She felt all the eyes in the room turning on her. The others had never liked Rob all that well, had only put up with him for her sake. While all of them dabbled in the occult, Rob was the only who had ever taken it seriously, and on more than occasion he'd had shouted arguments with some of them on the subject.
"I, uh, can't really tell," Walter said. "There was a nite inside, but it didn't say much. Just said that he'd written a story for us and that he wanted somebody to read it at tonight's, uh, gathering. It's not very long, I took a quick glance at it, so if nobody minds I'll just draw a card for Rob and one of us can read it when that turn comes around."
Behind Lesley, Brian muttered, "I hope it's not some more of that occult shit of his," but there was no formal objection.
Walter took te ace through eight from a deck of cards and shuffled them, then let each of the others draw for a turn. Brian had the ace and read "Heavy Set" by Bradbury. Walter followed with a new story that he'd just sold, another Halloween story, and the chill seemed to creep in through the windows. Lesley read a piece from Beaumont and even gave herself shudders. Than Susan took a turn, her straight blonde hair and pale skin looking cold and waxen in the candles'flicker. Everyone shifted nervously as she finished, and Lesley thought happily that it was really happening again. We've done it, she thought. We've gotten ourselves so worked up that we're ready to believe anything.
"It's Rob turn," Walter said quietly. "Anyone want to do the honors?"
When no one else spoke up, Lesley said, "I will."
YOU ARE READING
The Circle
Short StoryLesley parked her car at the edge of the gravel path. He shoes crunch on the pine needles as she dodge the droplets. She hopped on the veranda, and it was colder than he das expect. All members of the group wrote, and some had written a story for...
