The Coldest War by Ian Tregillis Read Free Book Online

neighborhood.
    Marsh considered finishing with the tomatoes before going inside, but rejected the idea. John had to eat.
    The house was quiet, but for the simmering of a pot Liv had prepared: barley soup with peas, carrots, and a bit of beef. Marsh filled a bowl, grabbed a towel, and went upstairs. The stairs creaked. John launched into a new round of keening.
    John’s room was down a short hallway from the bedroom his parents ostensibly shared. Marsh fished out the key ring with one hand while balancing the bowl in the other. Four keys hung from the ring. John paused when Marsh scratched the first key into the first lock. Marsh noticed a puddle beneath the door when he worked his way to the final and lowest lock.
    He braced himself before turning the last bolt. Sometimes John ran, blind and mindless. But his son didn’t rush the door. Shards of crockery splintered beneath the soles of Marsh’s work boots when he entered. John had flung a bowl of soup across the room.
    The room stank. The door behind Marsh was splattered with brown stains. John had flung other things at Liv, too. No wonder she’d left for the day.
    Marsh turned on the light. Every wall had been covered with calico, and stuffed with carpet scraps, horsehair, and newspaper. Homemade soundproofing, the best Marsh could manage. In places, where the insulation was torn, he could glimpse the original robin’s egg blue walls. The paint was a holdover from those last giddy days, when they’d done up the nursery in the final weeks of Liv’s pregnancy. Before they’d taken John home from the hospital; before they’d discovered something wrong with their son.
    That was the doctors’ term. Wrong. Because they didn’t know what else to call it.
    Everything he’d done, everything they’d endured, all for naught. Ruined by a fluke of fate.
    Yellowing placards lined the walls near the ceiling, displaying the letters of the alphabet. Those were leftovers from the period before they realized the extent of the problem, when Liv had thought she might be able to homeschool their son.
    John himself huddled in his usual corner, naked. They’d given up trying to clothe him after he’d grown large enough to overpower Liv. He clenched his knees to his chest, rocking sideways and knocking his head against the wall with a steady, monotonous rhythm. That was another reason for the padding. John could do that for hours, even days, unless somebody moved him.
    â€œIt’s me, son,” said Marsh. “Your father.”
    Sometimes—on good days—John paused in his rocking, ever so briefly, when Marsh entered. A token acknowledgment, a hint of connection. But not today. John kept batting his head against the wall without interruption. Marsh had recently replaced the padding there.
    â€œI brought something to eat.”
    Pat, pat, pat, pat, pat.
    Marsh hunkered down next to John, cross-legged, ignoring the protests from his knee. John’s rocking wafted the scent of his unwashed body at his father; he smelled faintly of sour milk. It took two people to bathe him, but Marsh and Liv rarely stayed in the same room together.
    â€œI see you gave your mum some trouble today. You shouldn’t be so difficult to her.”
    Pat, pat, pat, pat.
    â€œShe loves you as much as I do.”
    Pat, pat, pat.
    Marsh sighed. “Let’s get some food in you, son.” He laid his hand on John’s shoulder.
    John rolled his head toward Marsh, turning a pair of colorless eyes at him. It always unnerved Marsh when he did that, just as much as it cut him with slivers of irrational hope. He knew those eyes were sightless, equally devoid of function as of warmth.
    John sniffed the air. He leaned toward Marsh, snuffling with a machine gun burst of quick, sharp inhalations. Marsh held his free hand toward John’s face, so that his son could get the scent. Then he did the same with the soup.
    John’s mouth fell open.