Crazy House (Crazy House 1)

17

CASSIE

THEY DON’T LIGHT COUNTRY ROADS. At night after lights-out the whole world is dark—dark enough to see the amazing glitter of a trillion stars overhead and the filmy gauze of the Milky Way moving slowly across the sky. Even if there’s no moon—especially if there’s no moon—the stars cast enough light for me to pick out the shapes of our neighbors’ barns, the haystacks in Pa’s fields, the shiny outline of a cow’s back as it dozes.

This cellar was much darker than that.

At the bottom of the steps I hesitated, feeling for solid ground with my foot. I glanced back to see the guy close the door at the top of the steps, leaving me in blackness.

I turned to race up the steps, ready to break the door down, but then my gaze was caught by the dimmest blue light. I couldn’t tell what it was or how far away it was.

Swallowing, still holding on to the stair railing, I said hesitantly, “Taylor?”

No one spoke, but I heard the scrape of a chair across a floor. I cleared my throat and said more strongly, “Taylor?”

“Yeah?”

So there was a Taylor. I didn’t know whether to be more scared or relieved. Maybe he was a psychopath, and those kids upstairs just threw new people down to him every so often. Sweat broke out on my palms and my throat felt like it was closing. I couldn’t help blinking, though it did no good.

“Um… where are you?”

Another sound, and then the blue glow became clearer, as if a very weak lamp had been uncovered. I simply stood still, letting my eyes get used to the dimness, keeping in mind where the stairs were and how I would get out of here if Taylor turned out to be a serial killer.

Not that there were any serial killers in our cell, of course.

At least, not that anyone had ever heard of.

“What do you want?” Taylor asked, and now I could almost see enough to pick my way across the cellar. Around me were dusty, cobwebby wooden shelves that held dusty, cobwebby glass jars of fruits and vegetables: home canning. Very slowly, trying not to knock anything over, I headed toward the blue light. Taylor turned out to be just a guy, maybe a little older than me, slumped on a couch, drinking from a bottle. The blue light was from the cracked screen of his cell phone, beside him on the couch.

When I came close enough for him to see me, his eyes flared open and he jumped up.

“Becca! Thank God! I thought you were—”

“I’m not Becca,” I said. “I’m her sister, Cassie. I’m looking for her. Someone told me that you two were playing chicken out on the boundary road.”

After staring at me in disbelief for a moment, Taylor’s face crumpled and he sank back down. He picked up his beer bottle and drained it, then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

When he didn’t say anything, I came closer. “Taylor. Tell me what happened.”

Now he looked sullen, not meeting my eyes. “Nothing.”

That was enough to push me over the edge. It was late, I was in a bad neighborhood, my sister had been missing for more than a day, and I snapped for the first time in my life. Lunging forward, I grabbed his beer bottle and slammed it against a table, breaking off the bottom. Holding the unbroken end, I leaned over a shocked Taylor and waved the jagged glass, trying to look mean.

?

?Listen… dipshit,” I ground out. “My only sister is missing. People say you were with her. Now you tell me what the hell happened out on the boundary road or I’m going to carve your face up like a… like a Halloween pumpkin! You got that?”

Taylor drew away from me. I waved the broken bottle.

“We were racing,” he said reluctantly. “Seeing who would go the farthest. But it was too far.”

“You chickened out,” I said coldly, and he looked at me with loathing.

“It was too far. I turned around and headed back on my moped. I thought Becca was right behind me. But she wasn’t.”

“What happened then? You just left her out there?” The thought made me feel frantic.

“No!” Taylor said. “I turned around. I was going to tell her okay, she won. But when I went back, all I saw was the truck by the side of the road. No Becca.”