The Bleeding Season by Greg F. Gifune Read Free Book Online

in his tone caught my attention, shifted it from the darkened den to the sound of his voice.  “ It ?”
    “The nightmare you can’t get out of your mind, that won’t leave you alone.”
    I could hear him crying, sobbing openly, and I knew he was not only drunk but utterly terrified.  “I’ve had a  nightmare.”
    “Did Bernard say goodbye to you in it?  Were those things  with him?”
    My grip tightened on the phone and my legs trembled so violently I thought I might collapse.  “How—How the hell do you know that?”
    “I’m scared, Alan.  Christ, I’m so fucking scared.”
    “ How  did you know that?”
    “They never said anything but I knew—I know —just like you, I know what it was all about.  They were taking him to Hell.  There’s more to this than we know.  Why were they taking him to Hell, Alan?  Why would they take Bernard to—”
    “Answer me, goddamn it!  How did you know!”
    Donald gagged and coughed.  “Because that’s the only difference between our nightmares,” he said in a near whisper.  “In mine, Bernard told me he’d been to see you first.”
    *   *   *
    I sped through the streets of town ignoring the black clouds perched overhead, the rain, and a level of darkness generally reserved for the dead of night.  My mind raced, my palms were moist with perspiration, and I felt an odd detachment, as if I were more a passive observer of the reality surrounding me than an active participant in it.
    Donald’s cottage was less than two miles from our apartment and located in a small settlement of mostly summer cabins nestled into a heavily wooded bluff overlooking the largest stretch of beach in town.  I turned onto the dirt road and followed it through the forest.  In summer, this corner of Potter’s Cove was bustling with campers and summer people, the cottages occupied, yards cluttered with lawn furniture and barbecues, people young and old following the dirt paths down to the beach while music played from boom boxes and car radios.  But the summer season was still a couple months away, and as the area only housed a handful of year-round residents, most cottages were boarded up and abandoned.  A seasonal ghost town of sorts, in dismal weather and at this time of year, it seemed a fitting location for recalling the past and exorcising the demons found there.    
    I pulled up in front of Donald’s cottage.  His old Volkswagen was parked in a narrow side driveway, and faint light bled through the sheer curtains in the front windows.
    The front door was open, so I gave a quick knock and let myself in, stepping directly into the living room.  It was modestly furnished and somewhat disheveled, and it hadn’t occurred to me until that moment just how long it had been since I’d visited Donald at home.  Magazines and paperbacks were strewn about, overflowing ashtrays, crumpled cigarette packs and empty vodka bottles littered most available coffee or end table space, and although the small kitchen at the rear of the cottage was clean, other than for the refrigerator, it was obviously seldom used.  The bathroom and bedroom constituted the remaining area.  Both were quiet and dark.
    A television in the corner was on but muted, which explained the sparse light, and in a recliner on the opposite side of the room Donald had collapsed in a drunken heap, an ashtray balanced precariously on his knee, an empty bottle of vodka on the floor just beyond his dangling hand.  His other hand still clutched the phone, which had since gone from dial tone to an annoying buzz.  I pulled it free and hung it up.  His eyelids fluttered a bit, then I noticed the cigarette he’d apparently been smoking when he’d nodded off had burned well into the filter and was still smoldering on the lip of the ashtray.  “Christ,” I sighed, butting it out, “one of these days you’re going to burn this place down with you in it.”
    His eyes opened, and he struggled to raise his head.