She Wakes by Jack Ketchum Read Free Book Online

shoulder where she’d been lying. She must have stayed awhile.
        He wondered what time it was.
        No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense. If she’d gotten cold she could have told him. He’d have gone too. Why not wake him? Why just disappear?
        It was damn disorienting. As though he’d dreamed the whole thing-the walk along the beach, making love, everything. He wasn’t angry-just puzzled.
        He walked back to the Romantica, turning it over in his mind. What the hell?
        He opened the door to his room and there was Danny asleep with Michelle in the far bed, the sheets twisted around them like snakes. He moved silently into the bathroom and took off his clothes and hung his shirt over the door to dry. He walked across the floor to his bed and slipped beneath the covers. He rolled over and slept a second time that night.
        He slept late.
        
***
        
        It was noon before he was out the door. By that time all the questions were merely amusing. He knew it wasn’t anything he’d done or said that had made her go. So he wondered what she was up to. Lelia? What’s the story, Lelia?
        He found Danny and Michelle drinking sweet Greek coffee in the square, sitting with a pair of German girls he knew vaguely from the beach. To Dodgson it looked like Danny was into some serious flirting but Michelle didn’t seem to mind. Confident of him, he guessed.
        They waved him over.
        “Hey, Sparky. I hear you were a bitch last night.”
        “You do?"
        “Sure. Lelia was by.”
        “Uh-huh. And?”
        “She’s one angry lady, man. Says the two of you fell out on the beach a while. Then she woke up and you weren’t there. You’d skipped on her. How come?”
        “Me?”
        He couldn’t believe it.
        “I’d skipped on her?”
        Michelle smiled. She shook her head. “I don’t expect this of you, Robert. Him, maybe. Him of course. But…”
        Danny poked her.
        “This is too weird. I didn’t leave her. It was the other way around. I woke up and she was gone.”
        “Oh yeah?”
        He rolled his eyes as though Dodgson were slipping and everybody laughed. Everybody but Dodgson.
        “She really told you that?”
        “Sure. Stood right there and said you’d deserted her. Am I right, ladies? Am I lying?”
        The German girls nodded.
        “And you say she was pissed? Really angry?”
        “I’d say she’d like to stuff you in a blender, make up some Skippy coladas. A woman scorned, y’know?”
        “Jesus.”
        “You going to the beach?”
        “I was planning to.”
        He nodded. “Man of Steel. Actually, I’d think about hanging around down here with us if I were you.”
        He needed a cup of coffee. The headache was back. It really was too early in the morning for this shit.
        “Danny, how drunk was I last night?”
        He shrugged. “Light to medium. I’ve seen you worse. It really didn’t go down that way? You’re sure?”
        “I swear it.”
        “That’s a pretty strange lady, then. You better have some coffee. Maybe a beer or two.”
        He thought about it.
        “No, I think I’ll go to the beach. See what I didn’t do last night. You’re positive she wasn’t putting you on.”
        “She was serious,” said Michelle.
        “Sure looked serious. She has nice flary nostrils, know that?”
        He turned to go. “See you later,” he said.
        He started walking, then heard Danny shout behind him. “Hey, Skippy. Don't worry. She’ll forgive you!” Then there was laughter.
        “I forgive you," she said.
        He looked at her.
        “You’re kidding.”
        “No. I do.”
        “For what?”
        “For leaving.”
        “I didn’t leave, Lelia.”
        “Don’t be