End Time by Keith Korman Read Free Book Online Page B

them.
    His rags hung on him like the wrappings of a starving monk streaked with dirt, wooden crutches. He limped. Putting one foot on the temple step, then a crutch, then another foot, then the crutch. Slowly climbing. His ankle had separated at the joint, so his twisted foot shifted up the calf, held together by a thick wad of flesh. Stump and climb, crutch and struggle—the youthful beggar toiled up the temple steps one at a time, closer and closer. Now Bhakti saw the clay bowl in his hand with a few miserable coins. And the youth’s voice came up to greet him: “Rupee, rupee?”
    At the high platform there was nowhere for Bhakti Singh to go, nowhere to flee. He stood, frozen—petrified as this twisted creature painfully crawled to his perch. He could see the youth’s flesh-attached foot and ankle now so clearly, the little coins in the bowl, the boy’s eye. “Rupee?”
    *   *   *
    And awoke with a shout: “Here!” Clawing the sheets; he grabbed his wallet off the nightstand, looking to pay the boy something. Anything. Sweat poured off his chest, the scent of dust and dirty rags still in his nostrils. No coins, no boy—just a dream, the fear showing him how western he’d become, how American. Had he grown soft inside? No, just sensitive; the comforts of American life had a way of doing that.
    The space beside him was empty, rumpled. Eleanor? Had she gotten up and gone for a drink of water or to the bathroom without asking for help? No … her water glass was still on the end table and her braces by the headboard.
    The luminous clock face by the bed read 3 a.m.
    And somehow in a blinding second he knew Janet hadn’t come home yet.
    â€œEleanor?”
    The darkness of the bedroom seemed to cloak him.
    The TV quietly droned on—it might have been an infomercial for six-pack abs or colon detox, no way to tell. But the flickering image arrested him; Bhakti stopped and stared at the TV for a moment, but the advertisement confounded reason, hawking abject lunacy instead.
    The huckster was a lanky man, in black tie and tails, looking like a carny show magician; the set showed an open window and beyond that, a New York City skyline. The bony fellow ostentatiously took a live wriggling lobster out of his top hat, showed it around, and then unceremoniously flung it out the open window behind him. Some woman off-screen screamed as the lobster struck the pavement—while the ticker-crawl at the bottom of the screen proclaimed, No Money Down! For an Unlimited Time Only! Buy! Buy! Buy!
    Too absurd. Never mind.
    The bathroom light out, with just the illuminated switch glowing on the switch plate. No, she wasn’t there.
    He found his robe on the bedpost and slipped it on; then crept from the bedroom. Eleanor stood at the plate-glass window looking into their front lawn and the houses on the subdivision. The white Western-style streetlights of their little spot of heaven in civilization shone across her body.
    She was standing.
    Standing without braces or the chair. Just staring out into the street. Eleanor pulled the drawstring, closing the curtains, but continued to stare blankly at the fabric.
    â€œShe’s not home,” Eleanor said to the curtained window. “Janet’s not home. Go to the sheriff now.”
    Bhakti swallowed his surprise at her standing there. Eleanor hadn’t stood on her own in twenty years.
    â€œStop staring at me and just do it. Go right now.”
    *   *   *
    First to their neighbor’s right across the street, the Chen’s—Amy and Wen Chen had followed them from NASA. Janet and the Chen’s daughter, Lila, friends for years; the girls did everything together. Wen met him at his own front door, dressed—Bhakti could see Amy down the hall, her eyes bright with fear. Wen’s tough, round face was set and grim. One look and neither man had much to say.
    Wen, sharp and to the