Red - Jack Ketchum [28]
He turned to face his mom all hot and bothered standing on the porch with his sister.
“I was just trying to see if she was okay.”
“That what you want me to tell your father? Get over here. Right now.”
Hell, it was a disappointment anyhow. He’d gotten off the bus and made record time up the driveway to the fruit cellar but once he got there he found that the door was hung too true against its frame to provide a spot to see through. What he needed was a knothole or something. There wasn‘t one.
He stood up and snagged his shoulder-bag and trudged to the house.
His sister bit an arm off a headless cookie.
“Want a little man?”
She offered him one. His mother was still glowering at him with her arms folded across her chest like some guy in the military but his sister seemed pretty much oblivious to that. He took the cookie, placed it flat in the palm of his hand and gave it a karate chop with the other.
“Hey,” said Darlin’, “you’re supposed to eat the head first!”
“Not me. I chop ‘em. Thanks, sis.”
He walked past them through the screen door his mom held open for him and headed upstairs to his room.
Not a bad cookie. He bit off a leg and chewed.
~ * ~
They were headed home in the Escalade and as usual her father was on the cell phone.
“Hell, Dean, I hated to have to write a check that cost me a good neighbor but if someone had to, glad to be of service. Sure. Sure. Think nothing of it. I’d be happy to help you through one of those bottles but I’ve got a family thing at home tonight. ‘Nother time, right? Good man. Okay, I’ll be talking to you. See ya, Dean.”
He snapped the phone shut.
Her father looked very pleased with himself, she thought. She didn’t need to know why.
He reached into his coat pocket and took out a pack of Winstons and his lighter. Shook one free and lit up. Smoke drifted her way.
“Dad? Could you not? I mean, I don’t think it’s good…”
He shot her a look. But then hit the console button and rolled down the window and flicked the damn thing out. She’d won that one at least.
“Better?” he said.
“Better.”
~ * ~
When Brian saw them pull in he was off the porch before they got the car doors open, wearing his most ingratiating smile. Peg would see through it. Dad wouldn’t. And it was Dad he needed to please just in case his mother mentioned that fruit cellar shit.
As ever the past few years since he turned thirteen, Dad offered his hand. He looked to be in a real good mood. Excellent. They shook hands.
“Don’t forget the dogs,” he said to Peg. They were already barking.
“It’s Brian’s turn.”
She moved past them toward the porch. She didn’t look to be in a real good mood. Tough shit.
“Brian?”
“On it!” he said.
What he thought was, fucking dogs.
He walked to the barn and slid open the door and the dogs set to barking like he was some fucking ax murderer come to chop the shit out of them. The dogs didn’t like Brian any more than he liked them — they weren’t so nuts about his father either as a matter of fact. Particularly Agnes, the mother, who would get so worked up she’d take a nip out of George and Lily, born of her own litter. The other two dogs gave her plenty of personal space. Just like they were doing now. They just stood off together to one side of the cage, her on the other, in front of the doghouse, making one hell of a racket, barking and growling.
“Oh shut up, assholes!”
But they weren’t about to.
He was supposed to hose down the food bowls and the water bowls outside the cage but nobody was going to notice if he didn’t. So instead what he did was he grabbed the hose off its hook. They were afraid of that. They backed off a little when he opened the cage door. He pointed the nozzle at them like he was going to use it on them and they backed off further. He squirted some water into each of the water dishes and then picked up the food dishes and shut the cage door and filled them with kibble and brought them back inside.
He set down the dish in front of the doghouse and Agnes growled and then had the balls to actually snap at him. Once. He pointed the hose at her.