Hurricane House Read Online Free Page A

She wedged herself next to the tree and covered her body with wet kudzu and pine straw.
    A spider crawled over her face, but she didn’t dare move a muscle as she strained to hear the slightest footfall. Several minutes passed before the Hummer’s motor revved up. Is he leaving or tricking me?
    Crawling on her hands and knees with her duffle on her back, she clawed her way through the kudzu, pines and prickly shrubs until she reached her original hiding spot behind the hedgerow. She peeped out and saw an empty parking lot, no sign of John or the Hummer. Was he hiding? Is that his shadow next to the building? Is he planning to ambush me?
    Shaking with fear, Ellen waited another fifteen minutes before she ran to the payphone and dialed 911. A man answered, “What’s your emergency?”
    She held her throat, as if she could force the words out, but no sound came forth. She jumped when she saw lightning, and a loud crack of thunder, popping a transformer and shrouding the rest area in darkness. Scared to death of lightning, Ellen dropped the phone, ran into the Ladies Room and bar-locked herself in one of the stalls. To become invisible, she drew her feet up on the toilet seat.
    Hard footsteps walked into the bathroom, peed, flushed the toilet and ran water in the sink. Oh, please God, not John. Ellen withdrew the pepper spray from her duffle, aimed it at the stall door and waited. Her heart was pounding in her throat by the time the main door to the Ladies Room slammed shut. She felt relieved, thinking it was someone other than her attacker, but in the hours that followed, she began to worry about everything. She worried about where John might be. She worried about her vocal cords. If they were inflamed like twenty-years ago when she had those polyps, it would be quite a while before she could talk, meaning she’d have to find another way to communicate.
    Ellen searched through her duffle, but she couldn’t find a pen or a single piece of paper to write on. What now? She wanted to get out of the bathroom and go for help, but the lightning scared her too much. She’d seen a woman struck by lightning on Fifth Avenue years ago. The woman was dressed up like she’d stepped from a Vogue cover. The lightning not only burned her to death but cracked the concrete. No way would Ellen run to the BP Station, a mile away, with all of this lightning popping. Not only that, but she had a feeling John had parked his Hummer along the roadside, hidden from view, expecting her to go for help.
    Her left arm, the one John had pinched, throbbed painfully. Her mouth felt as dry as cotton. Only one sip left of the bottled water in her duffle.
    Pooped, she wrapped her arms around her legs and slept fitfully with her forehead against her knees. In her years as a hitchhiker, she’d learned to sleep in every possible position. No surprise she could fall asleep this way, crouched on a toilet seat.
    At sunrise, Ellen rubbed the sleep from her eyes; then massaged her legs back to life. The trauma of last night lingered like the smell of homeless piss, but she managed to crack open the stall door. Her whole body trembled with fear as she stepped out and saw the main bathroom door pop open.
    She held her breath, expecting to see John, but thank God, no. It was a woman carrying a baby. Ellen tried to say good morning, but her vocal cords refused to work. Not being able to talk, or sing, had plagued her two times before. First time she was only ten years old. Her uncle had raped her and told her not to bust him or he’d kill her. Maybe if she was unable to speak and tell on him, he’d let her live, she thought. The second time, she was twenty-one, working with a famous voice coach and close to reaching her dream. The ear, nose and throat doctor blamed the polyps. Ellen blamed herself and her screwed up life.
    Wishing she could hide from her sad memories, Ellen washed her face and hands in the bathroom sink then brushed her teeth. She walked out of the