Into the Dread Void (The Dread Void Book 1) Read online

  At the very end of the hall was the master bedroom. They brought Nell to the room beside it.

  “This is yours!” Kacy exclaimed excitedly.

  Nell stepped into the room, her arms beginning to tingle with the weight of her bags, and felt the most unexpected wave of joy come over her. The room itself was largely plain. A bed, a dresser, a desk under the window. That was pretty much it. The walls were bare. Ordinary and… well, plain.

  “I know it looks empty,” Kacy said. “But I thought you’d like it that way, at least at first. A blank canvas, so to speak…”

  “We’ll give you some alone time to unpack your things,” Casey said. “In the meantime, we’re going to get started on dinner.”

  “We don’t normally eat this late,” Kacy assured her. “But I wanted the four of us to have a meal together on your first night.”

  Nell didn’t know what to say. She set her bags on the bed. Turning around, she had to pry her eyes from the blank canvas that was her new room in order to meet the hopeful gazes of her foster parents standing in the bedroom doorway. The dog, Howard, peered from between their legs in the hallway, innocent and endlessly inquisitive.

  “Thank you,” Nell said.

  Kacy did her the favor of pulling the door shut as they left, allowing Nell to enjoy the first real moment of privacy she’d had in a very long time. She sat on the bed and took it in for a while. The feeling. Her own space. A place she could truly have a moment to herself. Alone.

  She couldn’t help but grin.

  Dinner went over smoothly enough, though it was clearly a ‘first hurdle’ in everyone’s minds. Nell was nervous as hell, while Casey and Kacy bombarded her with friendly conversation and general questions about herself, which she tried to answer satisfactorily while also maintaining some semblance of distance.

  It was important, she thought, to not get familiar too quickly. Too attached. Any number of things might happen, regardless of any actions she might take, that could result in a foster family changing their minds. That was the thing about fostering, Nell quickly learned. Too many people who signed up for it soon realized it all sounded much better to them on paper. Better as an idea. The mere intention made them feel gallant and generous, which was all they were really after. A boost to their egos. Confirmation of their virtue. The actual job, however—a strange child in your home—could abruptly prove disillusioning.

  Naturally, she was reluctant to spill her guts to anyone who might only be a footnote in the pages of her life.

  4

  NELL

  Casey was already out of the house by the time Nell rolled out of bed the next morning, working his nine-to-five. Julie was gone, apparently attending some morning volleyball team practice thing—something that would never appeal to Nell in a million years, as competitive sports weren’t her forte.

  That left Nell and Kacy with the house to themselves.

  Upon stepping out of her bedroom, Nell was surprised to find Howard lying just outside her door. At the same moment that he looked up at her, Kacy leaned into view at the hallway’s end, having been waiting for her to emerge likewise. Nell appreciated being allowed to sleep in, at least.

  “How did you sleep?”

  Nell stopped just outside the bathroom. “Really well. Thanks.”

  “Oh, good,” Kacy said. “Your bed was comfortable enough?”

  Nell laughed. Shrugged.

  “You should have seen the one I slept in at the group home.”

  Kacy smiled uncomfortably, unsure what to think of that. She moved onto something else instead.

  “I was thinking about pancakes. Does that sound all right?”

  “Sure,” Nell said. “I’ll eat whatever. You don’t have to make anything special.”

  “Oh, pancakes aren’t special,” Kacy said. She pointed to the bathroom where Nell was obviously waiting to disappear. “You do what you need to, then meet me in the kitchen.”

  Kacy stepped out of view then, leaving Nell alone in the hall.

  Once more, inflated with a strange, giddy joy, Nell couldn’t help but grin.

  Kacy leaned on the kitchen counter with a mug of coffee in hand as Nell ate breakfast, making idle chit-chat. She asked Nell another series of general questions—how she liked school, her favorite subjects, her hobbies—and Nell felt much more at ease this time around than she had during dinner the previous night. That was, until one question in particular.

  “Do you have many friends?”

  Nell paused with a mouthful of pancake. She stared momentarily, caught off guard by the question for some reason. She nodded. Slowly.

  “I have a few, I guess. Just… you know, people I hung around with at the group home.”

  “You don’t have a bestie?” Kacy asked, watching Nell over the lip of her mug as she took another sip of her coffee.

  Nell pretended to think about it. It was more confusing than she expected it to be, answering such a simple question. Lisa was undoubtedly her best friend, but there were so many other things to consider…

  “I only ask,” Kacy said, breaking the dreadful silence, “because if you ever want to have friends over, or if you want to visit them, it’s not a problem at all. Just let me know. I can give you a ride or we can pick them up and bring them here, whatever you want. Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

  Nell nodded, listening, but her thoughts were still chasing their own tails. She chewed and swallowed her mouthful of pancake. She washed it down with orange juice, Kacy smiling and awaiting her response all the while.

  “Thanks,” Nell said. “I’ll let you know.”

  After breakfast, Nell showered, which was always a strange experience in a new home, getting used to the new bathroom. The faucets were always different, the sensitivity of the water’s temperature always fidgety in its own unique way.

  When she dressed and stepped out, Kacy called to her from down the hall.

  “Nell?”

  Nell paused, hair still damp. She moved toward the master bedroom and stopped just outside the door.

  “Huh?”

  “Come in here,” Kacy said. “It’s fine.”

  Nell stepped in tentatively. She stopped just inside the doorway, and spotted Kacy kneeling on the floor beside a small, squat shelf under the bedroom window. Kacy looked over her shoulder.

  “Come over here. I want to show you something…”

  Nell joined Kacy by the small shelf but remained standing, and Kacy gave her a funny look.

  “You okay?”

  “Sorry, it’s just… there’s usually a strict rule about never going in the parents’ bedroom. No matter what.”

  “Oh.” Kacy’s eyes narrowed for a moment, thinking on that, but only for an instant before her attention returned to the many things neatly organized and packed into the little shelf in front of her. “I just thought you’d get a kick out of these.”

  Nell got down on her knees beside Kacy to get a closer look.

  “They’re cassettes,” Kacy said. “Music cassettes. You know, before there were streaming apps, or mp3 players, or CD players…”

  “I know what cassettes are,” Nell said, and laughed. “I didn’t know people still used them…”

  “Oh, there are dozens of us,” Kacy said, smiling. She swiveled on the carpet and, on her hands and knees, crawled toward hers and Casey’s bed, where she lifted the bedskirt and unveiled what appeared to be several large, clear-plastic, zippered storage containers. She dragged one out, stretched to capacity with cassette cases inside. Some of the cases were generic, some looked like the originals. “It’s harder and harder these days to find tapes with original cases—usually just the tapes—but I’ve got tons of extra cases for when I need them…”

  “Do you listen to all of these?” Nell asked, bewildered.

  Kacy pointed across the room to a table against the wall, just outside the master bathroom. On the table, Nell saw, was a two-speaker cassette player with yet even more cassette cases sitting beside i
t—the ones most recently played, she presumed.

  “That’s my boombox there.”

  Nell simply nodded, impressed in a weird sort of way.

  “Huh…”

  “I wanted to show you these,” Kacy continued, “because I wondered if you’d be interested in helping me cassette hunt sometime. Maybe this weekend?”

  “Cassette hunt?”

  “Yeah. Once a month or so I like to make the rounds. Thrift stores, pawn shops. I usually find a couple I don’t already have. Would that interest you at all?”

  Kacy let out a self-deprecating laugh, likely knowing the truthful answer, but asking all the same.

  “Sure,” Nell said. She shrugged. “Sounds fun.”

  She glanced at the zippered container, moved her eyes along the cases stuffed inside, until she happened upon one she thought she recognized.

  “Is that Tracy Chapman?” Nell said.

  Kacy beamed.

  “I knew we’d get along,” she said, and playfully jabbed Nell with her elbow.

  Nell didn’t undress for bed that night. She lay fully clothed on top of the covers and waited for the others to retire to their rooms, for the house to grow silent, for the silence to persist steadily into an unquestionable sign of slumber. Then she crept out of her room, closing her bedroom door noiselessly behind her, and down the hall to the front door. Howard climbed to his feet from where he lay in the living room’s corner, startling her for a moment. He walked calmly toward her, and she let him sniff her hands for just a moment in the dark. He licked her.

  “I’ll be back,” she whispered to him.

  She slipped out of the house like an empty-handed burglar.

  It was late and a weeknight, so the roads were quiet, the traffic sparse, and Nell moved through the suburbs with hardly any chance at being seen by a single entity. Windows were dark, the homes asleep. She had a fairly long walk ahead of her. From one neighborhood into another, crossing Main Street, she cut through a warehouse district where there were souls up and running during their late-night shifts. She remained out of sight, out of mind to them. She climbed a pedestrian overpass, crossing the highway, and arrived in the next suburb on the other side. Getting close.

  She’d better appreciate this, Nell thought.

  It was a forty-five-minute walk all said and done.

  In the heart of that suburb, walking the familiar streets—there were less streetlights here than in the Palmers’ neighborhood, Nell noticed—the group home revealed itself among the shadows of the other homes like a dark relic in Nell’s mind. It had only been one day and already it seemed old somehow, like something left behind and abandoned, and she felt a pang of guilt at the sight of it.

  It was the first moment she realized how much she truly hoped her new family would last.

  “I wasn’t sure you were coming.”

  They leaned against the side of the house in their usual spot. Lisa pulled a cigarette out of its carton, pinched it with her lips while she lit it. Nell watched her with a distracted, faraway focus.

  It’s only been a day, she thought.

  Yet somehow things felt different already.

  “So?” Lisa said, blowing a cloud through her pursed lips. “How’s the fam?”

  Nell smirked and took the cigarette from her.

  “They’re okay,” she said. “It’s only been a day.”

  She inhaled the smoke, held it. She coughed just slightly, then blew it out. Lisa took it back from her. They were each silent for a time, thinking their private thoughts and wondering what the other’s were, exactly. One in particular lingered in Nell’s mind, and her heart began to pound the longer she waited to share it. She decided just to spit it out.

  “Kacy told me it’d be cool for us to see each other. She said she’d drive me here, or pick you up and bring you to their place.”

  Lisa said nothing for a moment.

  “Kacy the mom or Casey the dad?”

  “The mom.”

  Lisa took a second drag on the cigarette, prolonging her consideration.

  “She’d want to meet me,” she said matter-of-factly.

  “Well, yeah. She’d meet you eventually, anyway. When you come over.”

  “If I come over,” Lisa corrected.

  It was Nell’s turn to take the cigarette back, but it couldn’t have been further from her thoughts then. She scrutinized Lisa like a creature she’d never seen before.

  “Why wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s only been a day, like you said.”

  “And?”

  Lisa shrugged. “I don’t know…”

  “Why wouldn’t you come over?”

  “Well…” Lisa took a deep breath. “I just don’t wanna ruin your chances, I guess.”

  Nell wanted to laugh, but it would have been a cold sound if she had.

  “How would you ruin my chances?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe they’ll see me and get ideas about you. They’ll look at me and wonder about the friends you keep…”

  “Look at you? What do you think they’ll see? It’s not like—”

  “I’m just saying,” Lisa interrupted. “Whether you like it or not, you and I are just… super different…”

  “What?” Nell was rather shocked to hear this, as she’d spent their two years together believing they couldn’t have possibly been more alike. “Different how?”

  “Well…” Lisa hesitated, giving Nell a chance to brace herself for something sure to make her eyes roll. “We’re just different, is all…”

  “Right, you said that already. I’m asking how?”

  Lisa sighed. “We’re in the same place but for completely different reasons, Nell. You should know that by now…”

  “Different reasons?”

  “Right. You’ve had multiple families over the years because the homes were bad. Okay? Whereas I’ve had multiple families because I’m—”

  Nell snatched the cigarette out of Lisa’s hand finally, and watched as Lisa’s narrowed eyes tracked its glowing butt with an accusing glare.

  “Don’t say it,” Nell said. Her heart was really pounding now, like an earthquake between her ribs. Her breath left her nostrils like a dragon’s. “I’ll slap the words out of your idiot mouth if you do.”

  She gazed unflinchingly into Lisa’s eyes, which peered back fearfully bright and wet for being in the house’s shadow. They remained that way for a long moment. A painful moment. Nell’s chest ached with adrenaline, so much that she wondered if Lisa could hear its hammering.

  Then, in the stillness of their heated staring, the corner of Lisa’s mouth twitched. Nell couldn’t help noticing it. Her mouth twitched a second time, lips puckering. Now Nell’s did the same. It was a battle not to be the first to smirk.

  “It’s not funny,” Nell said.

  They each gave into a fit of laughter then. Shaking her head, Nell settled back against the side of the house. Lisa tried to reach for the cigarette tucked between her fingers and Nell jerked it away.

  “You’ve already taken two turns…” she said, and sucked long and hard, getting a solid dose of poison in her lungs. She exhaled nice and slow. “And I mean it, you know…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Lisa said, and finally took the cigarette back from her.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I know you are.” Lisa put the cigarette to her lips. “But so am I.”

  “You don’t need to worry about them. They’re nice people…”

  Lisa handed the cigarette back to Nell as she blew a long, wispy trail of smoke into the dark.

  “Well, maybe it’s me, then,” Lisa said. “Maybe I’m just not ready to meet your awesome new family yet.”

  “Why?” Nell asked. “You jealous?”

  It was meant to sound like a joke, but they both knew it wasn’t. Not entirely.

  “Of course I am,” Lisa said.

  Following the long walk back, Nell arrived at the Palmers’ with tired eyes and dragging feet. She
opened the front door only for it to budge against something on the other side. She hesitated. Listened. Whatever it was, it moved, and she let out the breath caught in her throat. It was Howard, obviously. It seemed he liked lying next to doors, awaiting someone’s entrance or exit.

  “Sorry,” Nell whispered as she stepped inside.

  She gently shut the door and locked the bolt.

  “Where’d you go?”

  Nell hunched, shoulders to her ears. Drenched in cold terror, she turned slowly to face the voice at her back. In the dark, she recognized Julie standing at the end of the hall and was only slightly relieved.

  “I went for a walk,” Nell said. “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “Hmm.” Julie stood with her arms folded, her face largely obscured in the gloom. “That was a long walk, then.”

  “Did you stay up waiting for me?” Nell asked, just a tinge of annoyance in her voice.

  “You don’t have to sneak out to see your friends,” Julie said perceptively. “My parents would be more than happy to know you have them in the first place.”

  Nell swallowed, and the wet sound it made in the back of her throat was audible between them. She moved toward the hallway, toward Julie within it. Except Julie didn’t step aside, and Nell came to a stop before her. It was only then Nell realized how much taller Julie was.

  Julie lifted her face slightly, smelling something, and a second surge of cold terror trickled through Nell as she waited for Julie to let her pass.

  “But I guess it depends on the friends…”

  “Can I get by?” Nell asked. “I’m really tired…”

  “Were you smoking?” Julie asked. She didn’t wait for an answer. “Unless it’s your goal to lose my parents’ trust as quickly as possible, I’d do something about that smell—or even better, drop the habit altogether. It’s gross.”