A sneak peek from Trapped to Death
In Jamie Brodie-land, Trapped to Death begins today. (The book is still on track for publication in late November.) To mark the occasion, here’s an unedited segment from Chapter 4.
What was that? By derivative work: Djmirko (talk) YellowLabradorLooking.jpg: User:Habj (YellowLabradorLooking.jpg) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons
Sunday, September 25I was dreaming that Pete and I had returned to Jennifer’s former apartment. We knocked, but it wasn’t Jennifer that answered the door – it was Barb Simmons. Behind her, the apartment was stacked to the ceiling with thousands and thousands of books. She scowled at us. “What are you doing here?”
I said, “We came for your books.”
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Barb tried to slam the door shut. Pete stuck his foot out to block her, and Ammo began to bark…
I woke up. Ammo was on his feet, ears perked, growling. I raised my head to look at him, and he woofed. Not a full-throated bark, but enough to make his point. Something was going on.
I glanced at the clock – 3:30 am. Ammo woofed again and went to the door. Pete made a “mmph” sound and rolled over. I slipped as quietly as possible out of bed and pulled on a pair of briefs. The windows of our bedroom were above head height, so I couldn’t see out of them. I parted the blinds in the door leading to the deck and peered out, but I couldn’t see much.
When I opened the bedroom door, Ammo shot downstairs to the back door. I tiptoed after him and went to the peephole. There was nothing on the first-floor deck or the steps leading to the pavement. Everything else was in darkness. I went to the living room; there was nothing outside the front door peephole. I cracked the blinds on our large front windows and saw nothing out of place.
Ammo stood at the back door, growling. He barked twice, sharply. I went back to the kitchen and peeked out the back door. Our back porch light revealed nothing. The rest of the alley was in shadow. I listened for a moment and heard nothing.
Ammo had his nose pressed to the screened door, sniffing and whining.
Hm.
Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be a threat to us. I said, “I don’t know, big guy. Wish you could tell me what you heard.”
Ammo looked up at me and whined again.
I closed and locked the back door. “Back to bed?”
He knew the word bed. He turned reluctantly and trotted back up the steps.
When I slid back into bed Pete grunted softly. “What?”
“Ammo heard something, but everything seems quiet.”
“Mmph.”
“Sorry I woke you.”
“Was Ammo’s toenails.”
“Ah. Go back to sleep.”
He followed orders as well as Ammo did and was out again in seconds. Before I went back to sleep myself, I made a mental note to clip Ammo’s nails.
