The Missing Read Free Page A

what to do.
    Come on, go into my bedroom.
    The man from the woods stepped inside the spare bedroom. Darby watched in horror as the boots came closer… closer… oh Jesus no, he was standing only a few inches from her face, the boots so close she could see and smell the grease stains.
    Darby started to tremble. He knows. He knows I’m hiding under the bed –
    A crude mask of stitched-together, flesh-colored strips of Ace bandages fell to the floor.
    The man from the woods picked up the mask. A moment later, he walked out of the bedroom and back into the hall-way. Her bedroom door burst open to bright light and dance music.
    Darby scrambled from underneath the bed and ran into the hall-way. The man from the woods was standing in her room, looking for her. She ran into her mother’s bedroom and swung the bedroom door shut, catching a glimpse of the man chasing after her, a real-life Michael Myers dressed in greasy blue coveralls, his face covered by the mask of Ace bandages, his eyes and mouth hidden behind strips of black cloth.
    She locked the door and then grabbed the phone from the nightstand. The man from the woods kicked the door, rattling it against the frame. Her hand was shaking as she dialed 911.
    There was no dial tone.
    Thump as he kicked the door. Darby tried the phone again. Still nothing.
    Thump. The phone had to work, there was no reason why it shouldn’t work. Thump. She flipped over the phone, and in the dull white light coming from the outside street lamps Darby saw the plug, nice and snug, in the back of the phone. Thump.
    Darby jammed her finger on the receiver again and again and still no dial tone and THUMP and CRACK as the one of the door panels split open.
    A jagged line ran down the panel, a foot or so above the doorknob. THUMP and CRACK and the wood split wider as a black-gloved hand reached through the hole in the door.
    Sheila’s blue plastic toolbox, the one she used for her small projects around the house, sat on the edge of the TV stand. Inside the toolbox full of old plastic medicine bottles holding tacks, small nails and hooks, Darby found her father’s hammer, the big Stanley he had used around the house.
    The hand was on the doorknob. Darby swung the hammer and hit him on the arm.
    The man from the woods screamed – an ungodly howl of pain Darby had never heard another human being make. She went to hit him again and missed. He yanked his hand back through the hole.
    The doorbell rang.
    She dropped the hammer and opened the window. The storm window was still down. As she worked on opening it, she remembered her mother’s words about what to do when you were in trouble: Neveryell for help. Nobody comes running when someone yells for help, but everyone comes when someone yells fire.
    Screaming coming from inside the house. The song ended and Darby heard a woman crying hysterically.
    ‘DARBY!’
    Melanie’s voice, coming from the foyer.
    Darby stared at the hole in the door, sweat running into her eyes as Frank Sinatra sang ‘Luck Be a Lady Tonight.’
    ‘He just wants to talk,’ Melanie said. ‘If you come downstairs, he promised to let me go.’
    Darby didn’t move.
    ‘I want to go home,’ Melanie said. ‘I want to see my mother.’
    Darby couldn’t turn the doorknob.
    Mel was sobbing. ‘Please. He has a knife.’
    Slowly, Darby opened the door and, crouching low, looked through the banister and into the foyer.
    A knife was pressed against Melanie’s cheek. Darby couldn’t see the man from the woods; he was hiding around the corner, against the wall. She saw Mel’s terrified face and the way her body shook as she sobbed and struggled to breathe around the arm clutched tightly around her throat.
    The man from the woods moved Mel closer to the bottom steps. He whispered something in her ear.
    ‘He just wants to talk.’ Black tears from Melanie’smascara ran down her cheeks. ‘Come down here and talk to him and he won’t hurt me.’
    Darby didn’t move, couldn’t