Panic in Langley Bottom--exerpt

Panic in Langley Bottom the novel is in the proof edition right now, but it should be available for purchase in less than a week. Here's another bit of the book.

.....

“Ahaaaaaaa!”

Wow, he jumped straight up, just waving his hand like he’d shook hands with the Devil, and then I saw it. A little brown lizard was in the drawer, and it had jumped on his hand when he reached in the drawer. Well, it was a pretty good laugh, but John Clayton didn’t think it was that hilarious.

“I ain’t openin’ no more desk drawers!” he yelled. He shook his hand around just to be sure the lizard had hopped off, and came over to where I was standing.

“Well, the desk and chair are the only things in the room,” I said.  “Let’s go back downstairs and head for the field behind the house. Heck, we came to look for arrowheads not rummage through an old house.”

 I took one last look around the room before we left. There were several windows with shades that were pulled down to where the room was nearly dark, but there was one broken window where the top part of the glass was open, which let a little light into the room. We stood there for a few seconds looking around, to be sure the room was completely empty, except for the desk and chair, like all the other rooms in the house, but then I noticed a closet that had the top of the door busted open. It was kinda funny looking ’cause the busted part of the closet door was the only place in the room where the sun from the broken window pane shinned through.

“Look at the corner behind you, John Clayton; I wonder what’s behind that closet door?”          John Clayton was standing about 10 feet from the closet door, and he turned to look at it.

“Hey, we’ll find out in about two seconds,” he said. And then he walked across the room toward the door, just as we heard this noise again.

“Noooooooooooooo.”

Naw, I didn’t think the wind was blowing, and something deep inside me was causing the hair on the back of my neck to stand straight up. And right then something just shouted inside my head, Don’t open that door!

John Clayton was almost to the door when I yelled, “Don’t open that door!”

“What? Why?”

“Something inside of me just told me to not open that closet door.”

“That sounds so stupid, Richard. Why shouldn’t I open it?”

“I don’t know. I just have this bad feeling.”

“Do you think there’s anything in this closet?” he questioned.

“Nope, I’ll bet it’s just like the rest of the house, but something just tells me not to open it.it.”

“Well, there ain’t nothin’ or nobody tellin’ me not to open it, so I’m gonna check it out.”

That was about a second before he yanked the closet door open.

“Ahasaaaaa! Oh, my God!”

At first I didn’t know what was happening, because everything was just a blur with some things just filling the air, and then John Clayton let out another scream, “Ahhhhhhhh! Something is tangled up in my hair!”

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