Darkness by John Saul Read Free Book Online

you finally decided to come see your old grandpa, huh?” he asked. Before she could answer, he held her away. “Let me look at you.”
    Kelly felt a wave of self-consciousness, and tried to resist the urge to hide her right hand behind her back, with its still-visible scars as an ever-present reminder of what she’d done. Then she braced herself for whatever her grandfather might say about her pink hair and her black clothes. But instead of criticizing her, he only grinned. “I always wondered what pink hair would look like. It’s not so bad. Pink and black was real big back in the fifties, you know.”
    Kelly felt the unfamiliar sensation of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Mom and Dad hate it,” she blurted out without thinking.
    “Of course they do,” Carl replied. “That’s what parents are for. Half their job is to disapprove of their kids. Hell, when your dad was your age, I barely even spoke to him. Now, why don’t you go up and take a look at your room. It’s the big one above the garage.” Kelly’s eyes shifted back to the house and the windows above the three-car garage. Even from here she could see that the room went all the way through to the back of the house; and through the sheer curtains, she was certain she saw the blades of a ceiling fan. Suddenly she remembered all the hot nights she’d spent in her tiny room in Atlanta, sweltering in the still air despite the fact that she always kept the window wide open. As her grandfather turned his attention to her parents, she started across the lawn.
    Maybe, just maybe, things were going to be all right after all.

    Dusk was gathering, and Michael Sheffield was getting ready to close up the swamp tour. Everyone else—even Phil Stubbs—had already left, for after the first week it had been apparent to Stubbs that despite the pressure he’d been put under to hire Michael, the boy was the best worker he had. For the first two weeks, before school had let out, Michael had shown up every day promptly at three-thirty, and had not only done what he’d been told, but looked for additional work to do as well. The second day, when Stubbs had told him it was quitting time, Michael had shaken his head. When he’d been feeding the nutrias, he noticed that one of the furry little rodents was about to give birth to a litter, and he was in the process of fixing her a special nest away from the rest of the exhibit. “She’ll get nervous with all the people watching her,” he’d explained. “I’ll just fix her up a box in the storeroom, and after a couple of weeks maybe we can set up a special cage for the babies. Sort of like a children’s zoo.”
    Stubbs had shrugged disinterestedly and let Michael do what he wanted, pretty much forgetting about the whole thing within a few days. But two weeks later Michael had stayed late again, and the next morning Stubbs had found a whole new exhibit next to the nutria cage. Inside a glass-fronted box were the new mother and her babies, who were now tumbling around like puppies. All around the box Michael had placed a series of neatly-lettered signs describing the life cycle of the little animals, from the period of their gestation to their expected life span, explaining what they ate and what their economic value was, as well as a clear description of their place in the ecosystem of the swamp. Stubbs had frowned at the exhibit, wondering why Michael had bothered with it, but that day he’d noticed that the baby nutrias had attracted more attention than any of the other cages at the headquarters, and on the tours thatafternoon, people seemed more interested in the nutrias than the alligators.
    By the third week Stubbs had stopped bothering to tell Michael what to do, since the boy was always busy and invariably stayed late, usually saying only, “There’s a couple things I still need to do.” The next morning Stubbs would find another of the animal exhibits revamped, or new docking lines on the boats,