Page 74 of All Wrong
Sliding between the cool sheets, Corinne pointed the remote at the small TV and turned the volume down low. Her plan: watch something stupid and mind-numbing until exhaustion took over and she fell asleep.
It worked like a charm.
Sometime later,Corinne awoke with a start, her senses on high alert. She listened, hearing nothing but silence. Remaining still, she cracked one eye open and then the other. Her room was pitch-black.No light from the TV. No glow from the night-light in the bathroom. Had she lost power?
The rumble of thunder off in the distance was followed by a soft pattering of raindrops against the window.
Fraidy-cat, she chastised herself.
She slowly blew out a breath of relief and listened. Another rumble, this one closer. The rain grew heavier, louder. She snuggled back into the pillow and willed herself to go back to sleep.
It didn’t work. The darkness closed in on her, broken only by occasional flashes of lightning as the storm increased in intensity.
She reached for her phone. The power might be out, but her mobile data worked just fine. Some mindless scrolling would have the same effect as bad TV. Her hand patted over the smooth wood but her phone wasn’t where she’d left it.
She ran her fingers around the surface and came up empty when her screen suddenly came to life, appearing to float in midair in front of her face.
That was when a chilling voice said, “Looking for this?”
She didn’t even have time to scream before she felt the sting in her neck. Then, she knew no more.
Her head wasfuzzy and aching. Her body weightless. With much effort, she opened her eyes to find her vision wavy and watery. She was looking down at her own lap. She could see her knees, the tips of her toes. A light seemed to be shining down from above and behind her, her body creating shadows. Beyond the circle, nothing but darkness.
A vague, dreamy thought flitted through her mind.I really need to get a pedicure.
That thought was followed by a muted sense of urgency and confusion.Wait.Where am I? Why am I sitting in a chair? And why can’t I seem to move anything?
“Welcome back, Miss McCain.”
The voice came from behind her, close and far away at the same time, as if someone were speaking through a tube. She tried to speak, but her mouth wasn’t working much better than her limbs. Her tongue was thick, her lips numb, as if she’d been shot up with Novocain.
This was a bad dream. It had to be. Either that or she was hallucinating. A wave of nausea rolled over her. Maybe she had food poisoning. The potato salad she’d had at the Katarskys’ had tasted funny, but at the time, she’d chalked it up to too muchmayo and a ton of cilantro. Who put cilantro in potato salad? But that didn’t explain the voice. Unless that was part of the hallucination?
“Who did you tell?” the voice asked.
“Tell?” she mumbled, confused, the word unintelligible.
A hand gripped her hair and pulled her head back so the light speared into her eyes. That wasn’t a hallucination.
“Why were you looking into the accounts?”
She answered without conscious thought, as if she had no control of what came out of her mouth. “Looking for oopsies.”
“Oopsies?”
“Mistakes.”
“Why?”
“Becci sucks. She’s a dumbass.”
Evidently, her filters weren’t working either.
She thought she heard a chuckle and a throat clearing.
“Who did you tell?”
“About Becci? My boss. Mr. Gehman. He’s useless.”
