JACK KILBORN ~ AFRAID by Jack Kilborn Read Free Book Online Page B

appearance withered, gray hair replacing brown in every place hair grew and even a few where it had never grown before. Wrinkles began at the eyes and mouth, then sent out tributaries to the forehead, cheeks, neck, hands. Everything sagged, including memory. And then when self-esteem was something you could find only in old pictures, the aches and pains ensued. Eye strain. Arthritis. Insomnia. Constipation. Shin splints. Bad back. Receding gums. Poor appetite. Impotence. The heart and lungs and kidneys and prostate and liver and colon and bladder all sputtered like a car low on gas. And then the indignity of disrobing before a doctor one-third your age, only to be told that this is the just the aging process, completely natural, nothing can be done.
    Streng fought getting old. He fought it by exercising, and eating right, and supplementing with so many morning vitamins that his stomach rattled for two hours after breakfast. But as he ran for his car, half as quickly as he could run just fifteen years ago, he once again cursed his failing body and the laws of nature that allowed this to happen.
    He cursed again when the man in black fell into step beside him.
    “Where are you going?” the man said with his foreign lisp, his breath as easy as Streng’s was ragged.
    Streng couldn’t outrun him. He slowed, stopped, and then faced the man, raising his fists. Though he was hardly the 195-pound slab of muscle he had been in his youth, a few of those muscles still functioned.
    “So you want to fight?” the man asked.
    The sheriff threw a roundhouse punch, aiming for the stranger’s neck. The man sidestepped it and in a single fluid motion grabbed Streng’s hand and began to squeeze it.
    The pain was instant and excruciating. It felt like getting caught in a door, the bones grinding against each other. Streng yelped.
    Then combat training kicked in. Streng grabbed the man’s shirt, swiveled his right hip behind the man’s right leg, and flipped him.
    The move was executed perfectly. Too perfectly, and halfway into it Streng knew what was happening. The man didn’t let go of Streng and used the momentum of his fall to catapult Streng legs over head, slamming the sheriff onto his back.
    Streng stared up at the black sky, his wind gone. He noticed many things at once: the cool grass tickling the back of his neck, the pain in his coccyx that shot down both legs, the spasm in his diaphragm that wouldn’t let him draw a breath, and the soft, effeminate laugh of the person about to kill him.
    “You’ve had some training,” said the man. “So have I.”
    Streng felt a hand clamp under his armpit. It squeezed. Fire exploded behind Streng’s eyes, and he screamed for perhaps the first time in his sixty-six years. It was like being pinched with pliers, and even though Streng tried to roll away, tried to push back the hand, the pressure went on and on, driving out every thought other than make it stop.
    “That’s the brachial nerve,” the man whispered in Streng’s ear. “It’s one of many nerves in the body.”
    The man released his grip, and Streng wept. And as he did, he hated himself for the tears, hated himself for being a frail old man that this psychopath could manhandle like a toy.
    “I have some questions for you, Sheriff. Do you think you’ll be able to answer them for me?”
    Streng wanted to be defiant, wanted to give this man nothing. But his lips formed the word before he could stop it: “Yes.”
    “That’s good. That’s very good.” The man’s breath was warm, moist, on Streng’s ear. “But I think I’ll still loosen you up a bit first.”
    The man grabbed Streng’s left side and squeezed, fingers digging hard into his kidney, prompting such intense, jaw-dropping pain that Streng passed out midscream.
     
    D uncan Stauffer awoke to the sound of Woof barking. Woof was supposed to be a beagle, but Duncan had a lot of dog books and decided that Woof looked more like a basset hound. Woof was pudgy,