Featured Creature: The Rathbone Assignment: Part III, Derrick Comes Home

The Rathbone Assignment: 

Part III, Derrick Comes Home

~ Continued from Part II, 
Instructions in the Dark ~

Erica closed her eyes against the sorrow that gripped her.  She felt as if the ground beneath her had suddenly opened up and that instead of being buried, she had fallen into empty space.  There was no land to break her fall, no release, just an endless descent.  She pushed her hand against the back of the recliner to feel something solid.  She ran her fingers across it but it was only a thick cloth wrapped tightly over the frame of the chair and gave unpleasantly under her touch.  She retracted her hand and scooted herself closer against the wall.

Erica reached out instead with her mind for something solid to latch onto.  She thought of the locked doors and windows and the remains of the duct tape on the kitchen counter.  These held no comfort, no safety.  She thought of the trees on her drive home and the air as she drove.  This offered her a moments refuge but then she remembered the steaks and asparagus growing warm on the kitchen counter, the soda bottles in the driveway, and the bag with the test in it still sitting in the passenger seat of the minivan.  She clenched her teeth to try and contain the sob that threatened to erupt from her throat.  She held her legs against herself in the darkness and rocked herself gently until her tears subsided.