Read Online The Light (Morpheus Road) by D.J. MacHale - Free Book Online Page B

was definitely a door because it was now open. It had swung out a few inches, plenty of room for a naughty cat to squeeze through. I hoped it was a janitor's closet or a storage area for towels . . . a perfect kitty trap. I walked to the door on alert in case Winston suddenly shot out. When I reached the opening, I knelt down and put my hand near the floor.
    "C'mon, Winny! Let's go. Who wants a treat?"
    Winston didn't take the bait. She was a cat, not a moron. I was going to have to go in after her. I got down on my knees and crawled toward the door, thinking it would be smart to be ready to grab her in case she bolted. I got to the door, reached out, and carefully pulled it open wider. I kept low. No way that cat was getting around me.
    Turned out I didn't have to worry. What lay beyond that door wasn't a closet. I was staring into what I can best describe as another world.
    And Winston was long gone.
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    Chapter 6
    I had stepped back through time.
    At least that's what it seemed like. What lay beyond the hidden shower door was an old, abandoned gymnasium. The place looked like it hadn't seen action for decades. It wasn't much bigger than the size of the basketball court. It was old-school (literally) with an indoor track that circled above. Dusty shafts of light came in through cloudy windows near the high ceiling. Wooden retractable bleachers were closed against the wall. The basketball backboards were white instead of glass. The thick climbing ropes were still hanging, but the bottoms were looped up and tied to the safety railing of the track above.
    It wasn't a gym anymore. It was a big storage closet full of somebody else's history. I saw a bunch of ancient gym equipment like antique parallel bars and an old-school pommel horse. There were twisted piles of old wooden classroom
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    desks and chairs that rose like elaborate sculptures toward the high ceiling. Leaning against one wall was a stack of huge glass windows in peeling wooden frames that I'm guessing were taken from one of the school buildings during a renovation. There looked to be a dozen of them, each twenty feet high and four feet across. There were also tons of cardboard boxes full of who-knew-what stacked everywhere.
    My first thought was, Whoa, cool. My second thought was, No way I'm going to find my cat in this mess.
    "Winny!" I called out. "C'mon!" I made a kissing sound. Cats love that. Usually. Not this time. I decided to make my way to the far side and walk back to try and coax Winston toward the shower. Walking across the gym floor was like moving through a maze. There was so much stuff piled up that I was afraid to bump into something and start an avalanche of junk.
    "Winston! C'mon, let's go!" I shouted, hoping she'd sense my anger and run out from wherever she was hiding. Yeah, right.
    I moved past the tall stack of windows, scanning the floor, hoping to see a little black shadow dart by. This wasn't like Winston. She always came when I called her. I thought maybe she was freaked by this strange place and was hiding somewhere in fear. But what did I know? I wasn't a kitty psychiatrist.
    When I reached the far wall, I stopped and listened in case she was on the move. I didn't hear a thing. Literally. Something felt off. It was the sound.
    Or the lack of sound.
    The place had gone deadly silent ... like my house the night before. The creaks and groans of the old gym were gone. I stood there, afraid to move, wishing I could hear something. Anything. Finally, I did, and it didn't make me feel any better. It was a dripping sound. Hollow, wet ker plunks echoed
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    through the big gymnasium. It was steady. Incessant. Impossible. Just like the night before.
    The sound was coming from my left. I turned slowly toward it.
    There was no leaking faucet. What I saw was something far worse. Splattered across the yellowed wall not five feet from me was a spray of something wet and red. It looked exactly like the explosion of blood that had erupted from the