Forever Man by Brian Matthews Read Free Book Online Page B

light.
    Nothing. The house remained dark. Thin blades of yellow light penetrated through the living room blinds, providing some meager illumination, though not enough to see by.
    Her hand went automatically for her gun, but she wasn’t wearing it; she’d left the Glock locked in a metal box sitting on the top shelf of her bedroom closet. And the Maglite was back in the trunk of her car.
    Shit.
    “Stanley!” she called out. No reply. “Damn it, answer me!”
    She strained to hear a voice, a scrape, a rattle—anything that would tell her that she wasn’t alone in the house.
    Silence. Silence…and darkness.  
    She kept a flashlight in the nightstand drawer next to her bed, so she decided to make for the bedroom. With her hands held out in front of her, she made her way through the dark heart of the house.
    She turned left into the living room, taking small, careful steps, all the time listening. After a few feet, her knee bumped into something soft. The leather recliner. Okay. Shift right. Another step, and her fingers grazed what felt like stiff fabric: the shade for the lamp next to the sofa. Carefully, she slid her hand under the shade and felt for the little plastic knob. Finding it, she gave a twist; the sharp click sounded loud in the dead silence of the house. She wasn’t surprised when nothing happened. Then, on impulse, she lifted her hand…and was surprised to discover the bulb missing.
    Had someone—had Stanley? —removed all the light bulbs in the house? What possible reason could he have had for doing something so absurd?
    Just off to her right were two hallways. One led to the bedrooms and the bathroom, the other to the kitchen and the dining room. She felt along the wall until she found the hallway leading to the bedrooms. She needed the flashlight, and her gun.
    With one hand stretched out in front of her and the other running lightly against the right-hand wall, Izzy moved down the hallway. The darkness felt oppressive; it was like wading through a black sea. Her heart galloped in her chest.
    After several steps, her right hand bumped up against a line of wood molding, and then the wall disappeared. The doorway to Natalie’s room. Her and Stanley’s bedroom was about ten feet further down the hallway.
    Almost there.
    She was about to take another step when she heard something. A noise of some kind. Like a whisper—or a whimper.
    “Hello,” she said, still wishing she had the security of her gun. “Stanley?”
    Another sound. This time the rustling of cloth—movement.
    It came from Natalie’s room.
    Izzy turned toward the doorway. “Stanley? This isn’t funny. Are you in there?”
    When she didn’t get a reply, she stepped cautiously into the room. Then anoth—
    POP!
    Startled, she jerked her foot back. A light came on.
    In the retreating darkness, Izzy saw her husband lying on Natalie’s bed, his hand moving away from a small lamp on the nightstand. He had the comforter pulled up around his shoulders. A wet line of snot ran from his nose and down his whiskery cheek. He had obviously been crying.
    And there, scattered on the carpet between the door and the bed like tiny land mines, were a dozen or so light bulbs. As far as Izzy could tell, Stanley had removed all of them—all except the one he’d left in Natalie’s lamp. He had even removed the small colored bulbs she used in the hallway nightlights. There was a shattered bulb just inside the doorway. The noise she had heard was her foot breaking it.
    She lifted her eyes. “Stanley, what’s with the light bulbs?”
    His eyes twitched to meet hers. “I can smell her, you know.”
    “You can what?”
    “Smell her,” he said, and his voice raised the hairs on her arms. It sounded desolate, like a man who had woken from a nightmare, only to find out he wasn’t dreaming. “I can smell her. On this pillow, in the sheets. Her scent is everywhere.”
    “My God, what’s happened to you?”
    “God?” Stanley said. “God’s got