Jack_ Secret Vengeance - F. Paul Wilson [53]
A heartbeat later he heard his father say, “I swear, Jane, we must be getting senile.”
“I know,” she said. “How could we forget?”
Jack watched their feet walk by the bed.
“Well, in our defense, we made the date weeks ago.”
“Yes, but I’ve had it written big as day on the calendar. And I always look at the calendar. How could I have missed it?”
“We’re not late yet. There’s still time.”
Time for what? Jack wondered as he lay on his belly, barely breathing.
He watched his father kick off his shoes, saw his slacks hit the floor. He could see his mother’s feet stepping out of her dress.
What were they undressing for?
His father’s feet approached his mother’s. They stood toe to toe.
“Hey,” he heard him say softly. “Jack’s gone.” He heard a kiss. “Why don’t we—?”
“We don’t have time for that.”
Jack’s stomach clenched. They weren’t talking about sex, were they? No-no-no!
“We’ve got time enough.” Another kiss. “And if we’re a little late, the Gillilands can simply warm up a little longer.”
The Gillilands—his folks played tennis with them now and then.
And they were talking about sex! This couldn’t be happening. His parents didn’t still have sex, did they? They couldn’t! Hell, Dad was fifty-three! They were too old!
Tennis! Jack thought, trying for mental telepathy. Play tennis! You don’t want to be late for tennis!
“Tom…”
The feet disappeared from view as a weight settled on the bed.
NO-NO-NO-NO-NO! This cannot be happening!
“How often do we have the house to ourselves like this, hmmm?”
“Jack might come home any minute.”
“But he probably won’t, and he certainly won’t run up here as soon as he comes in the door.”
Another kiss.
Jack covered his ears and squeezed his eyes shut. Oh, God, how long before the bed started bouncing? He gave up telepathy and tried for teleportation—anywhere. Anywhere in the world but here.
And then Jack sensed some of the weight leave the bed. He opened his eyes and uncovered his ears. He saw his mother’s stockinged feet on the floor again.
Yes!
“Tom, really. Nice as it would be, I don’t want to spend the game feeling all, you know…”
He covered his ears again. He was not hearing this.
Finally his father’s feet reappeared.
Saved!
4
Finally they were gone.
He’d watched as stockings and dark socks were replaced by white socks and slipped into sneakers, and watched those two pairs of sneakers leave.
He waited for the sound of the car starting and rolling out the driveway, but it never came. Could be because he was under a bed. He decided to take no chances. He’d wait.
To kill the time, he looked at the sheets of paper that had fallen off the closet shelf. They were dusty and looked pretty old, like they’d been up there a long time.
One was an old photo, faded and creased. It showed a guy wearing a kilt, a fuzzy hat, and holding a rifle. He recognized his mom’s handwriting at the bottom: Uncle Joe. He vaguely recalled her mentioning him a couple of times. He looked like he should have been holding bagpipes instead of that old-fashioned rifle.
The rest were old bills, mostly from the time they remodeled the house. The last one caught his eye, though—a medical bill, and it had his father’s name on it. He knew he shouldn’t look, but also knew he couldn’t not look, so his hesitation lasted about ten seconds. Maybe less.
The letterhead said Kurt Welsch, M.D., and it was a bill for surgery performed on his father back in 1968. The procedure was listed as repair of spontaneous recanalization of right vas deferens post 1962 vasectomy.
Huh?
Jack had no idea what it meant but it sounded serious as all hell. He reread it twice but it still made no sense. Whatever it was, his father had survived it. The surgery had been fifteen years ago and he was still going strong.
Fifteen years … 1968 … he hadn’t been born yet.
He wriggled out from under the bed and paused, listening. No sound from the house. He crept