Hey guys and gals. My wife has encouraged me to repost the snippet of my Zoe Flynn novel Truth in the Shadows (working title) to include more content. I know some of the material is repeated so for those of you who read the earlier post, just scan to the point you last read. Thanks for checking out my work. I look forward to your comments!
Chapter One
Lucy wandered through the twilight world of dreams when something corrupt shifted in the darkness. She opened her eyes and looked around in confusion. The room was very dark, almost pitch black, but her eyes were able to make out the familiar shapes of her bedroom in the gloom. Something had awakened her. Glancing at the clock on her night table she saw that it was three in the morning. An exhausted sigh escaped her lips. Rolling on to her elbow she reached for the glass of water that she always kept beside her clock when she slept. A strange sound came through the darkness.
“Who’s there?” Lucy spoke aloud, her voice seeming terribly loud in the nighttime stillness of her room. She realized now that it had been that same noise which had roused her from sleep. It had been a kind of clicking, scratching sound. Like a dog’s claws might make as it walked across a hardwood floor. But she didn’t have a dog, or hardwood floors.
She swallowed against the lump that had formed in her throat and strained to listen in the darkness over the hammering of her heart. Leaning over she flipped the switch on the bedside lamp. Nothing happened. For a moment she sat there stupidly, staring at the lamp in the darkness. Then she flipped the switch back and forth several more times, each click of the toggle sounding more frantic and ominous.
“Okay, Lucy,” she said out loud to herself. “Don’t panic. It’s probably just a blown bulb.” Her voice sounded tremulous and unconvincing, even to herself. She climbed slowly out of bed, the plush carpet soft beneath her bare feet. “Just walk across the room and turn on the light.” She always talked to herself when she got nervous, or frightened. Both of those emotions tore through her at this moment like wild horses.
Standing up, she walked the five feet from her bed to the door of her bathroom, her feet making no sound on the thick carpet. It was closer than the light switch across the room by the bedroom door. Reaching her trembling hand through the partially open door, her breath coming in ragged gulps of air past the knot in her chest, her fingers explored the wall, questing in the darkness, until they found the switch. With a sense of impending relief, she slowly lifted the small plastic lever until it clicked.
Sudden terror froze her where she stood, her hand still on the switch. She remained enveloped by darkness. From somewhere in the house she heard the noise again. A brief click followed by a moment of a scratching sound. What the hell was that? Her fear was beginning to overpower reason.
“Okay Lucinda, just think.” She always used her full name when trying to sort through some difficult puzzle. “The gun!”
Cautiously, she stepped away from the bathroom door. With one hand on the wall to keep her from getting disoriented in the darkness, she made her way through the suddenly too quiet dark until her trembling fingers closed on the faceted crystal knob to the closet door. With agonizing slowness she pushed the door open. It creaked with a heart-stopping faintness. The closet was pitch black, no light found its way inside. Fumbling over the shelves, she was unable in her fear and the darkness to find the case containing her gun. It was so dark in here. She had to get out.
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