Lucid - Sample Chapters - Katherine Angela Yeboah (hot novels to read TXT) 📗

into a shallow gouge in the cement, and she was scratching, in slow motion, up and down its powdery surface. Fascinated by an act that in the waking world would have seemed rather mundane.
To her astonishment, the plaster began to crumble easily beneath her touch.
Sloane continued to scrape away at it, each stroke more vigorous than the last. Small grains of the chalky debris lodging themselves deep under her fingernail.
Until a tiny hole started to emerge, scarcely big enough for the tip of a finger. An inquisitive finger that burrowed inward, loosening a few more chunks and sending them noiselessly to the carpet, amid a miniscule puff of dust.
So possessed now by the dream, Sloane finally dared to let her gaze drift away from her hand. And with one eye snapped shut, the other eye gaping, she pushed her nose up against the wall and peeked around the jagged edges of the newly punctured hole.
She giggled, feeling like a mischievous child, playing peek-a-boo between her fingers, as she found herself squinting into the front room of her middle-aged neighbor, Mr. Phillips, who lived across the hall.
The place was decorated much as Sloane would have pictured it, in a rather dowdy and tasteless manner. No piece of furniture seemed to fit properly with another…the gaudily patterned sofa clashing horribly with the well-worn rug beside it. The chintzy figurines looking completely out of place next to the Asian-style lamp they shared a coffee table with.
In fact, she could see only one item that wasn’t brazenly garish in either color or design. The door, in the furthest corner of the room, was a dull and understated white.
Sloane nudged free another fragment from the lip of her spy hole, blinking to flush the dust that followed it out of her eyes.
Just in time to watch the plain, white door begin to tiptoe gradually open.
As Phillips entered the main room, Sloane stifled a snigger with the back of her hand, hoping he wouldn’t catch sight of the ragged hole, or the busybody peeping into it.
A thick, cotton apron covered his ill-fitting slacks and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up beyond the elbows. He loitered there, just in front of the doorway, wiping a sweaty palm across his hip. Muttering to himself, a mile a minute, words Sloane couldn’t quite seem to make out.
On second glance, she noticed his odd appearance. Eyes glistening wet. Cheeks flushed scarlet on either side of a set of firmly clenched teeth. His glasses, normally so tidily positioned, perched crooked on the end of his nose.
It was then that she spotted it. Smeared about his middle. An ugly, misshapen splotch. A stain that must have been left behind by some sort of crimson fluid.
Blood?
The smile left her mouth immediately.
Mr. Phillips moistened a thumb pad against the very tip of his tongue. He used it to rub benignly at the red mess across his front. He took a step forward. Another. Inspecting his fingernails as he trod.
But as he edged further away from the yawning doorframe, Sloane’s eyes chose not to follow. They were drawn, instead, by a sudden stirring in the shadowed room behind her neighbor.
If she tilted her head, at just the right angle, she could see into the dreary chamber. Could make out the windowless walls. The unadorned floor.
The denizen within.
A female. Young. In her teens, perhaps. Kneeling naked on the tile. Her arms stretching heavenward, like the stems of a scrawny weed that was desperate to reach the light of the sun. Her wrists held fast by a large-link chain that dangled from the ceiling.
There were bruises, vivid purple, that appeared to cover almost every inch of her haggard frame. There were jagged wounds blemishing her legs, her belly, the ribs that could be counted, one by one, as they jutted through her pallid flesh.
And there was blood. So very much of it. Some clotted amid the tangled thatch on her scalp. Some dribbling over the strips of duct tape that smothered her lips and eyes.
Even her nostrils were oozing it, as they struggled to draw breath. As her miserable body drooped there, chin slumped against an unclothed chest.
She was barely moving, barely hanging on. A fragile, wretched thing. A decrepit Barbie doll some kid brother had borrowed, and played with far too roughly. Returning it to the toy box, filthy and bedraggled. Missing handfuls of its once pretty hair.
Sloane stood reeling in the hallway, a forearm pressed against the wall the only thing preventing her from keeling, horrified, to the ground. A stream of tepid tears began slithering over her cheeks and leaving glistening slug trails down the length of her throat.
When at last her blurry gaze shifted back to her neighbor, Sloane felt her heart lurch into her mouth. He was staring, face contorted in a sullen scowl, at the hole in his living room wall.
Hesitantly, he started toward it, head tilted, at a shuffling, uneven pace. His eyes blinking. Questioning. Disbelieving this new development. This puncture in the boundaries of his clandestine lair.
Sloane was frozen rigid, on dead legs that refused to budge. The scream she longed to give life to never amounting to much more than a gurgle in the depths of her throat.
Mr. Phillips was mumbling again, though he could hardly be heard, for the gaggle of pigeons had returned. They filled the air with noise and chaos, as they clamored to peer through the glass windowpane at the end of the corridor.
Run.
They seemed to say, with their shrill and frenetic squawking.
Hide…
But Sloane was paralyzed in her dream state. Her limbs unresponsive. Her feet fastened to the carpeted floor.
Her breath was coming in throttled gasps now as Phillips drew nearer. Nearer still…
A single glob of sweat crept along her hairline and down to her stiffly clenched jaw, where it lingered on the edge of her chin for a second, before splashing silently onto the front of her shirt.
Then, Mr. Phillips halted. Only a yard or so from where she stood.
“Who is that?”
He had caught sight of the eye that was fixated on him, as it wept profusely beyond the wall.
“What do you want?”
His voice, crescendo. A screeching kettle, coming to a boil.
“Get away from here!”
The words exploded from him in a burst of anguish and venom and spit.
And then he sprung, suddenly, violently, toward the hole, slamming an outstretched palm against the crumbling cement that surrounded it.
Bang.
Sloane’s head catapulted forward on her neck. A rasping gust of air saturated her lungs. The pulse thudded hard and brisk in her veins as she hauled herself upright in her seat.
She was once again in front of her computer. The screen was still showing the results of her web search as it cast its crass reflection against the cooling windowpane.
Her eyes darted hurriedly about the room, seeking solace in the familiar things that surrounded her. The place was bathed in twilight, the sun having vanished, leaving only a stain, bubblegum pink, across the sky.
It took both hands on the edge of the desk to steady her, as she rose, weak-kneed, from her chair. Then tiptoed, in her naked feet, over the wooden floorboards.
Arriving at the front door, she pinned her clammy palms up against it and squinted into the peephole.
For a while she lurked there, peering through the tiny glass bubble. Trying to convince herself that nothing frightful awaited her, on the other side of the door. Trying to convince her fingers to stop shaking as they gripped the handle and unfastened the lock.
The hallway was deserted. Noiseless. Everything…ordinary. Everything in its place.
Sloane crept uneasily across the carpet, toward the facing wall, where the paint had returned to its original and most dismal shade of blue. She swept a clumsy paw over it, searching through narrowed eyes for a gash in the textured surface.
She found nothing, except a few superficial dents to mar the aging plaster.
Just a dream.
Sloane blew forcefully through rounded lips.
Just a stupid dream.
The sky had dimmed to a gloomy gray by now, as she turned to face the window at the end of the hallway. The ledge was uninhabited, with no evidence to suggest that it had ever been anything but.
And then…footfalls.
In the stairwell behind her. Sloane whipped around with a start. Saw a man climbing steadily up to the third floor.
His clothes might not have been fashionable, might not have been top-of-the-line, but painstaking care had been taken to ensure that there was barely a wrinkle or speck of dirt on them.
He was five nine or so, and fairly lean save a hint of thickening around the gut. There were lines crisscrossing his forehead, from years spent in a place where the sun rarely forgot to shine.
His hair, the color of charcoal, thinning somewhat on top. His eyes a watery blue. His overbite, though subtle, just noticeable between a pair of slightly parted lips.
He had reached the top step now, a plastic grocery bag clutched in either hand.
“Hello, Sloane.”
“Hi…Mr. Phillips.” Though it pained her to do so, Sloane ordered her mouth to form the semblance of a smile.
“Can I help you with something?” His tone was pleasant. Sugary. Candy and kittens sweet. “You look a little lost.”
“Oh…no. I’m fine. I just…I thought there was somebody at my door.”
“Well, it doesn’t look as if there’s anyone out here. Only you and me and the crane flies. Eh…neighbor?”
“Apparently.” She attempted to join him in a chuckle, but the sound that came out of her was phony and short-lived.
“Alright, then. You have yourself a nice evening.” He had placed his shopping on the floor and was rummaging in his pants pocket for a key.
Sloane threw her front door open and lunged inside, banging it shut behind her. Made certain every lock, bolt and chain was ever so securely fastened. And didn’t venture out again for the rest of the night.


Lucid is out now in PDF e-book edition and Amazon Kindle edition. To purchase Lucid or find out more information, please visit my website: www.katherineangelayeboah.blogspot.com

Imprint

Text: Written by Katherine Angela Yeboah Cover Design by Katherine Angela Yeboah 2nd Edition Published 2009 To purchase a copy of Lucid, please visit my website: www.katherineangelayeboah.blogspot.com
Publication Date: 06-01-2009

All Rights Reserved

Dedication:
This novel is dedicated to my dogs, Bina, Broni & Fable, and to the millions of shelter animals and strays in desperate need of a home and someone to love them.