The Uninvited Read Free Page B

spot on the ground and that spot on the shed.
    â€œWhat in the world?” she muttered, squinting at the unfamiliar splotches. She rubbed her eyes. “I guess I’d better make an appointment with the eye doctor,” she spoke to the empty house. She looked out the window and could not believe her eyes. The spots were gone.
    â€œOh, this is ridiculous!” she said. “I better make that appointment first thing.”
    She took down the phone and called into Barnwell, making an appointment with her eye doctor. Then she dialed her good friend, Ruth Black. Ruth lived a mile down the road.
    â€œRuthie? If you got the time for a cup of coffee, come on down. Pie’ll be ready time you get here. Know any good gossip? Really? I can’t wait—come on down.”
    She hung up, then again looked out the window. The splotches were back. But they appeared to have moved.
    â€œWell, this is silly! Somebody is playing tricks on me.” She jerked open the kitchen door and marched to the shed.
    The pie was ready when Ruthie got there, thirty minutes later, but Beth Johnson was gone. Slightly miffed, Ruthie turned off the oven, removed the pie, and set it out to cool. The coffee pot was bubbling, so she turned off the burner.
    Ruthie stood in the clean kitchen, thinking. Strange she would invite me down and then take off before I get here. Didn’t even leave a note. That’s not like Beth. Wonder where she went?
    Ruthie looked out the kitchen window. The husband’s pickup was gone, but her friend’s car was parked in the drive. She lifted her eyes to the shed. The tractors were parked there, as usual. Then she remembered she hadn’t heard the Johnson’s dog barking when she drove up. And he never strayed away. Strange. She looked again. A tennis shoe lay in front of the shed. Some dogs probably dragged it up from only God knew where. Ruthie didn’t know whether to wait, or to go on home. She decided to go home.
    Leaving the Johnson house, walking to her car, Ruthie paused in the drive, her hand on the door of her car. She thought she heard a clicking sound—a strange kind of noise. Then she heard another noise, a scurrying sound. Sort of like rats or mice would make in the walls. But not quite. This noise was dry, a rustling.
    She looked around her. Nothing. She laughed, got in her car, and backed out of the drive.
    Out in the shed, a white, slender hand that had gripped the thick tread of a tractor tire, gripped it in unbearable agony, slipped to the pea-gravel floor. A diamond ring sparkled on the third finger of the hand. The fingers were still bloody. Bare bone from the wrist upward gleamed dully in the murky light of the shed.
    A chewing, munching sound drifted into the summer morning.
    Ruthie drove to the house of a friend—whose husband was on a fishing trip—and parked her car in the curving drive, behind the ranch-style house. A few minutes later, sitting in the kitchen, over coffee, she talked with her friend. They were discussing whether their mutual friend, Beth, might be running around on her husband. They shared a conspiratorial laugh or two, while outside the house, a clicking sound grew in volume.
    Ruthie cocked her head. “That’s the same sound I heard down at Beth’s.”
    â€œI was out in the garden this morning,” her friend said. “Oh, got some beautiful squash coming in. And I heard that same noise. Strange, isn’t it?”
    â€œWhere are the boys, Jane?”
    â€œGone with their dad. They won’t be back ’til late Sunday. What is that noise?”
    Ruthie shrugged. “I don’t know. Getting louder, though. Seems like it’s getting closer.”
    Coming from behind the shed, seems like,” Jane said. She stood up and walked into the den, taking down an automatic .308 rifle from the gun rack. She filled a clip and jacked a round into the chamber. “Well, by God, I’m going to find out