Free A Writer's Tale by Richard Laymon Page B

The squeak was as soft and steady as the ticking of its feet against the flaming metal. The fire sound almost smothered both. Then both stopped.
    The mouse lay on its side.
    Rich expected Allen to remark about the effectiveness of the warming process, for the grey animal no longer shivered. But Allen said nothing. The trio stood in a circle around the charcoal burner and stared at the corpse.
    Then Jimmy said, “It doesn’t even look burnt.”
    “Look how its fur is all stuck together,” Allen said. “Like it’s been in a river.”
    “Yeah, it just looks wet,” Rich said.
    “But it is dead.”
    “Must’ve been the smell of gas. Maybe it got exfixiated.”
    “Funny it isn’t burnt.”
    “Yeah.”
    Allen lifted it with two sticks and carried it to the edge of his lot and dropped it in the alley. “I gotta go in now.”
    “Me too,” Jimmy said.
    Rich walked home as fast as he could.
    Leaves whispered through the open window. He sat up in bed and leaned against the sill to look out. The leaves did not seem to move. Then a tiny patch of blackness floated downward. He saw it against the lighter darkness of the street and it disappeared when the street no longer lay behind it.
    Rich rose slowly, careful not to let the squeaking bed springs make too much noise. Then he tiptoed around the bed to the box. It looked white, though hidden in the shadow of Rich’s bed. He knelt beside it, opened his pajama shirt and touched the key. It was cool against his chest. He bent low over the box so that the key would reach the padlock without being removed from around his neck. He fitted it into the slot. He pushed it inward slowly, so that the sound would come as individual clicks, not as a quick loud rachet. With a hollow clack, the lock fell open. Rich removed the lock and opened the box and took something out and tiptoed to the window. There, in the dim moonlight, he stared at the picture. Darkness shadowed most of the detail. But Rich could see the man because of his white robe. He could also see white-coated sheep huddled around the man. He could not see the single sheep that the man held close because it was white like the robe.
    He wondered about the softness of the wool and about the warmth beneath the wool. A sheep is better than a dog, he thought.
    The breeze became a wind, a cold wind that knocked leaves out of the nearby treetops and sent them spinning sideways so that they flew a long distance before landing. They slipped from the trees in fleets. Few would be left by morning. Maybe it’ll snow, Rich thought. Then his face contorted. Maybe it’ll snow.
    He tiptoed toward his closet.
    “Time to rise and shine,” called Rich’s father. The boy blinked open his eyes. He stared at the white ceiling, not wanting to move because of the peace. Then he breathed in deeply to awaken his chest. Sitting up, he turned his head toward the closed window. Cloudy.
    Probably cold too. But there was no snow and a few leaves still hung from the high elm limbs.
    Rich swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood. He pulled on his plaid robe.
    Bending low so that his head felt sleepy again, he picked up a silver chain from the rug beside the locked box and slipped it over his hair.
    With one step, he was standing over the waste basket peering in. One plastic corner showed. A wadded sheet of paper quickly covered it. Now nobody would know. He went to breakfast.
    “Good morning, Richy,” his mother said.
    “Mornin’.”
    “What are you going to do today?” his father asked. “That is, after you finish sweeping the garage?”
    “Rake leaves?”
    “What do you have up your sleeve now?” the mother inquired.
    “Nothin’.”
    “We’ve had our final say about the dog,” she warned.
    “Martha! Let’s not start that again. It’s very nice, Rich, that you want to rake the leaves.
    That’ll be a big help.”
    Rich drank his orange juice. When he had finished breakfast, he hurried to his bedroom, shut the door and went to