Traveler by L.E. DeLano (chromebook ebook reader TXT) 📗

in this building, but if they’re looking for people coming in off the road, this would be the first place they’d look.

I stay flat against the wall, inching along until I get to a corner and can look around it very, very slowly. I don’t see anyone in either direction down the street, but that doesn’t mean they’re not inside a building or something. I stop and listen again, but whatever I’m hearing is faint and far away. I think. I hope.

I decide to risk a run to the next house, and again, no one is there. I still feel like I’m too close to the road, though. I count down two more houses and wonder if I should risk crossing the street. Probably not.

I move around to the back of this house, still listening closely for voices, or any sound of people. I am torn between the need to get away and the need to stay clear of what is an obvious entry point to the town. I try the back door, but it’s not budging.

I look up and down the street carefully as I move around to the front of the house. I can see in the dim moonlight that the door has been broken in and I stand in the doorway, listening, holding my breath to keep it from sounding in my ears. I take a step cautiously into the house. My foot crunches down on something and I freeze in my tracks, holding my breath again. After what feels like an eternity, I move once more, and everything sounds impossibly loud as my footsteps echo on a wooden floor scattered with debris.

The house is very dark, and I make my way blindly from one room to the next, finding nothing on the ground floor that could act as a mirror—at least not that I can see in the dark.

I make my way up the staircase as silently as I can, but the stairs creak badly and I am sure I heard something rustle. I bite down on my lip to keep from making a startled sound, and I wait. Breathe. Wait some more.

I make it up two more stairs and wait again before finally moving to the top of the staircase and working my way carefully down the hallway, my eyes straining to see in near pitch-black. The first room I encounter is a bathroom, and I nearly shout with excitement. Where there’s a bathroom, there’s a mirror. I fumble around automatically for the light switch and realize how useless that was when nothing happens. The power must be out. I feel for the sink and find it, then reach my hand out and touch the glass above it. Yes! It’s a mirror.

But I can’t see it. If I can’t see it, I can’t shift. My hand reaches up to trace its outline. It’s definitely large and attached firmly to the wall. Maybe there’s something I can smash it with? I only need a good-sized shard. I feel around, but there’s nothing in the room—just a sink and a toilet.

I lean against the sink, momentarily defeated. This bathroom has no windows, and it’s as dark as a tomb in here. I’m going to have to find another mirror in a room with some windows, or a flashlight.

I step back out into the hallway, trying to move silently but failing miserably. There’s just entirely too much debris to step on, and the floor—at least to my ears—is incredibly creaky. I step into one bedroom that’s been made over into an office, feeling carefully along the wall. There’s nothing that feels like a mirror. I move on to what must be the master bedroom, and I’m disappointed to discover that there’s no bathroom suite attached. I ought to see a little better due to the windows in here, but there are heavy draperies blocking out even the slightest glimmer of light, and I open them carefully, just in case someone can see shadows moving in here from the outside. The windows still don’t shed enough light with a pale moon in an overcast sky. It’s useless. I close the drapes again.

I put my hands to the wall, inching along and feeling for a bureau or any type of vanity table, when I hit the jackpot. A heavy, very ornate, and dust-covered mirror hangs on the wall over a chest of drawers. I clean its smooth surface with my fingers, crinkling my eyes as I strain them hard trying to see myself. I stare hard, touching the glass, willing myself to see more. Still useless.

I start opening drawers as quietly as I can, feeling around in the hope of finding a flashlight, and I go into full-body shudder as I put my hand in an enormous spiderweb. I shut the drawer quickly and have to force myself to open the next one, and then the next.

Still no luck.

Another slow walk around the house, along with drawer-opening in the office and another bedroom with a crib (but no mirror) and rifling through the kitchen drawers, gets me nowhere. Until the sun comes up again, I’m not going to find anything in the dark. I might as well just wait it out till morning, then open the curtains and shift back once the sun is up.

I feel across the top of the bare mattress on the bed and it seems to be clear, but a quick check of the closets doesn’t find me any bedding and only a few articles of clothing that I can try to use for warmth.

I slide my arms into what feels like a ladies’ blouse and then carefully reach out to guide myself onto the bed, hoping I won’t be getting another handful of spiderweb. After another inspection, I curl up across the foot of the mattress.

I am exhausted, but every slight noise, every bump, every whistle of wind skitters across my frazzled nerves like nails on a chalkboard. Every creak and pop of the house