Free Bottled Abyss by Benjamin Kane Ethridge Page A

before, if she didn’t yearn for the sickness all over again.
    She didn’t know the rewards back when she was younger. A good drink could send you to a hazy place, make you forget how cold it was by warming you down to your soul, and in the aftermath of a binge, the suffering made moral sense. It was payment, wasn’t it? You can’t have something so joyous for nothing. Janet even began to look forward to throwing up and breaking out in cold sweats and even the hammering headaches. It made her feel terrible, which was what she deserved to feel every day until her miserable body quit.
    Here it was, a year after the murder, and she couldn’t resolve any of the guilt for insisting on taking Melody to that “award winning” daycare.
    Guilt was easy though. The anecdote to the pain was fast at hand.
    That is, until Faye started roaming around the kitchen with a trash bag, stuffing bottles of whiskey and vodka into its great black hole of a mouth.
    Janet rubbed the raw feeling in her forehead. It hurt to talk after having tubes down her throat but this was worth it. “What are you doing, Faye?”
    “Cold turkey, babe.” Faye stooped near an open cupboard. She pulled out a bottle of cooking sherry, looked at it for a moment, then stashed it. “You made it out of the hospital and you’re never going back. Evan and I, and Herman, we’re all going to help you get better. I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner. I wanted to give you time, you know,” a sampler of Jim Beam struck the other bottles inside the bag, making Janet flinch, “and I think that was a big mistake. I should have been a better friend.”
    “It was an accident. I forgot how much I drank earlier that night. I thought I could handle it. I won’t drink like that ever again. I’m not a drunk. You know that.”
    Faye stood and the bag made her sway from its weight. “Any hiding places?”
    Janet rolled her eyes. “Go ahead and search this house if you like. I’m going to feed Lester and then I’m going to damn sleep.”
    “Great idea.” Faye marched off on her mission, trash bag wagging on the carpet behind her.
    “Fuck,” Janet breathed, heading for the laundry room. As if I even need hiding places with Herman always gone.
    She grabbed a can of dog food from the cupboard over the washing machine. As she pulled off the lid, the metallic rasp, followed by the rich odor gave her a nauseating chill and another charcoal burp surfaced in the back of her throat. She smacked her dry lips together. Water would be a nice, but it could make her throw up again too.
    Janet opened the back door and was surprised Lester didn’t nearly knock her down as usual. Across the yard, she saw the Border Collie in the threshold of his doghouse, but though his ears were at attention and his eyes were bright and keen, he didn’t move.
    “Les, come and get it.” She shook out the gravy laden meat chunks into the crusty dish. It needed to be cleaned, like everything else in this house, but she didn’t have the energy, and Herman wasn’t home.
    He still wasn’t.
    His wife could be as cold as a popsicle in the morgue and he wouldn’t have even known. Then again, after all she’d put him through, could she really blame him?
    “Lester.” She suddenly reconnected to the moment. “Lester, get your butt over here and eat!”
    The dog didn’t move.
    She wasn’t in the mood for this, and was about to go back inside, when something between the dog’s paws caught her attention. It wasn’t a stick. He’d found some sort of bottle out here. A jerk-off kid probably tossed it over the fence.
    “There’s real food over here. Come on boy,” she said, patting her leg.
    Lester started panting.
    “What have you found there, you weirdo?”
    Janet crossed the yard and stopped a few feet from the dog house. Lester moved his paws inward and growled, his gaze turned down in warning. She’d raised him since a puppy and had never heard him growl.
    “Lester!” She stomped her foot.