Calamity by J.T. Warren Read Free Book Online Page A

while ago.
    He closed the composition book and went into the kitchen. On the front porch, Dad was talking to people he didn’t know, probably salesmen. Depending on Dad’s mood, the conversation could last a few minutes. Waves of heat bloomed from the pile of scrambled eggs, which were spotted brown from the bacon fat, just the way Brendan liked them. His stomach grumbled. His little white pill, what he called, “Pillie Billy,” waited for him on top of an upside down paper cup. That was Dad’s way to remind Brendan to not only take Pillie Billy but to take it with several large gulps of orange juice. Brendan grabbed the pill and swallowed it with only his saliva. He’d drink the orange juice later, in front of Dad.
    The Romans would have called Pillie Billy “a talisman.”
    He slowly removed a large carving knife from the block holding several of them. He held it up before his face and smiled at his distorted reflection in the blade. Mom and Dad had used this same blade hundreds, maybe thousands, of times to cut up vegetables or slice meat, especially on Thanksgiving, but it had never seemed so large before. The blade could stab right through someone’s face from under the jaw all the way through the top of the head. This image bothered him but he couldn’t shake it. A stab like that would be fatal, no doubt, but would someone die instantly from such an injury or would they bleed for a while? Blood was messy and could be used to catch him, at least according to CSI .
    Brendan touched the point of the blade with his thumb. The dimple of his thumb print indented with the fine point of the knife but the blade did not break skin. Even so, the tip was very, very sharp. It would only take a bit more pressure for the skin to break and the blood to flow. Just a bit more pressure . . .
    “ Ow .” His thumb added the extra ounce of pressure and the tip of the blade pierced flesh. He hadn’t realized what his thumb was up to; he had been drifting with his thoughts. Pillie Billy hadn’t started working yet.
    Delaney was laughing at the front door. He hadn’t heard her get up. Had she walked past him? Had she seen him with the knife? She might tell Dad and he’d be concerned and Brendan would have to concoct some lie (maybe one of his short stories) because Dad wouldn’t understand the pact Brendan had made with the gods or why it was so important to make The Saturday Sacrifice. Maybe one day he could know but not yet. As long as Dad kept making breakfast, he was doing his part to honor the day. The really horrible stuff was left for Brendan to do.
    He returned the knife to its slot among the other knives. He wrapped a napkin around his thumb and tucked it beneath his other fingers. When Dad and Delaney came in, Brendan was sitting at the table with a cup full of orange juice, eating his breakfast. They smiled at him and he smiled back—a perfect Saturday ritual.
     
    4
    He had not slept well. Sasha had wanted it. She hadn’t fought him. She could have stopped him, if she had really tried. He told that to Paul lwanat to Past night after he got home, hiding inside his closet and talking soft so his folks or his sister wouldn’t overhear him. Brendan was twelve, so even if he did hear he wouldn’t have the faintest idea what was going on. Tyler had almost driven over to Paul’s house but such a late visit would set off alarms ( FIRE! FIRE! ) to the parents and things would topple from there. Dad had been asleep on the couch while some infomercial blabbered on about the latest gadget designed to make life easier. Eventually, Dad would wake, see that Tyler’s car was in the driveway, and then make his way to the bedroom. Not that Mom cared; she had probably been well in the tank before nightfall. She took several pills a day and those pills were no joke. He had stolen two a while back and he and Paul had watched a Jersey Shore marathon for eight hours in a dreamy daze and then fallen into a fourteen hour stretch of