Breathers by S. G. Browne Read Free Book Online Page A

cheese.”
    She turns to look at me and I'm transfixed. Her dark eyes pierce me as the rain drips down her pale face. In the diffused glow from a street lamp half a block away, she looks almost ethereal. Like a zombie Playboy angel.
    “Or do you think I'm just full of shit?” she says.
    I shake my head, a little too eagerly, and Rita laughs, her eyes holding mine, the rain a distant nuisance. When she smiles at me, for the first time in months, it feels like my heart is glowing.
    Up ahead, Jerry dives headlong over a bush and slams into a telephone pole.
    Rita hooks her left arm through my right. “Come on,” she says. “Let's catch up with the secret agent.”
    Jerry is on his back next to the telephone pole, his mouth open to catch the rain. His red beanie and devil horns are on the ground next to him and his brain is getting wet. Just past him is a yellow traffic warning sign with a black arrow indicating a reverse curve.
    “It's a good thing I'm already dead,” says Jerry, smiling. “Otherwise, that would have hurt like a bitch.”
    “You're not dead,” says Rita, reaching down with her right hand to help Jerry to his feet. “You're undead.”
    “Whatever,” says Jerry. “You live in your world, I'll live in mine.”
    I watch the two of them converse with envy. I want to say something clever. Or witty. Or profound. I want to say anything at all just to be a part of the conversation instead of a silent bystander. I can't even pull out my dry erase board because I left it at home. So all I can do is stand and watch and smile until I want to scream.
    So I scream.
    Jerry and Rita look at me, startled into silence. For a few beats we all stare at each other and I feel like an unruly child waiting to be rebuked by my parents. Then Jerry starts to laugh, which gets Rita going. Before I realize what's happening, I'm laughing, too. I sound kind of like a sick sea lion, but it's the first time I've laughed in over three months and it dawns on me that I'm having a good time.
    “Hey!” a voice shouts.
    The three of us turn and see a figure coming toward us across the field on the other side of the street. In the darkness behind him, two other human forms follow his lead.
    Thunder booms above us like special effects in a B-horror film.
    “Let's get out of here,” says Jerry.
    “Good idea,” says Rita, taking my arm and pulling me back toward town.
    “Hold on there!” the man shouts.
    There are no houses nearby. No bars or restaurants or businesses of any kind. But then, they wouldn't exactly be places where we could seek refuge.
    We're halfway to the cemetery and, other than the field, a vineyard, and an abandoned stone granary, there's nothing out here. Just a single streetlight, darkness, and rain.
    The man's running now, almost to the road, and his friends aren't far behind. He shouts out something else but it gets lost in another round of thunder.
    Jerry is running ahead of us, saying “come on, come on, come on,” as if we're not aware of the urgency. Rita is holding on to me, looking back over her shoulder, trying to get me to move just a little bit faster, but I'm going as fast as I can.
    I glance back and see the man crossing the road, not fifty feet behind us. He's dressed in cowboy boots and jeans and a brown leather jacket. Just past the field, headlights flash around the reverse curve and a car appears, fishtailing as it accelerates out of the turn.
    At the sound of the approaching car, the man turns and slips on the wet asphalt and falls to the ground. Before he can scramble to his feet and get out of the way, the car slams into him, sending him through the air, limbs flailing, until he hits the shoulder of the road and tumbles head-over-heels three times, finally coming to a stop on his back less than ten feet from us.
    The car, a beat-up Chevy Nova filled with drunk high school kids, flies past without stopping. Seconds later the car is gone, its one working red taillight disappearing around