Furious

5

“You afraid of the dark, claustrophobic, or would you mind suffocating to death?” Abby asked as she woke Kris up in the dark of the night.

The clock on Kris’s night table said it was 2:00 A.M.

“I was kind of hoping not to die for a long, long time,” Kris muttered.

“Right, I’ve heard the joke. In some other woman’s bed with some other woman’s husband. Quick. We don’t have much time. Get in this.”

This was one of Abby’s steamer trunks. Kris had always suspected she could fit her slim, six-foot frame into one of them. Now was her chance to find out.

Only she found herself sharing it with several canisters, cans, boxes and other stuff she couldn’t identify in the dark.

As Kris started wedging herself in she asked, “Where are you shipping me?”

“Out of system. You may be in a shipping container open to space for a while. Maybe a long while. Here are some pills. They’ll help you sleep. Try not to turn on any lights for the first twenty-four hours.”

“How will I know that?” Kris asked. It really was tight in there.

“I’ll tell you,” Nelly said. “Now hurry up. We can’t keep hiding this, and we’ve got a whole lot more invisibility spells to cast.”

Abby closed the trunk and latched down the lid.

Now Kris did discover the meaning of claustrophobia. She felt her panic rising, her pulse quickening. A need for light, space, freedom welled within her.

FOR CHRIST’S SAKE, KRIS, TAKE THE DAMN PILL! Nelly growled in Kris’s skull.

Kris took one of the pills, even as she wondered where Nelly was getting these latest additions to her vocabulary.

In a couple of heartbeats, she felt calmer.

Then sleepy.

The thought crossed her mind that she might never wake up. That she might find out real soon what awaited people after life . . . if anything. She wondered if Tommy would be there, his wide, lopsided grin welcoming her as he said, “I told you so.”

Even as the steamer trunk began to bump along on its way to who-knew-where, Kris was nodding off to sleep.