GRAVEWORM by Tim Curran Read Free Book Online Page B

a lot of terrible things to him, but she never lied. You could give the queen bitch that much. She was honest.
    Henry’s father used to say that the most dangerous thing in the world was the hole between a woman’s legs.
    Henry hadn’t understood that at all when he was young, but later, yeah, later it made perfect sense. Particularly when the girls started to turn away from him.
    Then he knew.
    He knew all about girls.
    He knew goddamn well what that hole did to them.
    (it is the well spout of infamy, henry, from that gash will spring the flowers of evil eden was destroyed by eve because she couldn’t keep her legs closed)
    In school, he had been shy and quiet. Never did a thing to draw attention to himself. No fooling around. No insulting teachers behind their backs or calling the other kids names. None of that. Maybe that’s why the boys picked on him and maybe that’s why the girls laughed at him or just plain ignored him.
    The main reason for all of it was that he was withdrawn, thin and pale, and his old man just happened to be caretaker of Hillside Cemetery. That just left those kids cold (heh, heh). They called him “Dead Boy” and “Graveworm” and whispered behind his back about what a little creep he was.
    When Henry graduated high school, he got out of town as quick as he could. He was accepted at Southwestern’s School of Mortuary Science, pulled an excellent GPA, and then, yes, then those bastards kicked him out right on his ass.
    Just leave quietly, Mr. Borden. We’re not going to bring the police in on this… ah… matter. But I would suggest you seek therapy…
    Bullshit. That’s what it was. They didn’t like him because he was a loner so they made up nasty little stories. They conspired against him because he was smarter and more efficient than they could ever be. So out he went. He didn’t even bother going home. He joined the Army, served in the first Iraq war in a very special capacity… then, well there was trouble there too. He was put in the psych ward for six months, then given a dishonorable discharge. While he was incarcerated, he learned his mother had just undergone her fourth (or was it fifth?) nervous breakdown and she was on so many medications that she was shitting herself half the time. Then the bad thing had happened. When he finally got home he got his old man’s caretaker job at Hillside. They offered it to him right away, knowing nothing of his past. The caretaker that had replaced his father—Siemens, heh, heh—was dying. Forty hard years on the booze had finally kicked his legs out from under him. The owners didn’t care who took the position as long as somebody did.
    Henry was the right man for the job.
    Fourteen years he put in. Then they put that prick Spears on as director. He was a real piece of work. He targeted Henry right off, always jumping his ass about something. Henry, I want those plastic Memorial Day flags off all the graves by Monday. And that grass is getting shaggy in the northeast corner. When are you planning on taking care of that? And get a mason out here to look at the stone wall in the back, it’s crumbling. And for godsake, the wrought-iron fence out front is rusting. Get on it, will you? Oh yeah, he was a real treat. Everything had been going good until that sonofabitch started stirring the pot. And then that little incident in the mausoleum. He fired Henry right on the spot, told him to get out or—
    I’ll see that you do time, you sick perverted sonofabitch! There are laws in this state, Borden! Laws to put animals like you away… laws against… against what I saw you doing! Get out! Do you hear me? Get out of here…
    — some such paranoid shit. And for what? For what? A bunch of nonsense that uppity peckerwood cooked up to get rid of his best employee.
    And that was what… four years ago now? Five? Six? If it hadn’t been for the life insurance policies and the endowment, well, there wouldn’t have been a crumb to eat. At least