Sympathy for the Devil by Justin Gustainis Read Free Book Online

already devoted years of study to learning - what?
    When Libby finally went to bed, her sleep was troubled, three good orgasms notwithstanding. She kept wondering whether that pentagram had actually contained something from the Other Side - and if so, what had become of it?

Chapter 3
     
    Dr. Reiss' assessment turned out to be right on the money; Ron Brooks never did develop cancer - but, a month later, his prostate killed him, anyway.
    The medication was slowly doing its job of shrinking Brooks' enlarged prostate gland, but the pills had one annoying side effect: stimulation of the kidneys, leading to increased urine production. As a result, Brooks' sleep was usually disrupted several times by the demands of his uncomfortably full bladder.
    On the December night that he died, Brooks had gone to bed early. The Iowa Caucuses, which marked the start of the long and grueling presidential primary season, were about a month away. From that point on, sleep would be a luxury. Brooks arose at 1:43, awakened by the need to take a leak. This would be his first trip to the bathroom since retiring for the evening a little before 10:00. It would also be his last.
    As he slipped out of the warm queen-size bed, Brooks was careful not to disturb his wife, Evelyn, who was snoring gently a few inches away. He trudged along the twenty feet or so of carpeted hallway that led to the upstairs bathroom. He had always hated bedroom slippers, so as he stepped into the darkened bathroom, it was his bare feet that first told him that something was wrong.
    Water. Cold water. Christ, a lot of cold water, all over the floor, it feels like. What the hell's happened?
    Then Ron Brooks did what almost anyone would have done in similar circumstances. Still standing in the inch or so of water on the floor, he reached out for the bathroom light switch, found it, and flicked it on.
     
    "I got laid off last June," Len Kowal said, his rough voice low and sad. "Mold-All Plastics. Machinist. Twenty-two years, I was there."
    Quincey Morris didn't know what to say to that, so he just nodded.
    "What Len means is, we got no health insurance," Helen Kowal said. "They kept up his benefits for six weeks after they let him go, but after that..."
    "So that's why you haven't been able to get medical treatment for Susie," Morris said.
    "We been to the hospital with her twice. To the ER. They asked a lot of questions, then they did some tests that we had to put on our MasterCard." She shrugged her thin shoulders. "We're still paying, a little each month."
    "Did the tests find anything?"
    "No, not a thing. So they wanted to admit her, and do even more. But once we said we had no insurance..." Another shrug.
    "Tried to mortgage the place," Len Kowal rumbled. "None of the banks would give us the time of day. Mortgage crisis, they said. Nobody's lending money, nobody's buying houses." He looked away and said to the wall, "And our credit number, it maybe ain't so good, either."
    "I'm not a doctor," Morris said gently. "If it really is a medical problem, I'm afraid there isn't anything I can do to help."
    "We understand that, Mr. Morris," Helen Kowal said, her eyes rimmed red from crying. "But we thought at least you could tell us if it's... that other thing we talked about."
    She doesn't want to say it , Morris thought. Can't hardly blame her for that.
    He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that this trip was going to be a waste of time, but the knowledge made him more depressed than irritated. The likelihood was that the girl was suffering from some disorder of the nervous system, or worse.
    Good news, Mrs. Kowal: your daughter isn't possessed by an entity from Hell, after all. The downside is, she has a brain tumor the size of a golf ball. We're giving her six months, at the outside.
    "Would you at least look at her?" Helen Kowal said. "Maybe talk to her a little bit?"
    It would have been cruel to refuse. Anyway, he had come all the way up from Texas, and there was always the