The Chair by James L. Rubart Read Free Book Online Page B

A lot more.
    He stood, stepped out of his chute, and squinted up at the others floating down.
    “Whooooohooooooo!” Tori’s scream echoed off the canyon walls. Then Krystal’s, then the rest of them.
    Corin grinned. Another good time enjoyed by the crazies he called friends.
    TORI’S FOLDED ARMS and scowl complemented her silence nicely, but after half an hour of it Corin was through. “I’m tired of getting a blast of freezing air from your left shoulder. Do you mind turning up the heat?”
    “Very clever.”
    “Are you going to tell me what you’re ticked off about?”
    Tori pulled her feet off the dashboard of Corin’s truck and turned in her seat, keeping her arms locked to her chest. “I know we’ve only been dating for three months, but I’ve grown to like you a lot in that time.”
    “Me too. What’s your point?”
    “You almost killed yourself today.”
    “No I didn’t.”
    “Do you want me to call the other six witnesses to the stand who let out a collective gasp as they watched you this morning?”
    “They actually gasped?” Corin grinned. “Cool.”
    “It’s not funny, Corin.”
    “I think you’re overreacting.” He flicked on his headlights for safety and pulled on his right ear. “I was fine.”
    “What is it with you?” Tori turned back and stared out the passenger window. “You want to kill yourself? Do you have some death wish you haven’t told me about?”
    “No.”
    “Then what were you doing out there?”
    What could he tell her? There was always the truth. Might as well.
    “I honestly don’t know.” He gripped the steering wheel hard.
    But I need to find out.



CHAPTER 10
    C orin pulled up the Internet early on Monday morning to get his local news fix as he chowed on a sausage-egg-and-cheese English-muffin sandwich. The weather would be decent for the next few days. Nice. And the Broncos won again. Amazing. The temperature in hell must be dropping.
    He was about to click to a new page when a headline made his finger freeze.
    Boy Cured of Asthma. Family Says Miracle.
    That’s what his new pal Brittan could use. Corin clicked on the story, took a sip of his chai green tea, and started reading.
    Colorado Springs—A young boy in our city has lived with severe asthma every day for nearly seven years. No more. His parents say something extraordinary happened to him four days ago. They claim it is nothing less than divine intervention. Last Thursday evening, when they went to give their son his daily asthma medicine, young Brittan Gibson . . .
    “What?” Corin lurched forward splashing green tea on his table and his English muffin. He snatched a napkin and dabbed at the spill and kept reading.
    . . . said he didn’t need it, that his asthma was gone. At first they didn’t believe him, but after he insisted he show them what he meant, they gave in and allowed him to give a convincing demonstration.
    The story was cut in two by a still of a video. Corin clicked on the Play button, and a few seconds later he was watching video of the front yard of a middle-class home with a freshly cut lawn and a white minivan in the driveway.
    The next shot was of a young boy.
    Corin leaned in and stared at his computer screen. No question. It was the kid from his store.
    “Just like he did for our cameras, Brittan Gibson ran the length of his yard back and forth for his parents. He was winded, yes, but nothing more than what any healthy young boy would experience after sprinting around his front yard.”
    Corin rested the side of his face in the palm of his hand and glanced at a picture of the chair he’d tacked to the bulletin board in his kitchen.
    The reporter said, “His doctor confirms Brittan did indeed have severe asthma and is at a loss to explain how or why the asthma vanished.”
    The video cut to the doctor.
    “Sometimes asthma will slowly leave children in their late teens or early twenties. I’ve never seen a case like this, but I suppose it’s possible for it to leave