Read Online The Open Door by Brian Brahm - Free Book Online

barricade? Eat more nut mix, and
there won’t be a cat within ten miles of here by sunrise.”
    “That’s right brother! And if any of them
should mess with us, I’ll just light a match, and boom! I’ll take
‘em all out!”
    “Unless the cats have lost their sense of
smell, that won’t be necessary. It’s good to have a plan-B
though.”
    Although pretentious and immature, their
conversation put both Cody and Scott at ease. All of a sudden, the
fear was gone. At least most of it was.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
     
    A gnarled limb tapped at his window as if
begging to be let in from the howling winds and cold. It was just
how Scott remembered it.
    His sleeping bag was placed in the same area
where his bed used to be, while Cody rolled out his bag by the
closet, which was to the right and at the foot of where Scott chose
to rest.
    Cody wedged wood chips under the inside of
the door, which he had found outside. He believed it would make the
door more difficult to open. He also placed their luggage against
the door; it weighed no more than forty pounds, but it made him
feel safer. Scott on the other hand, relied on twenty years of
martial arts training and a .45 auto that he kept by his side. He
also brought a-hundred rounds of ammo and two extra thirteen-round
magazines just in case.
    Feeling somewhat warm and secure in their
heavy down bags, they finally began to doze off at approximately
1:15 A.M. It had been a long road trip and a stressful evening, so
regardless of the less than desirable conditions; they both had no
trouble falling asleep.
    The sound of something sliding across the
floor woke Scott. He turned his head to try and make out what it
was. There was nothing, no movement, no shapes lurking in the
shadows, just Cody snoring away the night.
    Still half asleep and having a hard time
focusing, he continued to search for something that could have made
the sound. The zipper on Cody’s sleeping bag, as he dragged his
feet? He thought. Possibly, but Scott wasn’t convinced.
    Continuing his scan of the room, the luggage
by the door caught his eye. It didn’t look like it had been moved,
and the door was still closed shut.
    Knowing nothing had entered the room; Scott
felt satisfied, and rolled on his side for some much needed
rest.
    Silence filled the air, Cody had stopped
snoring, and the quiet was so dense that Scott could actually hear
his heart beat.
    His eyes had just closed when he heard a loud
thud. This time he was alarmed, and his attention was brought
immediately to the door. The luggage bag was lying on its side.
Scott’s eyes quickly shifted to the door—it was closed. If the door
was closed, what pushed over the luggage?
    Cody was still sleeping and oblivious to
anything that was going on around him. Scott shined the flashlight
on the door handle—no movement.
    Bringing the light down to the base of the
door due to another noise he heard, he noticed that one of the wood
chips had been pushed in, and sat at least three inches from the
inside of the door. Something had pushed the wood chip and knocked
over the luggage, but what? Pop! Another chip seemingly
ejected itself out from underneath the door where it was tightly
pressed by Cody’s stubby desperate hands.
    Grabbing his already loaded .45, Scott sat
the flashlight down and positioned it so it pointed at the door,
and took aim.
    He kicked Cody’s foot with zero results. Pop! Another wood chip went flying from under the door with
more force than the last, and struck Cody in the head. Alarmed,
Cody rolled over to his knees and scurried his way to Scott’s side
of the room.
    Staring at the area of the door where the
flashlight was focused, Cody asked, “What’s happening? Why is the
luggage knocked over?”
    Scott didn’t say a word—Cody knew.
    After he realized what had happened, Cody
began to cry like a small child. “We should have never slept in
this house!” He said in a shaky voice.
    Both terrified at what