The Attic Read Free Page A

really old. There was a strange thrill as I curled my fingers around the handle and lifted it with both hands. How do you open it? I thought, trying to remember what they did in those cowboy films Dad made me watch. I fiddled with the chamber but couldn’t budge it. Would it still work? Did it have any bullets? Would I be thrown back through the wall if it went off, because I was only a kid, and kids don’t fire guns?
    Light beamed up from below as the trapdoor fell open. I scrambled back on my butt, holding Wesley J. Harding’s gun so tight my knuckles went white. I inched back further, never taking my eyes off the entrance, heart pounding so loud I couldn’t hear anything else.  
    A hand reached over the edge, then another. It was Dad, I knew it. I could see his wedding ring glinting in the dirty light. When his head popped up, I nearly dropped the gun and went to him. My whole body ached to be held. Dad must’ve killed that thing down there; must’ve come to rescue me.  
    But then his head turned toward me, and I saw his eyes. They were just like Mom’s—all white and empty. He roared and sprayed spit and slobber everywhere. He started to drag his body through the opening, hissing and growling. My arms were shaking from holding the gun; my head was bursting with tears and fear and sadness and loneliness.  
    I squeezed the trigger.
    Click .
    Nothing happened.
    I tried again.  
    Another click. Nothing. There were no bullets. There was no magic.  
    I hate you, Wesley J. Harding. I hate you!
    I screamed and threw the gun with all my strength. It smacked into Dad’s head and splatted it like a melon. He dropped back through the opening and there was a thud, a crack, and a slosh. I had to see. I had to see what had happened, so I crawled on hands and knees to the opening and peered over the edge.  
    Dad was lying in a sprawled heap on top of a smashed up chair. There was blood all around his head, and his legs were twisted at a horrible angle. Then I was sick, really sick, when I saw the bone poking through his jeans, the chair leg sticking out of his chest, dripping blood. A stream of my vomit poured down on him, and he growled. His head twisted to glare at me with dead eyes, and his fingers scratched at the carpet. He reached a hand up and clawed the air, roaring at me and gnashing his teeth.
    I drew back from the edge and stood. I knew he couldn’t get up, not with his legs all broken like that, but I didn’t want to chance it. I took hold of the canvas wardrobe at the top and pulled. It was real heavy, so I tried again, using more of my bodyweight. It rocked and then tipped right over the opening. Clothes fell out and flopped down below. Dad growled some more, but he was muffled now, buried under Mom’s cast-offs. The wardrobe sagged, but it covered the opening good enough.
    I noticed Wesley J. Harding’s gun up against the wall, where it had bounced off of Dad’s head. I narrowed my eyes at it and screwed my nose up. But then I sighed and gave it a nod of respect. It might not have worked, but it had saved me anyway. Maybe Wesley J. Harding was on my side, after all.
    I decided, if I was gonna get out of this alive, I needed to do some rummaging. Maybe there’d be some rope so I could do that rope-trick thing Wesley J. used to do. Dad said the rope would go stiff, and Wesley J. would climb right up into the clouds.  
    I started going through some old suitcases that were stacked along the sides, but they were mostly filled with more of Mom’s old clothes. She had so many clothes, my Mom, but most of them didn’t fit anymore. She did lots of silly things, Dad said, like going to Weight Watchers and then ordering Chinese; or telling Dad to hide the scales so she couldn’t weigh herself every day, and then messing up the whole house trying to find them. She’d moan about having all this junk food in the cupboards because she couldn’t stop herself from eating it, even though she was the one who bought