Expiration Date Read Online Free Page B

knees. Mitchell pretended not to notice, but he was a bad actor. His eyes flicked to the left. On the floor, Erna tugged at his belt. It wouldn’t come loose. She tugged again.
    “ Erna. You don’t have to do this…”
    “Ah, there we go. You’re too tense. You need to relax.”
    There was the soft metal purr of a zipper, and then Erna’s head disappeared behind the desk. Mitchell let his oversized head fall back, mouth open in a fat O , and all of a sudden I really didn’t want to be here.
    I darted across the room, averting my eyes, wishing I could turn off my ears so I wouldn’t hear the slurping.
    Now that I was seeing it up close, the door also had a piece of cardboard taped over one panel of pebbled glass. I reached for the knob. It was slippery. I tried to turn it quietly, but I couldn’t seem to maintain a hold on the bastard.
    There was more slurping, more moaning.
    I forgot about being stealthy. I grabbed the knob hard, like I wanted to crush it, and gave it a cruel twist to the right. Behind me a moan turned into an oh that’s right momma that’s right. The door latch clicked. The door opened with a creak.
    “Wh-whoa…what was that?”
    “Nothing, Mitchell. Just relax.”
    The door went clack behind me. I looked down the hallway, which was dark but clean. The walls were gray and peeling. The threadbare carpet was gray, too, with faded pink floral designs blended into the fabric. Which was weird, because when I moved in earlier today the walls were painted off-white and the bare floor was covered in grime and dust. This was not the hallway I’d walked through earlier today. None of this made any sense whatsoever.
    On the second-floor landing there were three doors leading to other apartments. As I walked by, the door to 2-C opened a crack. A sleepy-eyed boy of about twelve, with a shock of unruly red hair and wearing oddly old-fashioned footie pajamas, peeked out at me.
    “Who are you?” he asked.
    “I’m nobody,” I said. “Go back to sleep.”
    “Did you come from the doctor’s office? Is my mom up there?”
    Oh God. His mother was Erna. I didn’t want to be the one to tell him that yeah, his mother was upstairs, but she was a little busy at the moment. Then I realized something.
    “Wait,” I said. “You can see me, can’t you?”
    The kid narrowed his eyes skeptically.
    “Are you one of the doc’s patients?”
    “No. I just moved in.”
    “Moved in where?”
    “Upstairs.”
    “Nobody lives upstairs. Nobody except the doctor. And he doesn’t even live there. That’s his office. Who are you?”
    “What I am is really confused and lost and I’m starting to think this is one long, weird-ass dream. What do you think? Do you think we’re both dreaming right now?”
    His eyes went wide. He quickly slammed the door shut.
    Okay. So to recap: I wasn’t totally invisible. I was in the correct apartment building.
    Only, I wasn’t.
    I needed some fresh air. Maybe that would wake me up. Maybe I could walk downstairs to that beer bodega and have a nice cold one while I waited for consciousness to return. That would be a nice way to pass the rest of a dream, right?
    I stepped outside the front door, expecting a sticky wave of early June humidity. Instead, a gust of icy air sliced through my body. Jesus Christ, did the temperature just drop sixty degrees?
    Then I looked down Frankford Avenue. It took my brain a few seconds to register what I was seeing.
     
     
    Cars.
    Very, very old cars.
     
     
    Frankford Avenue was lined with them Buicks, Cadillacs, Dodges, Fords, Pontiacs. All of them vintage autos you don’t see outside of 1970s crime flicks. Giant slabs of American-made steel. It was as if someone had moved all of the normal cars off the street in preparation for a 1970s muscle car show. Which didn’t make sense. If you were throwing a vintage auto show, you weren’t going to throw it under the El.
    Another cannon blast of freezing air cut through my body so hard my eyes teared