The Painted Room Page 3

May was about to read further when a noise stopped her. The noise wasn't particularly loud, but it was a sound that didn't belong in Sheila's living room: the grate of metal on metal, a high pitched screech. She glanced around the room, trying to find the source.

  She could have sworn she'd heard a rusty swing set or a metal box creaking open but there weren't any metal boxes in the room, and there certainly weren't any swing sets. It was early September and the first real cold snap of the season. The heat was on and the windows were shut, so the sound hadn't come from outside. She looked for any doors that had opened or closed; none had. Unable to make any sense of it, she went back to reading the article: