Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,29

between a pair of sawhorses. It was true she couldn’t see all that well without her glasses, but the tape was bright yellow. She wasn’t sure how she could possibly not have seen it when she’d hurried forward. She glanced briefly around for a Good Samaritan who would offer her a hand up, but the only people in sight were on the other side of the street, their heads invisible under hoods or umbrellas.

Jill tried to shake the tape off her foot, but it was wrapped all the way around her ankle. With a grunt of frustration, she sat on her butt and reached down with both hands to disentangle herself.

It wasn’t until her hands were inches from the tape that she noticed it wasn’t normal caution tape. She should have been able to pick out the word Caution from the black markings on the tape, but instead she saw what looked more like a pattern of streaks and spots. She pushed rain-soaked bangs out of her eyes and looked again, but the streaks and spots didn’t resolve themselves into letters. Actually, they looked kind of the like the markings you might see on a snake’s skin.

As soon as that thought entered Jill’s head, the band of yellow around her ankle tightened, and the loose end of the tape raised itself up from the sidewalk.

There was no wind. No explanation for the movement. None that made sense, anyway.

Jill wouldn’t quite say she was afraid, not yet, because she was sure there was a logical explanation for what she was seeing. But she would admit to being unnerved, and she gave her foot a hard yank, hoping to break the tape.

It didn’t work, and the metal doors on which she was sitting gave an ominous creak. Whatever she’d gotten tangled up with, she’d be more comfortable extricating herself if she were sitting on the actual sidewalk instead of the doors.

She tried to stand up and work her way over to the sidewalk, but before she’d even reached her feet, more tape wrapped itself around her other ankle, tugging her off balance.

Jill fell once more, her butt hitting the doors with an echoing clang. Now she was scared, because there was no logical explanation in the world for what had just happened.

The caution tape oozed free of the sawhorse, both ends now moving on their own, wrapping themselves around her legs. She’d handled a boa constrictor once, had felt the strange undulations of the muscles in its body as it moved, and the tape felt exactly like that.

Jill tried to scream, but her throat was tight with fear and very little sound came out. Certainly not enough to be heard over the roar of the bus that passed by in the street. She tried to wave to the passengers for help, but they probably couldn’t even see her with the sawhorses and tape and orange cones in the way.

The tape was now twined around both her ankles, and its coils squeezed tighter and tighter until she couldn’t feel her feet.

She tried again to stand, or at least to get to her hands and knees and crawl. She didn’t care about the metal doors anymore, just wanted to get out from behind the construction so somebody could see her and help her.

She made it to her hands and knees as the tape continued to squeeze. She lurched forward, pulling with her hands because her legs didn’t seem to be working at all. She was almost to the edge of the doors, almost onto the sidewalk on the other side of the construction. She was convinced she’d be safe if she could just get to where someone could see her.

The doors groaned again, as if straining under a great weight, and then—impossibly, because the hinges weren’t angled that way—they started to open inward.

Jill screamed again, louder this time. Maybe loud enough for someone to hear, although she couldn’t see anyone running to the rescue. The metal was slick from the rain, and even the slightest incline was enough to send her sliding back into the center, where a gap was forming.

She clawed at the edge of the doors, losing a couple of fingernails in a vain effort to pull herself away from the widening gap.

The doors continued to open, the motion smooth and effortless, as if the doors were designed to open that way. One end of the caution tape unwound itself from her ankle and plunged into the gap between the doors.

She tried