Bad Radio by Michael Langlois Read Free Book Online Page A

supplied with bottles of water and instructions not to go anywhere.
    After sixty years of silence, things were once again in motion. Everything in my sight was transformed. Flames from the inferno reflected off of the black glass surface of the lake behind the house, making it look like a hole full of fire.
    The trees and grass had a macabre aspect in the blood red light. Even the hazy night sky bled and pulsed. Who could have guessed that the end of the world would start with a nursing home murder and a house fire?
    I pulled myself to my feet and picked up the box. “Come on, I want to get this into your trunk before we become the center of attention.”
    She wrinkled her nose. “Why are we keeping that? It smells awful, and they already got the thing out of it.”
    “I guess because as of now this box is everything I own in the world, so I’m keeping it.”
    “I’m sorry, Abe. Of course.”
    The box went into the trunk. By dawn the fire was out, leaving the house a soggy, charred skeleton. Statements had been given, and paperwork had been filled out. Anne was sitting on the ground, leaning against her car and dozing while the swarm of vehicles drifted away in the pale morning light like bees returning to the hive. The dew in the grass shone like tiny diamonds, uncaring. I shook Anne gently and her eyes blinked open.
    “Hey, we can go now.”
    She yawned and stretched. “‘kay.”
    “I’m pretty beat. Would you mind driving me up to the motel in town? I might be homeless, but I still have my wallet.”
    “Sure, Abe. Not a problem.” She took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes. There were circles under them, and it wasn’t all because of a sleepless night. Neither one of us had been granted the time to feel the full weight of Patrick’s death, but it bore down on us nonetheless.
    She followed my directions in a tired but companionable silence all the way to the shabby splendor of the Sweet Pastures Inn. Built in the fifties, it had served America’s glory days of highway travel, when the summer months were filled with family sedans packed with kids and luggage on their way to see the Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls and stopping at motels and roadside attractions along the way. It was far past its prime, but still managed to be clean and to mostly avoid the “hourly rental” crowd that seemed to claim so many older motels.
    We pulled up into one of the many vacant spaces in front of the lobby. White painted wooden railings ran along the front of the single-story building in an attempt to give the narrow walkway in front of the battered doors a homey, porch-like feel. It might have worked if not for the crude epithets scratched into the dingy white paint along the rough-cut two-by-fours.
    “Thanks for the ride,” I said, as we rolled to a stop. She didn’t reply. “Listen, I want to come to Patrick’s funeral. I don’t have a phone number or even an address now. But there’s a number I can give you for a friend of mine. Will you call me and let me know when to come?”
    “Is this friend another one of your war buddies?” She was looking straight ahead out of the windshield as she spoke.
    “Yes. I’m going to visit Henry Monroe, maybe stay with him for a while until I figure out what to do about my farm.” There was no sense in rebuilding as far as I could see, but it also didn’t feel right to leave it the way it was. I needed to think about it. Afterwards.
    “Henry. That’s the Professor, right?” I nodded. “My grandfather kept a picture of you guys in the living room, and he used to tell me stories the whole time I was growing up. I must have heard about that time he ran you over with a jeep to keep you from getting shot by a sniper a hundred times.”
    “We never did find his mystery sniper, if there was one.” I had to smile. Everybody had heard the crack of the rifle, but that didn’t stop us from riding Patty about it anyway. Shad spent an entire week diving out of the way every time