No Way Out Read Online Free Page A

crunch. He pictured the big stones that supported the lower half of the house.
They’re scraping against one another as the house settles
, he told himself.
    It was silent for a few minutes, and Frank felt himself sliding back into sleep. But then a steady
creak … creak
… behind his headboard yanked him back awake. He sat up and stared at the wall over his shoulder, following the noise that moved back and forth behind the wall.
    â€œJoe!” Frank whispered, looking over toward his brother’s bed. “Joe, are you awake?”
    â€œMglblffft.”
Joe’s snore answered the question.
    â€œOkay, guess the fun’s all mine this time,” Frank muttered. He slid out from under the covers andpulled on a pair of jeans over his sleep shorts. He stuffed his penlight into his pocket and crossed the room in his bare feet. A creepy tremor rippled through him. The room was unfamiliar, and filled with a dense darkness.
    He reached the door and stretched out his hand for the slick brass doorknob. Clenching it firmly, he inched it around until he heard a tiny click.
    The door opened to the faint yellow of the hall night-light. As air was pushed outward, dust particles swirled through the dusky amber glow. He peered into the hallway and strained to hear every sound. He looked back into the bedroom for a few seconds to get his bearings, checked where his headboard was, and then visualized how that matched up with the other rooms on the floor as he looked into the hallway.
    The main hall was twenty feet wide and stretched at least sixty or seventy feet to a carved mahogany staircase winding down to the first floor. Several smaller corridors stemmed from the main hallway and seemed to lead to other wings of rooms.
    â€œThe room on the other side of my headboard has to be down that hall,” Frank told himself as he eyed the entrance to a nearby smaller corridor.
    He stepped onto the carpet leading away from his room and ducked around the corner into the smaller passageway. The hall had no light of itsown, and he had to make his way in the glow from the chandelier behind him.
    There was only one doorway on the left, and he knew immediately that it led to whatever was on the other side of his bed. Frank turned the knob and opened the door to a medium-size room. It was very dark but not totally black, thanks to a faint light on the opposite wall. Shadowy legs paced slowly back and forth in the light.
    Frank ducked back behind the partially open door for a few seconds, plotting his attack. He peeked back into the room. The light still shone from the opposite wall, but the shadow was no longer moving in it. Frank strained his hearing, but there was no sound, so he stepped silently inside the room.
    Bare feet
, he told himself.
Good move.
    Following the wall with one hand, he crept around the room. When he got to the opposite side, he discovered that the light had been coming from behind a closet door that was slightly ajar. He still heard nothing but his own heavy heartbeat and the groans and rattles of the house.
    He stopped for barely a second to take a quiet breath and try to slow down his pulse. Then he peeked into the closet.
    A row of costumes hung from a high rod, and he was startled to see that the bulb hanging from the closet ceiling was not on. The light was comingfrom the back of the closet, so the heavy clothes were backlit.
    He paused again, but still heard nothing except quick bursts of air from his own nostrils. He reached up and moved first one garment, then another, to reveal an open door hidden in the back wall of the closet. The light he’d seen came from beyond that door and up a short, narrow flight of ten steps. For a moment he thought he saw the shadows of someone’s legs pacing at the top of the stairs, but they disappeared.
    Frank cautiously placed the bare toes of his left foot on the first step and leaned forward. Relieved to hear no creaking response from the wooden plank,