Through Glass: Episode Four Read Free Page B

have seen Cohen’s grandmother
wear.
    In fact, I didn’t hold onto much hope
of finding anything here at all. Except for a little dust, it all
looked too perfect. The clothes still hung on rows of racks, cash
registers were un-touched with partially packaged purchases laid
beside them. Faceless mannequins posed in moth eaten clothing that
hung from their dust covered bodies, the vacant spaces of their
eyes leering at us as we walked in front of them.
    I tried not to look at them as we
strode past, but I couldn’t help it. My heart thundered in my chest
as I waited for the blank eyes to flash black, the motionless
bodies to spring to life. It was a thought wrought by years of old
horror movies, the possibility only made more real by the terror of
the world we were currently living in.
    I tightened the grip on the gun I held
before me and moved closer to Travis while the loud slaps of my
shoes against the dust covered linoleum jolted through the silence,
making my spine tense and curl.
    I said nothing as we walked side by
side, his strained breathing echoing through the general stillness
of the expansive room, making it uncomfortable to say much. It was
almost as if someone was waiting in the black that surrounded us,
just beyond the grey line of light, hidden behind doorframes and
the endless racks that were suddenly beginning to feel more like a
hazard.
    I had quickly learned to fear open
spaces, and the sheer enormity of this one was somehow only
heightening my fear. It wasn’t like a street that held the tight
corners that you could hide in, here it was simply open.
    I knew I shouldn’t look into the
massive black space that surrounded us, but I couldn’t stop myself
from peering into the endless nothing. My heart pounded in my ears
like a drum, the enormity of the space somehow making it feel like
it was caving in, the sky falling and shattering.
    “ Stay close,” Travis
whispered the unneeded instruction to me, his voice tense and
strained as he changed course, plunging off the angular linoleum
path and onto the dusty carpet that stretched between the
racks.
    I picked up my pace and moved right
behind him, the pulse that echoed in my ears escalating as the
clear sightlines began to disappear, covered by dusty clothing
racks and faded and torn advertisements for sales that had never
happened.
    I wished we could go back to the
seemingly safe footing the main path had provided us, to the open
space that, while haunting, had given us warning to what was around
us. Here anything could be lurking. It was a forest of clothes and
lifeless figures, the haunted wood that would take us to the witch
instead of the yellow brick road that would lead us right to the
wizard. Besides, didn’t Glenda—the good witch—say to stay on the
path?
    I swallowed heavily and banished the
thought, my muscles tensing the farther we moved away from what I
perceived as relative safety. The expanse of this space was feeling
more and more like a prison the farther we moved into
it.
    The farther we moved away from the
only exit I knew of.
    Our steps were shallow thuds in the
thick layer of dust as we moved amongst the old relics, the heavy
thunder of my heart pounding against my chest painfully. I kept
close to my brother as I tried to keep the fear at a gentle simmer,
the emotion just enough to keep me alert, a feeling that was all
too necessary.
    The silence made everything seem more
desolate, more dangerous, it made every sound that much louder in
my ears. The reverberation of the thunder in my heart loud enough
that I was sure Travis could hear it.
    The deep, heaving breaths of my fear
caught as we moved past yet another pair of forgotten plastic
people, the light Travis held reflecting against the grainy texture
of their skin. I glanced at them, only to feel my heart dive to my
toes, my stomach twisting in horror at something that I wasn’t even
sure I had seen.
    A dark shape had moved behind them,
something had darted out of my line of