Creature by John Saul Read Free Book Online Page B

terribly alone amidst the talk, which never varied from an unending replay of that afternoon’s game. Finally she let her mind drift away entirely, and Chuck had to shake her out of her reverie when the group at last began to break up.
    Then, when Jeff had come home an hour ago, it began again. Play by play, father and son had relived the game.
    At last they had come to the moment when Jeff plunged through the line, dropped on the other boy, and disappeared under a heap of other players.
    “Did you see it, Dad?” Jeff asked now, his eyes glinting with the memory, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Thought he had me, but I fixed him! Just twisted around and dropped on him. Put a knee right into his kidney!”
    Charlotte felt her stomach tighten, and suddenly knew she could put it off no longer. Wordlessly, she turned and left the room, went to the bedroom and closed the door. Taking the phone book out of the top drawer of the nightstand, she riffled through it, then dialed the number of the county hospital.
    “This is Charlotte LaConner,” she said. “I’m calling about the boy who was brought in this afternoon. After the football game?”
    There was a momentary silence before the voice at the other end spoke coolly and impersonally. “And what is your relationship to the patient?”
    Charlotte hesitated, then replied tightly, “It was my son who tackled the boy.”
    “I see,” the voice said tentatively. Then: “Perhaps I’d better connect you with the duty nurse.”
    A few moments later, after explaining once more who she was, Charlotte listened numbly as the nurse summarized Ricardo Ramirez’s injuries.
    “But—But he’ll be all right, won’t he?” Charlotte finally asked, the question coming out as a plea.
    “We don’t know, Mrs. LaConner,” the nurse replied.
    Slowly, Charlotte replaced the receiver, too unnerved to do more than sit still on the bed. Minutes passed as she tried to collect her thoughts. Then, when a raucous laugh echoed from the den, she made up her mind. She stood, straightened her back, and left the bedroom. She paused at the door to the den and waited until her husband noticed her. For a moment he seemed puzzled, but when he saw the expression on her face, his smile began to fade.
    “What’s wrong?” he finally asked. “You look like you just saw a ghost.”
    “I just called the hospital,” she said. She turned to her son. “The boy you tackled. His name is Rick Ramirez.”
    Jeff frowned. “S-So?”
    Charlotte licked her lips nervously. “He might die, Jeff. His neck is broken and one of his lungs collapsed.” Despite herself, her voice hardened. “And when you put your knee into his kidney, apparently you ruptured it.”
    Jeff’s eyes widened, and Charlotte could see his fingers tighten on his beer glass. “Jesus,” he whispered. But then, as she watched, a curtain seemed to fall behind his eyes. “It wasn’t my fault,” he said, his voice taking on a note of belligerence.
    From his chair a few feet from Jeff, Chuck shot her a warning glance, but Charlotte chose to ignore it. “Not your fault?” she asked, no longer trying to contain the anger she was feeling. She moved closer to Jeff. “I heard you say you deliberately kneed him.”
    “Well, what if I did?” Jeff demanded, rising to his feet. He was big, nearly six-foot-three, and he towered over Charlotte’s five-foot-four-inch frame. “Shit, Mom, he’d just tackled me, hadn’t he? What did you expect me to do? Just stand there and take it?”
    Charlotte reached out to grasp her son’s arm. “But that’s part of the game, isn’t it? You try to get through, and he tries to tackle you. But you don’t try to hurt him on purpose …”
    Jeff’s jaw tightened and his eyes blazed with sudden fury. “And you don’t know a goddamn thing about football!” he shouted. Abruptly, he shook his mother’s arm off his own and hurled his still half-filled glass into the fireplace. The stein shattered