Watcher in the Woods Read Free Page A

it was a garbled murmur. Now and then words came through. The syllables were sharp, but David didn’t understand the language. A low boom sounded like the beating of a drum.
    â€œA parade?” David wondered out loud.
    â€œShut the door,” Xander said. “Wait for Dad.”
    More faces—in and out of focus.
    â€œHold on,” David said. “I want to see more. Maybe I can figure out what they’re doing.”
    â€œDon’t move,” Xander said, releasing David’s collar.
    David glanced back to watch Xander step into the hallway. “Dad!” his brother called.
    Dust and smoke drifted into the little room. It smelled like fireworks on the Fourth of July. The angle of the view through the doorway seemed to be getting higher. David could see more people, mostly their heads now, not their bodies. He remembered Xander telling him that he had watched the jungle moving past the doorway before he jumped in to rescue David from the tigers. Whatever these portals were, they were not locked in one place. They moved, as though with a breeze or caught in an ocean current.
    A face came into focus and immediately blurred. David’s heart jumped into his throat. The glimpse had been enough.
    â€œMom,” he whispered. Then he shouted it: “Mom! Xander! I saw Mom!” He leaned his shoulder into the door frame, hoping for another glimpse.
    Xander raced up to him. “Where? David, where?”
    â€œShe went past! Xander, it was her!”
    â€œAre you sure?”
    â€œI’m sure! I’m sure!”
    Xander went back into the hallway and yelled, “Dad! Dad!” His voice was shrill, panicky. His eyes were wide. He was shifting his gaze down the hall, back to David, down the hall again. David realized Xander was as clueless about what to do as he was.
    He watched the throng of people in the other world start to thin out. The perspective of the doorway rose higher and farther away. He could no longer see the spot where he thought his mother was.
    â€œXander, I . . . she . . .” He turned his head.
    Xander was looking at him, reading him perfectly. “No!”
    â€œWait for me!” David said and stepped through the portal.

CHAPTER four
    And so he found himself staring over the crumbling wall at an approaching tank.
    Click-click-click-click-click.
    Its turret rotated toward him. When the big barrel was pointed directly at him—all he could see of it was a black hole—it stopped. Fire and smoke erupted from it.
    David dropped to the floor, knowing the wall would be like wet paper to the incoming shell. He squeezed his eyes shut.
    Here lies a boy named David King , he thought, the image of his headstone filling his mind. Food for worms because he did a stupid thing.
    He heard the whine of the shell as it cut through the air over his head. The explosion was farther away than he expected. The floor shook and dropped down a foot. Plaster and rock rained over him.
    He cracked open an eye. The shell had gone through the bedroom’s crumbled exterior and interior walls, sailing right through into the attic beyond. Two feet lower and he’d be as gone as the section of roof above his head, through which he could see the blue sky beyond.
    The hum of the tank’s turret started again. It was turning its cannon away from him! He brushed the debris off his face and shoulders, then took off the beret and slapped at his hair, kicking up thick plumes of white powder. He draped the beret back over his head and lifted his eyes over the top of a shattered wall. Men were crouched behind rubble and smoldering vehicles, shooting at the tank and the soldiers following it. Beyond this scattering of ragtag combatants, a bullet-pocked door cracked open and a woman peered out. She was not his mother, but he could see people crowded in the room behind her. This must be where the fleeing villagers had wound up. Maybe his mother was among them.
    The tank boomed out a