The Devil's Alphabet by Daryl Gregory Read Free Book Online

drapes closed. “Your buddies inside?”
    The chub regained his grin. “Nosirree, Cuz. Just me. Hey, you feelin’ any better today? Or a lot worse?”
    “Fine, thanks.” Pax looked back at the house. “So.”
    “Yeah?”
    “You can leave now.”
    “Nah, that’s okay.”
    Pax stared at him. “Listen, you can’t just sit here in my dad’s driveway.”
    “Well I been doing it all night. Where you been, anyway? I was here from eight o’clock on.”
    Pax straightened. This kid had been staking out the place all night? What must Harlan have thought? “Listen, I’m going inside and I’m calling the cops.”
    “Aw, come on now, you can’t do that to family.” He smiled. “Aunt Rhonda says we’re cousins. Your momma was a Pritchard, and her granddaddy was my daddy’s granddaddy’s brother.” He worked a stubby pinky into his ear. “Or great-granddaddy.”
    “What’s your name?”
    “Clete Pritchard.”
    Pax didn’t remember any kid named Clete. He would have been six or seven years old when Pax left.
    “Well listen, Cuz,” Pax said. “You got about two minutes before the cops get here.”
    “Uh-huh. I’ll be waiting for ’em right here, then.”
    Pax wheeled away from the kid before he really did punch him. He strode back to his car, and behind him the music started again. Pax retrieved the plastic grocery bags from the backseat and carried them up to the front porch.
    The door was unlocked. Pax went inside without looking back and closed the door behind him. He could hear the
whump, whump, whump
of the Camry’s bass. Clete wasn’t going anywhere.
    Pax walked into the living room. His father wasn’t on the living room couch, but the ripe smell still filled the air.
    “Dad?”
    He walked down the hallway. His father’s bedroom door was closed, but the bathroom door hung open. The room had been renovated: the old toilet had been replaced by one with a huge seat like a car tire; sturdy metal handrails had been fastened to the walls on each side of it.
    Pax heard the clatter of something metal. He backtracked to the front door, then made his way to the kitchen.
    His father sat wide-legged on a chair nearly swallowed by his huge body, a comb in one hand and scissors in the other. He wore the same robe as before, but his hair was wet. A hand mirror lay on the table, and there were long chunks of black hair scattered over the table and floor.
    After seeing his father yesterday Pax would have thought he was too big to move on his own, much less walk to the kitchen and wash his hair. And now he seemed even larger. The skin of his face, baggy before, stretched tight over his cheeks and forehead. The blisters on his face were shiny and pink.
    His father blinked at him. “I thought I made you up.”
    “No such luck,” Pax said.
    “Here,” his father said. He worked the scissors from his fat fingers. “I can’t see the back of my head.”
    “I don’t know how to cut hair.”
    “It’s just hair, Paxton,” his father said. He shoved the scissors toward him. “Snip snip.”
    Pax set the grocery bags on the table. He took the scissors by the blades. “There’s a guy”—he almost said chub—“sitting out front in his car, watching the house. He said his name is Clete Pritchard.”
    His father grunted.
    “Did you call the police?” Pax asked.
    “Paxton, that’s one of Rhonda’s boys. He
is
the police.”
    “What’s he doing out there? He can’t just … sit there.”
    “You going to cut my hair or not?”
    Pax stepped behind him, and his father bent his head. Up close, the damp black hair was shot with gray. His father didn’t have to do this. Surely he could find somebody in town or in Lambert who could come in and cut hair.
    His father grunted impatiently.
    Pax wiped the handle of the scissors on his jeans and picked up the black plastic Ace comb. He smoothed the hair over the rolls of fat at his father’s neck, careful not to scrape the necklace of small white blisters just above