Waltz of Shadows by Joe R. Lansdale, Mark A. Nelson Read Free Book Online Page B

as I felt, I didn’t believe anyone was in the house. It seemed obvious to me they had come in by springing the back door, and had brought Dave inside and killed him in the kitchen, which gave me an idea about what I’d find in the bedroom.
    I touched the bedroom door and eased it open, stood in the doorway looking at an image in the corner of my dresser mirror. The image of a naked body standing very still. Or I thought it was standing. Another look showed it was hanging from a chinning bar I kept mounted between the frame of my doorless closet. It was a woman.
    Her legs weren’t touching the floor. They seemed to be cut off at the knee.
    I took in a breath and caught the fading odor of Cobra Man and another odor I didn’t like. I went in, looking in the direction of the reflection.
    It was Carrie. Her legs had been pulled up and tied behind her and there was a coat hanger twisted around her neck and there were great strips of hair missing from her bloody scalp. The hair had been ripped out, and the tool for the ripping, a pair of pliers from my kitchen drawer, lay on the floor beneath her. Coat hangers had been taken out of the closet, straightened and inserted into her mouth at the edges of a cloth gag, and into her ears, nostrils, the corners of her eyes, her ass and vagina. Her face was spattered with blood. Her legs were coated with shit.
    Out of the corner of my eye I saw something behind the open bedroom door. I looked. Sitting naked, against the wall, hands pulled behind his back, was Bob. He had a wet spot between his legs and his dick and balls hung out of his mouth. He had a startled expression on his face, as if he couldn’t believe how things had turned out.
    I turned around slowly, not wanting to, having some idea of what I would find, and what I expected was there.
    Sharon was on the bed, spread-eagled, ankles and wrists tied up in strips of sheet and fastened to the bed post. Her eyes were wide open and her pink panties were stuffed in her mouth. She had a bullet hole between her eyes. The pillow her head rested on was dark with blood. Her breasts and belly were covered with blue-black spots. Her pubic thatch was no longer blond. It was rich with blood. There was a car battery on the floor and a pair of jumper cables and a pan of water with a wet towel beside it.
    That explained the spots on her body. She had been touched up with water and the bastards had fastened the cables to her and given her the juice. At the foot of the bed, between her legs, was an empty soda pop bottle covered in blood, the Polaroid camera Fat Boy had worn around his neck, and an open book—the photo album I showed you.
    I went over to see if Sharon might be alive, not that I thought she might be, but I had to know. I touched her neck. No pulse. She was still warm. She must have been the last, and that meant they hadn’t been gone long. A few minutes, I reckoned.
    I picked up the book. It was open to the last page. The top two pictures were of Doc’s wife. They were like all the others you’ve seen. One of her alive, one of her dead. I knew then that the scream we’d heard when we were standing outside of Doc’s house had been her.
    Below that, same way, pictures of the Disaster Club, ending with Sharon. But why? And why had they left the camera and the book on the bed? And why had they brought the Disaster Club back here to do them in? What was the deal?
    I closed the photo album and put it in my jacket pocket. I don’t know why exactly, but I did.
    I looked at Sharon again and got sick.
    I left out of there and went out on the back porch for some air. I heard something then, turned and looked through the screen, across the living room and down the hall, out the open front door.
    A police car, not using its cherries or siren, pulled off the little street and up against my front yard curbing. I saw another come from the opposite direction and park across the street. A door slammed and I saw a cop coming around his car,