Supernatural Noir by Ellen Datlow Read Free Book Online Page B

folding in on itself, upper lip shaking like an earthquake. He says, “Don’t know how she could ignore you and Joe fighting the way you did. You fought over everything. Made me feel really, I don’t know, uncomfortable. That probably sounds messed up coming from me. But, I don’t know, man, it just didn’t feel right. Wanted to kick both your heads in by the end of the vacation.”
    “Wish you were here, send us a postcard, right? Mike, listen, the car is stopped. We’re going to get out. Just walk around. Get some fresh air, all right?” I say, then I lie to him: “It’ll help.”
    “What was the name of the card game you guys always played?”
    “Cribbage. Joe always tried cheating me on the counts.”
    “Nah, you were just too dumb to count the points right and Joe would call you on it and . . .” Mike stops talking and slow fades out.
    I scream his name and he comes back. He looks like Greg did. Bleeding from everywhere. There’s a dime-sized hole in his forehead, and it’s growing. He opens his mouth but can’t speak.
    I call his name, not that his name works anymore, right? I ask him if he’s still with me. I ask him to say something.
    Mike whimpers like a goddamn dog that just had his leg stepped on, and he slides across the back seat, out the door and onto the shoulder of the highway, carrying the shotgun.
    I get out, sprint around the front of the car, my own ears ringing, but not because of the cuff in the head he gave me forever ago. Mike stumbles, turns around aimlessly, his feet lost in a circle. His eyes are rolled back in his head. He puts the barrels of the sawed-off in his mouth. He pulls the trigger and disappears. He disappears and pulls the trigger. Which came first? Fuck if I know, but there’s nothing left of him but a fog of blood, and the shotgun drops to the pavement after hovering in the air for an impossible second.
    ——
    Earlier, after telling Greg and Mike my getaway plan, I was more than a little worried that I wouldn’t remember how to get to the lake house. But I remember. Every turn.
    I’m not feeling so great. Don’t know if it’s because I watched Greg and Mike (and goddamn Henry, I saw him flicker in the rearview, in the dark too, you betcha) and I only think I’m feeling what they were feeling. Joe always said I was nothing but a follower. Fucking Joe.
    So there’s that, and now I’m thinking about the shots I heard. Did I hear three? Or was it four? The first two came in a quick burst, one right after the other, piggybacking. Then a pause. Then a third. But it could’ve been three shots in that quick burst. And how long was that pause? I really can’t remember now.
    I drive down the long dirt road. I’m the only one out here. Within sight of both lake and house there’s a small chainlink fence across the road. I plow through it and park next to the house. The white shingles have gone green with mold. The roof is missing tiles and tar and is sunken in parts. The screened porch is missing its screens. If a house falls apart in the woods and nobody’s there, will anyone miss it?
    This is where I spent so many quiet and solitary summer weeks with Grandma and Joe, but not really with them. Joe painted, and she smoked and walked. This place here, this is where I learned to hate them.
    In Wormtown, it was different. I had Mike and Henry. I kept busy and didn’t have time to think about how fucked up it all was. I miss Mike. Really miss him already, like he’s been gone for years instead of minutes.
    Now that I’m here, I’m afraid of the house. Like if I stare at the porch too long, I might see Grandma there, sitting in a chair, looking out over the lake, seeing whatever it was she saw, and smoking those Lucky Strikes. And what if now, right now, she finally turns to look at me, to see me?
    I spin the car around, and park it so I’m facing the lake instead of the house. It doesn’t help. I feel the house and Grandma somewhere behind me.
    Not sure if I’ll