Free Strangers by Mort Castle Page B

you hear about some stupid old drunk taking a flop in the bathroom and fracturing his skill. Sure looks like that’s what happened to you, pal.”
    Brad’s left leg jerked.
    “Next time, you watch your step, hear?” Michael said.
    Zeller’s arms flapped. He kicked out, the final actions ordered by his ruined brain. Then the electro-chemical processes of his mind ceased. His chest rose and fell, and deep in his throat, there was the sound of water slipping through a sluggish drain.
    “No need to get up, pal. I’ll show myself out,” Michael Louden said to the dead man—and he left.
     
    — | — | —
     

SIX
     
     
    MARCY AND Kim had their eggs, scrambled, and, as usual, Kim considered mealtime “time to talk.” If she was at all upset about the killing of the neighbor’s dog, she showed no sign of it. Instead, she had so much to tell her mother and father about camp. Camp PineTop was “Neat!” a “real blast;” it was “such a fun place!”
    The children were not yet dressed for the day. Kim, to Michael’s right at the kitchen table, was wearing her Star Wars pajamas; Marcy, across from her, had on Swiss dot shorties. While Kim rattled on and on… so then the canoe tipped over and everyone was screaming but I wasn’t afraid” Marcy fastidiously sliced her sausage’ links, her elbows off the table, her manners as refined as those of a child of the British Royal Family.
    At the stove, Beth, in her housecoat, slipped the edge of the spatula under Michael’s over-easy eggs and put them on a plate. Last night had brought a touch of terror to her life that she did not fully comprehend. Only Michael’s assurances and his arms about her in bed, as well as the brandy Michael insisted she drink, had enabled her to get to sleep.
    But now, this morning, Beth thought the kitchen had the golden-good feel of bright sunshine and she was working hard to convince herself that what had happened yesterday was…
    No, not impossible, but certainly the too horrid, too awful occurrence that brushes by you only once in a lifetime. Someone—some inhuman monster—had killed Brad Zeller’s dog. That was true, a reality. She would come to accept it, eventually, even if she never understood it. But it had to be the one inexplicable horror that filled the quota for the Louden family— That’s it, The End, thankyou—verymuch !— and now it was time to get on with living their normal life.
    “Here you are,” Beth said brightly, placing Michael’s eggs and sausages in front of him. Returning from Zeller’s last evening, Michael had said that Brad was in a bad way, as could be expected. They’d have to keep an eye on him; that was all they could do.
    “Thanks,” Michael said. “Looks great. This is the kind of breakfast that makes you think morning is a fine time to start the day!”
    Primly raising a bite of egg to her mouth, Marcy giggled at his comment. Kim said, “Oh, Dad! That’s stale! Morning’s when you got to start the day!”
    “Oh,” Michael said, “live and learn. I never realized that.”
    A moment later, Beth had her own breakfast and was seated opposite Michael at the other end of the table. Now , she thought, here we all are and everything is as right as it can be and there’s nothing to worry about, nothing to…
    … nothing to dread…
    She was ashamed of herself, an adult, preyed on by those vague and unformed terrors of children, waking them, shrieking, in the thick of night, with a cold, spider-crawl fearfulness that cannot be appeased even by the warm safety of MomandDad’s bed.
    Beth sipped her steaming coffee. The dog’s death—Funny, she did not want to think of the dog as Dusty—that would make it worse…
    The—dog—was dead for no reason, no reason…
    No! Not now. She would not allow herself to descend into a nail-biting, mind-whirling worry about this-and-that…and-everything. Oh, there was reason to be careful—real reason— and wasn’t there always— butshe wasn’t