? But the trunk wasn’t very thick, and I wasn’t sure if the branches would hold me.
    I reached out my hand and grabbed the rock. Then I froze,