Suffer the Children by Craig DiLouie Read Free Book Online

corner: L IVE .
    “What is it?” Gloria asked.
    “I don’t know,” Ben answered.
    Whatever it is, it’s something big , David thought. They don’t just interrupt a major football game unless the world is ending.
    The image on the screen cut to a group of people kneeling around something. David glimpsed what looked like a child’s arm. Parts of the restaurant fell silent.
    They gasped as a caption appeared: H UNDREDS D EAD IN C ALIFORNIA .
    The camera zoomed out and tracked a man rushing across the street with a small boy in his arms. Behind him, the sidewalks as far as the eye could see were jammed with crowds of people huddled around figures lying on the ground.
    “Jesus Christ,” somebody muttered.
    “We need sound,” somebody else called out. “Turn it up! Please!”
    The rest of the restaurant quieted with baffled looks. Men crowded around the TV.
    “David,” Nadine whispered, her voice edged with panic.
    David reached for her hand and held it tight.
    The bartender found the remote and changed the channel to CNN, which showed a worried-looking Lyle Stanley behind a desk. He turned up the volume.
    “The death toll already appears to be much larger than we first reported,” Stanley declared. He blinked. “Wait. I’m not going to say that.”
    Is this one of those moments? David thought. One of those moments that changes everything?
    The anchor glared at somebody off camera. “That can’t be right.” He held up the sheet of paper. “The report about the—I’m not going to say that on the air until somebody verifies it.”
    Nadine gripped David’s hand even harder.
    On air, Lyle Stanley stood up. “I need to call my wife.”
    There was an abrupt cut to a commercial for a new Chrysler minivan.
    The diners filled the ensuing silence with shouting.
    “Where was that? What city?”
    “San Francisco, I think. Union Square.”
    The bartender switched to Fox, which showed the same video of people huddled around bodies on a sidewalk. The reporter was babbling, not making any sense.
    “What do you think happened?” Ben asked David. “Some type of terrorist attack?”
    David shook his head. He had no idea. “We should get home.”
    “Why? Whatever it is, it’s not here in Michigan, right?”
    Nadine squeezed David’s hand.
    “What’s wrong?” he asked.
    She said nothing, staring over his shoulder. He followed her gaze toward the front door of the restaurant, where a dazed woman stood alone.
    David watched her ball her fists and scream, silencing them all.
Doug
    Hour of Herod Event
    Doug wished he had a shotgun in his hands.
    He pictured himself deep in the woods, doing some hunting.
    The skaters flowed clockwise around the outdoor ice rink. While some parents skated with their kids, most sipped coffee and smiled from the sidelines.
    He stood apart from the crowd in the hope nobody would approach him to engage in banal small talk. None of these people were his friends. He couldn’t say he really had any. Acquaintances, sure. He had lots of those. Guys he worked with and husbands of Joan’s friends with whom he was occasionally forced to socialize.
    He didn’t mind; he wasn’t much of a social guy anyway. He considered himself related to the cave bear. His family was everything to him. If you weren’t in his tribe, he didn’t care much about you and had a hard time faking it.
    Doug checked out the moms, but even that got boring. This babysitting was for the birds. He didn’t understand these “breaks” Joanie needed every once in a while. She’d wanted kids; he’d given her kids. Taking care of them was her job. His job was to work ten hours a day, plus overtime, doing hard, dirty work to keep a roof over their heads. His job was to fix what needed fixing around the house. Hell, he needed breaks too. A little me time.
    Like hunting. Sitting in a tree enjoying nature, with a thermos of hot coffee to keep him warm. The deep silences. Last year, he’d shot a doe and put a lot of meat in the