The Barrens & Others by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

about his tenants, but he's alone in the shack. Or is he?
    I could have set it anywhere, but I chose Monroe – not only because I'd set "Feelings" there, but because I was squeezing out these stories while writing Reborn , also set in Monroe, and I saw a connection. I'd envisioned Reborn of as the first part of a long roman fleuve that would unite The Keep , The Tomb , and The Touch . Why were all these strange things happening in Monroe? But why were all these strange things happening in Monroe? Why had the Dat tay vao been drawn to Monroe in The Touch ? Was it all random, or was there a reason? I realized Reborn contained that reason. So if the old guy in "Tenants" has some strange boarders, maybe they too wound up in Monroe for a reason. The locale had no direct effect on the novelette itself, but it gave me a little extra kick to know I was connecting it to the cycle.
    Gus and his tenants appear again briefly in Nightworld .
     
    Tenants
    The mail truck was coming.
    Gilroy Connors, shoes full of water and shirt still wet from the morning's heavy dew, crouched in the tall grass and punk-topped reeds. He ached all over; his thighs particularly were cramped from holding his present position. But he didn't dare move for fear of giving his presence away.
    So he stayed hunkered down across the road from the battered old shack that looked deserted but wasn't – there had been lights on in the place last night. With its single pitched roof and rotting cedar shake siding, it looked more like an overgrown outhouse that a home. A peeling propane tank squatted on the north side; a crumbling brick chimney supported a canted TV antenna. Beyond the shack, glittering in the morning sunlight, lay the northeast end of Monroe Harbor and the Long Island Sound. The place gave new meaning to the word isolated . As if a few lifetimes ago someone had brought a couple of tandems of fill out to the end of the hard-packed dirt road, dumped them, and built a shack. Except for a rickety old dock with a sodden rowboat tethered to it, there was not another structure in sight in either direction. Only a slender umbilical cord of insulated wire connected it to the rest of the world via a long column of utility poles marching out from town. All around was empty marsh.
    Yeah. Isolated as all hell.
    It was perfect.
    As Gil watched, the shack's front door opened and a grizzled old man stumbled out, a cigarette in his mouth and a fistful of envelopes in his hand. Tall and lanky with an unruly shock of gray hair standing off his head, he scratched his slightly protruding belly as he squinted in the morning sunlight. He wore a torn undershirt that had probably been white once and a pair of faded green work pants held up by suspenders, He looked as rundown as his home, and as much in need of a shave and a bath as Gil felt. With timing so perfect that it could only be the result of daily practice, the old guy reached the mailbox at exactly the same time as the white jeep-like mail truck.
    Must have been watching from the window .
    Not an encouraging thought. Had the old guy seen Gil out here? If he had, he gave no sign. Which meant Gil was still safe.
    He fingered the handle of the knife inside his shirt.
    Lucky for him .
    While the old guy and the mailman jawed, Gil studied the shack again. The place was a sign that his recent run of good luck hadn't deserted him yet. He had come out to the marshes to hide until things cooled down in and around Monroe and had been expecting to spend a few real uncomfortable nights out here. The shack would make things a lot easier.
    Not much of a place. At most it looked big enough for two rooms and no more. Barely enough space for an ancient couple who didn't move around much – who ate, slept, crapped, watched TV and nothing more. Hopefully, it wasn't a couple. Just the old guy. That would make it simple. A wife, even a real sickly one, could complicate matters.
    Gil wanted to know how many were living there before he