GRAVEWORM by Tim Curran Read Free Book Online Page A

told.”
    “ Yes, yes. I will. Tell me.”
    “ The first thing I want you to do is to clean that place up. Clean up the blood, get rid of the… the body. Bag it up and bury it somewhere no one will ever find it. Can you do that?”
    Tara did not think she could. “Yes.”
    “This is how the game starts.”
    “ Lisa—”
    “ Then get going. Your sister doesn’t have much time left.”
    “ But—”
    “ Tara. Don’t waste my time. Don’t waste Lisa’s.” His tone was ominous, even worse than before. “Tara, I’ve buried your sister alive.”
     
    13
    Henry Borden laid in the cellar where it was cool and dark.
    He remembered other times in the cool darkness. He remembered the man standing over him, the man who had caught him laying with the dead. The man who was his father who just stood there with that dim, faraway look in his eyes, his face suddenly very old, very worn like something that had been used too much. Those eyes had been shocked, then they looked angry… no, not angry, disgusted. Sickened. The mind behind them turning in febrile circles now that it had been shown the unspeakable, the unnamable.
    “ What in Christ’s name do you think you’re doing?” the voice had said with a sharp, resounding impact like a knife stuck in a wall. “You… you… you can’t do this… you can’t be doing this thing… it’s obscene, it’s awful… it’s… it’s… it’s FILTH!”
    Trembling, naked, Henry just laid there, clutching the bloodless white corpse of the girl to him.
    (she’s mine all mine you can’t take her from me)
    (mine… MINE)
    He wanted to say: “No, no… it’s not what you think…” Because that’s what people on TV did when discovered in a compromising position. But he did not say it because now that the truth was laid bare, he did not want to dirty it with lies because it was exactly what his father was thinking.
    There had been a smooth swishing as his father’s belt escaped its loops. The snap of leather. Then the belt was coming down again and again, striping Henry with purple contusions. It did not stop until his father was sweating and moaning, tears washing down his red-hued face.
    (I LOVE her can’t you see that I LOVE her)
    His father left him.
    Henry clutched the dead girl, whimpering.
    Three days later his father would die. He would not speak of the shame his son brought upon him. Disgraced, humiliated, and revolted to his core, he would go to his grave silently, thankfully.
     
    14
    Tara screamed or moaned or simply gasped; she could not be sure later. Only that it felt like everything inside her had been drained out at once. Her knees hit the floor, a black rushing sound filling her head. I’ve buried your sister alive.
    She has air, Tara. As long as you cooperate. But when you don’t… when… you… don’t…
    Hurry, Tara… the clock is running.
    The line went dead.
    And so did Tara.
     
    15
    Henry Borden sat in his house, in the dark. Something black and deadly slithering around in his belly. He pulled the voice-activated digital voice recorder from inside his coat and dropped it on the table. He found himself motionless. More so, frozen with inaction. There really was nothing more that needed doing… not yet, anyway… but still he felt he should be doing something.
    In the darkness, he thought it all over.
    Although he pretty much figured that he had Tara Coombes by the short and curlies, there was always the chance she might turn on him. Panic and call the police. He wasn’t terribly worried about that, but hell, you just never knew with women.
    (you just can’t trust them, henry, evil to the core, every one of them like snakes, just like snakes, turn your back on them and they’ll sink their venomous fangs right into your neck! they have that slit between their legs and it is the root of all worldly evil, they were thrown out of eden because of that slit, henry, because of what they liked to do with it)
    His mother’s words. She might have done