Christmas Trees & Monkeys by Dan Keohane, Kellianne Jones Read Free Book Online Page A

weight, plus what looked like the sudden, tight squeezing of the fingers, liquefied her body. It was the only word Sullivan could think of, either at that moment or later in his report. From every crack and orifice in the tight ball of the ape’s hand came red and cream-colored bile. The lower portion of her legs dragged across the ground in motion with the animal’s swing. One thin slipper broke free and tumbled away. As if merely squishing a bug, the ape casually wiped its now-open palm against the grass. The circular trail, wiped carefully and methodically around the tower, resembled nothing of the woman aside from the disembodied calves.
    Sullivan’s finger pulled the trigger. After the second shot, others joined in. Angry and desperate from their impotence to stop the madman sooner they sent round after round into the ape. Those bullets missing the mark landed in explosions of dust in the hillside beyond. Just as quickly, the shooting stopped. The monkey had raised itself higher on its steel-girded tree.
    Black hair glistening with what might have been rivulets of blood, it moved slowly, deliberately to the top of one tower. The narrow peak screamed from the sudden weight, then started to bend. Toes gripping the crisscrossed supports, the ape extended its arms in a crucifixion parody. It stood for a moment above the faces of those screaming, dying, or nervously silent. Black eyes blinked once. The ape fell forward like the Hollywood icon it would forever be associated with.
    Sounds of a hundred sudden gasps. Perceived weight falling into the throes of tripping, squirming bodies. Then nothing. No nightmare monkey. One moment it existed in their world, the next it did not. It simply disappeared. The only impact was the silent acknowledgment that nothing more would happen that night.
     
    * * *
     
    Tom stared at the bed. The light from the living room fell across rumpled, vacant sheets. Behind him, the news anchor repeated his report of the mysterious woman, her death, and the sudden disappearance of the monkey on the towers.
    Tom turned, walked past the computer, and sat slowly on the couch. A discarded candy wrapper crinkled beneath him. He felt the wrapper through his pants, saw with slowly emerging clarity the disarray of his house. Alone. The reality, the inevitable truth of his wife’s death sank into him, like a lost treasure over the side of the boat.
     
     
    — — — — —
     
     
    About “Feed The Birds”
    We come now to the first original story in this collection. Original meaning it was newly written and previously unpublished when this collection originally was published in print. I had to save it from a year-long wait in the slush pile of an anthology so I could include it here.
    I can’t say a lot about this story without giving too much away, except that I came up with it while standing in the kitchen looking across the house to the bird feeders we’d established outside the windows. Seeing the happy birdies flutter about, I wondered... well, when you read the story you’ll know what I wondered.
    No, I don’t know why I think these things sometimes. I really don’t.
    But, between you and me, I’m really glad I do.
     
    Feed the Birds
     
    As usual for a Friday, Doctor John and Doctor Regina arrive home within minutes of each other.
    Regina waits beside the garage, tries to concentrate. John ducks below the lowering door and embraces his wife. Regina pulls away, pecks her husband’s cheek. The weight of the past five days wears her down. He knows it, feels it himself. Both see in the other’s eyes their lassitude reflected. They turn, hands loosely clasped, and walk into the Tudor’s side entrance.
    Regina whispers, "We have to feed the birds."
    Empty plastic bird feeders swing in the breeze beside the row of hemlock lining the driveway. The feeders knock lightly against the house front, calling those inside, wanting to be filled. In the green of the trees beyond, one or two birds have