A Misty Mourning Read Online Free Page A

and walk down the hall.
    I lay there a few more seconds, pondering if it was worth getting out of bed for. Rain crashed against the window in wild surges. I got up and went to the window and looked out. It was pretty cool how the lightning lit up the sky and all of the mountains surrounding this valley were silhouetted against the purple-blue sky. Then the lightning would the down and all would be pitch-black again.
    Once in the bathroom, I did my business and hurried back into my room, stubbing my toe on the overly thick floor runner. It must have been two inches thick. The hallway was pretty creepy, all dark and squeaky, and I really didn’t want to stay out there any longer than I had to.
    As I got in bed, I did give some thought as to how Clarissa could get her wheelchair up and over the floor runner. Her electric wheelchair must have a really good engine, I decided.
    Just as my head hit the pillow, I heard this hair-raising scream that sounded like a woman being attacked. Goose bumps danced along my spine, and I sat straight up in bed. Well, as straight up as I could with a forty-five-inch waist.
    â€œWhat the heck was that?” I asked aloud. My voice sounded spooked and twelve years old.
    â€œPanther,” Gert said in between snores.
    â€œWhat do you mean, panther?” I asked. “Don’t panthers meow or something like that?”
    â€œNo. Panthers scream. Like a woman,” she said, still without moving. How could she be this calm?
    Then I heard it again. I sat in the bed unable to move, except for my eyes, which kept darting around the room expecting to see some rain-soaked crazy woman. The more I listened to it, the more I knew the sound was coming from outside. The scream seemed to get louder or quieter as if it was moving closer to the boardinghouse and then farther away. The fact that it was outside made me feel a little bit better.
    â€œI’m telling you, it’s a panther. Go back to sleep.”
    â€œPanthers live in the wild,” I argued. “In the mountains, in the boonies.”
    â€œYes, and you are in the boonies, in the mountains, and this is called Panther Run for a reason. Now go back to sleep before I brain you a good one.”
    Enough said. Feeling very much like a scolded child, I snuggled back into my big fluffy bed with the covers up around my chin, but I still could not close my eyes. Rain pellets hit so hard against the glass that I thought for certain the windowpanes would break.
    I lay like that until the storm moved on and the earliest rays of light caused shadows in my room. I’d heard the panther two more times in the middle of the night, and let me just say that it was the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard in my life.
    At about six in the morning I had to use the bathroom again. I’d had to go for the last hour, but I waited until it became light enough to see where I was walking. As I stepped out into the hallway, I heard a creak. I looked up and down the hallway but didn’t see anybody. Between each room, bronze sconces with curved votivecups came out of the walls, and I wondered why they weren’t on. I felt inside of one and surmised that all the sconces like this one had no lightbulbs. The plush maroon floor runner was centered down the hallway floor. About three quarters of the way down on the left, the stairs exited into the great room below. A few feet of balcony stretched beyond the stairway until the very end of the hall, where Clarissa’s elevator was. Which was the opposite end of the hall where her room was. All of the doors in the hall were shut, except the one I’d just come out of.
    I went to the bathroom and then walked back down the hall toward my room. Just as I was about to go into my room, I looked up and saw that the door to Clarissa’s room was open about six inches. I stood there a minute waiting for somebody to come out, but nobody did. I glanced up and down the hallway and saw nobody, so I