Phobia Read Online Free Page B

and no eyeless crow-woman. The TV was on, tuned to an infomercial.
    I fled to the kitchen and brewed a pot of coffee. I spent the rest of the night sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and playing solitaire on my laptop.
    I knew I needed to start taking my medication again, but I was trapped in an impasse. If I took the pills I so obviously needed, I would run out of them. I dumped my bottle of Valium on the table and counted the pills: twenty-six. If I rationed them by taking one every second night, it would be fifty-two days before I ran out. Seven weeks. I repeated the process with my antidepressants and found I had only a month’s supply left. After that, would have no choice but to leave the house to renew my prescriptions.
    * * *
    Since a trip to the pharmacy was inevitable, I decided to acclimate myself to going outside. I would work up to it by practicing at night, when nobody could see me.
    No big deal. I’d been outside before. It was easy. Just open the door and walk through it, right?
    Do it, you chickenshit!
    I paused at the front door, hand on the knob, dressed in coat and shoes, ready to go out.
    Go ahead , I told myself. Just turn it .
    I had scarcely begun to turn the doorknob when I heard a noise outside the house. I jumped back from the door like I had been electrocuted.
    A hissing noise, slow and rhythmic, came from the other side of the door. It sounded like something large… something hungry, sniffing around the cracks, inhaling my scent, waiting for me to open the door.
    HISS. SLURP. HISS. SLURP.
    I couldn’t open the door with that thing out there, whatever it was. I peeked through the blind, but couldn’t see anything in the darkness. I listened.
    HISS. SLURP. HISS. SLURP.
    I edged away from the door.
    BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
    I whirled around.
    What the hell?
    I hadn’t put anything in the microwave, so why was it beeping?
    I tiptoed to the kitchen. The monster still wheezed outside the front door. The microwave continued to beep steadily every couple of seconds.
    The kitchen was empty. I opened the microwave door. Also empty. I shook my head. I must be imagining things. Not enough sleep.
    BEEP! BEEP!
    I jumped back from the open microwave with a small scream. There was no way it should have been beeping when the door was open. I scooted behind the microwave stand and yanked the plug out of the wall.
    BEEP!
    I backed away.
    No. This can’t be. No. No. It’s unplugged!
    BEEP!
    “NO!” I shouted at it.
    I ran from the kitchen and back to the safety of my bedroom, away from whatever fucked-up rabbit hole I’d fallen into. I turned the TV volume up until it drowned out the hissing monster and the beeping microwave.
    I pinched my arm hard enough to leave a welt, to make sure I wasn’t having another vivid dream.
    Nope. Definitely awake.
    I think.
    For the second time that day I began to doubt my sanity. Maybe it was time I found some help.
     
    ~*~
     

 
    ~ 6 ~
Reaching out
     
     
    I started my laptop, hoping it would be different this time. My Internet still wasn’t working properly. Even though my wi-fi appeared to be working and I could load a browser to my homepage, I couldn’t seem to get anywhere. I had performed countless Google searches, only to find that all the links in the search results were dead. I clicked and clicked, but never got past the results page.
    Today was no different. I searched as many different terms as I could think of: fears, phobias, nightmares, agoraphobia, trauma, and a long list of other words and phrases. Each search turned up different results, but every single link was dead.
    Dead, like I soon would be if I didn’t find help soon.
    Resting my head in my hands, I began to sob.
    “Help me!” I cried aloud. “Why won’t anyone help me? Damn it!”
    I slammed my hand down on the keyboard in frustration, restraining myself from hitting it too hard. As much as I felt like putting my fist through the damned thing, the laptop was my only connection to the