You are being provided with a book chapter by chapter. I will request you to read the book for me after each chapter. After reading the chapter, 1. shorten the chapter to no less than 300 words and no more than 400 words. 2. Do not change the name, address, or any important nouns in the chapter. 3. Do not translate the original language. 4. Keep the same style as the original chapter, keep it consistent throughout the chapter. Your reply must comply with all four requirements, or it’s invalid.
I will provide the chapter now.
CHAPTER 30
Electricity raced down Patricia’s arms and legs, rooting her to the
spot.
“…can wrap up,” she heard James Harris say. “…want to go
upstairs and get some rest.”
A horrible thought gripped Patricia’s brain: any minute Slick was
going to stroll up to the back door and knock. Slick couldn’t lie to
save her life. She’d say she was there to meet Patricia.
A voice she couldn’t hear spoke, and then James Harris said, “Lora
here today?”
Patricia looked down and her heart banged so hard it left a bruise
against her ribs. Lora stood in the door of the guest room, a dust rag
in one hand, looking up at Patricia.
“Lora,” Patricia whispered.
Lora blinked, slowly.
“Close the stairs,” Patricia begged. Lora just stared. “Please. Close
the stairs.”
James Harris was saying something to Mrs. Greene that Patricia
couldn’t hear because everything in her body was directed at Lora,
willing her to understand. Then Lora moved: she held out one yellow
gloved hand, palm up in a universal gesture. Patricia remembered
the other ten-dollar bill. She jammed her hand into her pocket,
bending the nail of her forefinger backward, and pulled it out. She
dropped it and it fluttered down slowly, right into Lora’s hand.
Downstairs, she heard James Harris say, “Has anyone stopped
by?”
Lora leaned down, grabbed the bottom of the stairs, and pushed
them up. The springs didn’t groan this time but they were closing too
fast and she squatted, extending her hands, catching the trapdoor,
bringing it to a gentle close with a quiet bump.
She had to replace the suitcase before he came upstairs. She stood
and wedged her right foot beneath it, feeling its weight crush her
bones, and lifted, stepping her foot forward, using her shoe as a
bumper when she brought the suitcase down, swinging it forward a
step at a time. It was loud, but not as loud as dragging. Limping
wildly, bruising her shin with every step, her pulse snapping in her
wrists, the suitcase scraping the top of her foot raw, she slowly made
it to the end of the attic and slid the Samsonite back into place. Then
she saw that there were mothballs scattered all over the floor,
glowing like pearls in the dim attic light.
She scooped them up and, with nowhere else to put them, dropped
them into her pockets. Her head spun; she thought she might faint.
She had to know where he was. Stepping from joist to joist, she made
her way back to the trapdoor, brushed three dead cockroaches out of
her way and knelt on the floor, bringing her ear close to the gritty
plywood.
She heard the muffled thumps of bedroom doors opening and
closing. She prayed that Lora had closed the one with the attic stairs
in it, and then she heard it open, and footsteps right beneath her, and
her heart clenched. She wondered if the marks from the ladder could
be seen in the carpet’s pile. Then more footsteps and the door closed.
Everything went quiet. She pushed herself up. Every joint in her
body ached. How could she get out of here? And why had he traveled
in daylight? She knew he was capable of doing it but would only take
the risk in desperation. What had happened to make him hurry
home? Did he know she was here? And what was going to happen
when Slick showed up?
She heard faint voices floating up from downstairs:
“…come again next…”
He was sending them home. She heard a distant, final thump and
realized it was the front door closing. She was in the house alone.
With James Harris. Everything was silent for a few minutes and
then, from right beneath the trapdoor, a singsong voice drifted up.
“Patricia,” James Harris sang. “I know you’re in here.”
She froze. He was going to come up. She wanted to scream but
caught it before it could slip out between her lips.
“I’m going to find you, Patricia,” he singsonged.
He would come up the ladder. Any second she would hear the
springs stretch and see the light around the edges get brighter, she’d
hear his heavy steps on the rungs, and she’d see his head and
shoulders emerge into the attic, looking right at her, mouth splitting
wide into a grin, and that thing, that long black thing boiling up out
of his throat. She was trapped.
Below her, a bedroom door opened, then another. She heard closet
doors rattling open and shut, nearer and farther away, and then a
bedroom door slammed with a bang and she jumped a little inside
her skin. Another bedroom door opened.
It was only a matter of time before he remembered the attic. She
had to find a hiding place.
She squeezed the penlight and looked at the floor, trying to see if
she’d given herself away. The white cockroach poison had her tracks
all through it as well as drag marks from the suitcase. Squatting,
forcing herself to move slowly and carefully, she used her palms to
whisk the poison smooth, leaving the gritty white layer thinner, but
undisturbed. She walked backward, hunched over, brushing the floor
lightly, the small of her back on fire until she reached the suitcases
and stood. She used the penlight to check her work and was pleased.
She examined the suitcase and realized the one with Francine’s
body in it was rubbed clean. She scooped up roach powder and
mouse droppings and used them to dirty the suitcase. It would do the
job if he didn’t look closely.
Standing made her feel exposed, so she forced herself to lie down
behind the draped mound of Mrs. Savage’s things. With her ear
pressed to the filthy plywood floor, she heard the house vibrating
beneath her. She heard doors opening and closing. She heard
footsteps. Then she heard nothing. The silence made her nervous.
She checked her wristwatch: 4:56. The silence lulled her into a
trance. She could stay here, he wouldn’t look for her here, she’d wait
as long as she needed, and she’d listen, and when it got dark he’d
leave the house and she could sneak out. She would be strong. She
would be smart. She would be safe.
She heard the springs groan as the trapdoor opened, and light
flooded the far end of the attic.
“Patricia,” James Harris said loudly, coming up the steps, springs
screaming crazily beneath his feet. “I know you’re up here.”
She looked at the filthy blankets draped over the boxes and
realized that even getting under them wouldn’t help. The furniture
was too sparse to hide her. If he walked around to this side of the
stacks he’d see her. There was nowhere to go.
“I’m coming for you, Patricia,” he called, happily, as he got to the
top of the ladder.
Then she saw the pile of clothes on the edge of the attic where the
plywood flooring ended. Several boxes had split open and disgorged
their contents into a huge mound.
If she could burrow into that pile she would be hidden. She
crawled closer, staying low, the reeking stench of rotting fabric
scraping her sinuses raw. Her gorge slapped against the back of her
throat. The footsteps coming up the ladder stopped.
“Patty,” James’s voice said from the middle of the attic. “We need
to talk.”
She heard the plywood creak beneath his weight.
She raised the stiff edge of the pile and began to slither under,
head first. Spiders fled from the disturbance, and roach eggs
loosened from the fabric and rained down on her face. Centipedes
fell out and squirmed against the hollow of her throat. She heard
James Harris coming across the attic floor and she forced herself to
fight down her gorge and slither in, moving carefully so she didn’t
disturb the blankets draped overhead. His feet came closer; they
were at the edge of the boxes now, and she pulled her feet in under
the rotting pile of clothes and lay there, trying not to breathe.
Insects seethed across her body, and she realized she’d disturbed a
mouse nest. Clawed feet squirmed over her stomach, writhed over
her hip. She wanted to scream. She kept her mouth clamped shut,
taking small shallow breaths through her nose, feeling the stinking
fabric around her crawling with mites, roaches, and mice.
Desiccated insect husks lay on her face, but she didn’t dare brush
them away. Spiders crept across her knuckles. She made herself hold
very still. She heard another step and she could tell he was lifting the
blankets draped over Ann Savage’s boxes, looking underneath, and
she pretended she was invisible.
“Patricia,” James Harris said, conversationally. “Why are you
hiding in my attic? What are you looking for up here?”
She thought about how he’d gotten Francine’s body into the
suitcase, how he’d probably had to take his big hands and break her
arms, shatter her shoulders, crush her elbows, pull her legs out of
their sockets and twist them into splinters to make them fit. He was
so strong. And he was standing directly over her.
The pile of rotten fabric shifted and moved, and she willed herself
to become smaller and smaller until there was nothing left.
Something extended a delicate, gentle leg onto her chin, then moved
over her lips, delicately scraping them with its hairy legs, and she felt
the roach’s antenna brush the rim of her nostrils like long, waving
hairs. She wanted to scream but she pretended she was made of
stone.
“Patricia,” James Harris said. “I can see you.”
Please, please, please don’t go up my nose, she silently begged the
cockroach.
“Patricia,” James Harris said from right beside her. What if her
feet were sticking out? What if he could see them? “It’s time to stop
playing. You know how much it hurts me to go outside during the
day. I don’t feel very good right now, and I’m not in the mood for
games.”
The roach stepped past her nose, brushed over her cheekbone, and
she squeezed her eyes shut, gritty in their sockets with all the rotting
fabric flaking into them, and the roach’s progress across her face
tickled so badly she had to brush her cheek or she would go insane.
The roach crawled down the side of her face, over her ear, probing
inside her ear canal with its antenna, then, drawn by the warmth, its
legs began to scrabble into her ear.
Oh, God, she wanted to moan.
Please, please, please, please…
She felt the antenna waving, exploring deep inside her ear, and it
sent cold shivers down her spine, and bile boiled up her throat, and
she pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, and felt the
bile fill her sinuses, and the legs were inside her ear now, and its
wings were fluttering delicately against the top of her ear canal, and
she felt it crush its body into her ear.
“Patricia!” James Harris shouted, and something moved violently,
and crashed over, and she almost screamed but she held on, and the
roach forced its way deeper into her ear, three quarters in, its legs
scrabbling deeper, and soon she wouldn’t be able to get it out, and
James Harris kicked over furniture, and she felt the blankets move.
Then loud stomps moved away from her, and she heard the
springs moan, and the roach fluttered its wings, trying to force itself
deeper, but it was jammed, and she felt like it was fluttering its front
legs against the side of her brain, and she knew James Harris was
only pretending to go down, and then there was a bang and the floor
jumped, and silence, and she knew he was waiting for her.
She got her left hand ready to catch the back legs of the roach
before it disappeared into her ear, and she listened, waiting to hear
James Harris give himself away, but then, far away, deep down
inside the house she heard a door slam.
Patricia scrambled out from under the pile of clothes, feeling
mouse droppings shower from her body, tearing at her ear, and she
couldn’t catch the roach, and it panicked and squirmed, pushing its
way into her ear, and she grabbed her soft tissue all around it, and
crumpled her ear closed. Something crunched and popped and warm
fluid oozed deep inside her ear canal, and she pulled out the mangled
corpse of the roach, and scraped the hot gunk out with her little
finger.
Spiders crawled from her hair onto her neck. She slapped at them,
praying they weren’t black widows.
Finally, she stopped. She looked at the pile of old clothes and knew
that even if he came back, there was no way she could make herself
go under them again.
She watched the louvers get dimmer on the side of the attic facing
the back of the house, and get brighter behind the louvers facing the
harbor, and then the light turned rose, then red, then orange, and
then it was gone. She began to shiver. How was she going to get out?
What if he stayed in the house all night? What if he came back up
after she’d fallen asleep? What if Carter called home? Did Blue and
Korey know where she was?
She checked her watch. 6:11. Her thoughts chased themselves
around and around inside her head as the sun went down and the
heat leached out of the attic. She felt thirsty, hungry, scared, and
filthy. Eventually she put her feet back under the moldering pile of
clothes to keep them warm.
Occasionally, she dropped off to sleep and would wake up with a
jerk of her head that made her neck snap. She listened for James
Harris, shivered uncontrollably, and stopped looking at her watch
because she’d think an hour had passed and each time discovered it
had only been five minutes.
She wondered what had happened to Slick, and she wondered why
he had come back early, and why he had risked going out in daylight,
and inside her cold, gummy head, these thoughts went slower and
slower and melted together and suddenly she knew it was Slick.
Slick had told him she was here. That was why Slick hadn’t come.
She had called James Harris in Florida because her Christian values
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