Red - Jack Ketchum [36]
This is awful.
Her father cuts away the rag at her hips and the woman is naked. Wholly naked for the first time and she glances at the thicket between her thighs but it’s only a glance. It’s her face that compels her. She does not see vulnerability in that face. She’s not sure what she sees. Only that the woman is looking directly into her eyes now and Peg is amazed at herself because she’s able to meet and hold that gaze which is at once predatory as a hunting bird’s yet open as a child’s.
The woman’s nose twitches.
Her eyes move down Peg’s body. To her belly.
To the mound of her belly invisible beneath the hoodie.
Impossibly, softly, she says, “bah-bee.”
Peg flinches.
There’s the urge to just goddamn run. To just get the hell out of there. Yet she’s aware that this is not an accusation, not a confrontation, nothing like that. This is not like Miss Raton today. This is something else entirely. Did she mishear it or imagine it or was there pleasure in her voice? Who and what is this woman?
Nobody else seems to even have noticed. Her father’s walking slowly around her, inspecting her. Her mother is watching her father.
She can read her mother’s expression.
Not good.
The woman’s eyes are still fixed on her belly.
She’s almost grateful when her father holds out the woman’s filthy rag to her.
“Take that out to the burn barrel,” he says. “Torch it, then come on back.”
“Yes.” she says. “Okay, I will.”
~ * ~
Cleek looks to his wife, who is frowning, her arms crossed over her chest, hugging the dress.
“You got something on your mind, Belle?”
“Do we really need Peg down here? She’s sixteen.”
“You think she doesn’t get an eyeful in the girls’ locker room?”
“That’s different. Those are girls. This is a…”
“Woman. Yes, I know. I’m aware of that. Hey Belle?”
“Yes?”
“Do me a favor and leave this to me, okay?”
He thinks, always in my face. If it’s not one thing it’s a goddamn ‘nother.
He puts on the work gloves and checks the old rusty drain in the floor. It’s clear. He picks up the spray wand. He turns on the pressure washer and pulls the trigger.
Cold soapy water blasts the woman in a sixty-five degree arc all up and down her body. It buffets her flesh like a wind-whipped flag. He’s never seen anything quite like it before except in those movies where some guy’s being subjected to g-force acceleration. She’s closed her eyes against it and closed her mouth against it and she’s tossing her head side to side. When it hits her chafed bloody wrist she opens her mouth and screams.
He lets go of the trigger.
He turns to his wife and smiles. Or sort of half-turns. Because he‘s sporting an erection you‘d have to be dead to miss. He wasn’t aware of it but Belle’s stepped back nearly all the way to the stairs. She almost returns the smile, she takes a shot at it, but not quite.
“Let’s see how we did,” he says.
The woman is shaking her head and sputtering out the white film of water that slides down her body from head to toe. He has a look.
“Not bad,” he says. “Need to get her back though. And then for some of this, need to get in closer.”
~ * ~
Brian’s throwing free throws when Peg walks back from the burn barrel. Darlin’s trying to rebound for him. Which means chasing a ball she can barely get her arms around. Brian’s tolerating this.
They all hear the woman scream and it stops them dead. Darlin’s brow furrows like it does when she’s puzzled. Peg’s brother only smiles at her.
“I always miss out on the good stuff,” he says.
“That’s the good stuff? What the fuck is wrong with you, Brian? Jesus!”
She trudges back toward the cellar.
“Peg said a bad word,” she hears her sister say behind her.
Which one? she thinks. Fuck or jesus?
In the cellar she’s immediately aware of two things. First, her mother has moved so far away from this she’s practically on the steps. She’s clutching at the dress so hard her knuckles are white. Second, her father has moved in close, he’s only a few feet away now and the water is