God Is Dead by Ron Currie Jr. Read Free Book Online Page B

I wasn’t so sure anymore. I’d changed the water in the bucket three times yet succeeded only in diluting the mess and spreading it around; the pine boards were streaked with a soapy pink mixture, as if someone had spilled a gallon of strawberry smoothie. Two darker smears extended to the mudroom, where the bodies had been dragged outside. It would have taken hours to clean up properly, and there were still eight of us to go.
    I pushed the mop around a little longer, miming an honest effort to clean the floor, while the others leaned against door frames and unsoiled patches of wall, smoking, watching. Finally Rick held a Pabst out to me. “Good enough,” he said. “Pretty soon no one will care anyway.”
    His other hand was fisted around a cluster of eight red drinking straws, cut to various lengths. “Gather round,” he said, and we did, slowly. For the first time I noticed how bad we all smelled. It’d been a week since anyone had showered, and the only stick of deodorant in the house, having belonged to Rick’s father, was off-limits.
    Leo and Cole drew the short straws. Rick had tucked the pistols into his waistband, and he removed them now. Cole, with a sigh equal parts resignation and relief, took one. He tested the weight of the gun and eyeballed Leo.
    Leo looked at Cole, then turned and ran, through the mudroom and out into the night, screaming a shrill apology about how he was just as sad and scared as the rest of us but didn’t have the guts for this no matter how much he drank.
    â€œWait here,” Rick said. He went after Leo, still holding the pistol.
    I was first onto the porch, in time to see Rick’s figure receding in the dark at the end of the street. He turned left and disappeared, going like an Olympic sprinter, his bare feet slapping the blacktop. We waited and listened but couldn’t hear anything over the riot of bullfrogs in the tiny man-made pond two houses down.
    Fifteen minutes passed, then half an hour. Wesley went into the garage to grab fresh beers for everyone, and came back bleeding from a gash on his palm.
    â€œTripped over the snowblower,” he said with a rueful grin. He handed out blood-streaked beers.
    â€œThat’s pretty nasty,” Allen said. “You ought to clean that up. Wrap it in a towel or something.”
    Wesley looked at him. “What the hell for?” he asked.
    Cole, seated in a rattan chair between me and Wesley, drank his beer in three pulls and let loose a roaring belch.
    â€œWell, fuck this,” he said. He eased the pistol past his teeth, drew several quick breaths around the barrel, and fired. The bullet ripped a softball-sized hole in the back of his skull and shattered the window behind him. Jagged triangles of glass clung to the window frame, dripping with blood and brain.
    â€œJesus Christ,” Allen said. His beer, dropped from numb fingers, sat in a puddle of foam on the top step. No one else spoke. Their faces registered only a mild, fleeting surprise, then went blank again as we waited some more for Rick to come back.
    â€œYou think he caught him?” Chad asked.
    â€œProbably,” Jack said. “Leo isn’t exactly a star athlete.”
    â€œIf he caught him, we would have heard something,” Wesley said. “A gunshot. A scream. Something.”
    I took a sip of beer to steel myself. “This could maybe be a mistake, guys,” I said. “I realize we’re probably past the time for debate. But still.”
    Wesley looked at me. “You wouldn’t be saying that if Rick were here.”
    â€œFucking right I wouldn’t,” I said. “Because Rick’s lost his mind. He’s out there hunting Leo. Leo, our friend. The guy who took us all to his dad’s time-share in Florida for graduation. And if Rick catches him, he’ll shoot him down like a dog.”
    â€œWe’re still friends,” Jack said. “That’s why