Free An Incidental Reckoning by Greg Walker Page B

this meant for him, what he should do. Because he had to do something. This had been given to him. Perhaps he had to confront Brody; even fight him if necessary, whatever the exorcism required. If he stood up to him now, it could negate all that had come before. He could go back to Michelle whole. He could even tell her then, what he had done, so she would know who her man was.
     
    Of course, he had other problems. He had slept with one of the caterer’s staff at a sales conference a year ago. He had chosen his career over her and his son at countless junctures, but had shrugged off their disappointment and anger, imagined the expressions of contentment once he had finally made it. To fix it all, he had to go back to the start, right the greatest wrong and then move up the line from there.
     
    It wasn’t hard to find Stape. He came back to live in the house his parents had occupied during high school. Will had been there before, as a high school sophomore, watching from the woods on a bluff that surrounded the place, looking out over the cornfield for his tormentor, imagining a wild attack, blood and freedom. On the few occasions that he did glimpse Brody, he balled up his fists and dared himself to do…something. But he never took the dare, slipped away back to his bicycle hidden in the trees and then on home to stare at the ceiling in his room and ponder the meaning of the word coward.
     
    He had felt like that kid again, at first, when driving past after Brody’s release from prison. The Mustang sat in the driveway, but it was early evening and no lights burned in the house. After his third pass, he slowed and then stopped, pulling about a hundred yards away to the side of the country lane on which he had seen no cars at all in the half hour he had used it. He put his flashers on, in case someone stopped or came out of the house and so could claim car trouble. He found the rocks in the soft dirt at the edge of the cornfield that the road bisected, taking the largest two that he could find and carry.
     
    His palms sweated, and he found it hard to breathe as he walked towards the house, passing over the abstract designs of tar drizzled onto the road to fill potholes, listening for the bark of a dog or the bang of a door.
     
    The corn ran almost up to the end of the driveway on this side, with just a thin strip of lawn as a buffer. He stepped into the last row and took deep breaths, felt the sweat bloom beneath his shirt, wondered what he, a nearly middle-aged man, was doing here but the boy inside with unfinished business knew only too well. It was nearly dusk, the details and colors of the daylight fading into shapes and shades of gray. He took one more breath, blew it out, and stepped into the yard. He stood still, watching the house, listening for any other sound than the hum of a distant lawnmower rushing to beat the darkness and the mixed languages of insects. A slight breeze rippled through the cornstalks and produced a scratching sound that grew to a crescendo and then ebbed away.
     
    Will ran, throwing away all caution, and heaved the first stone like a shot-put through the back window, creating a hole where it passed through with a curtain of shattered glass sagging into the vehicle in orbit. He ran to the front of the car, let out a whoop and launched the second stone through the windshield. His now empty hands twitched, demanding to engage in more destruction and he returned to the cornfield, found a rock nearly the size of his own head and hauled it up, stumbling to the Mustang, forcing it even higher until he could bring it down on the hood with some expectation of damage. The bang and screech of metal brought him up short. He had forgotten to watch the house or the road, and now he stood still again, slowly scanning everything within his field of vision.
     
    He saw no one, but fear had settled in and Will quickly walked back into the corn and then down the row to the road. He returned to his car