The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [130]
He flashed the thin light across each one, momentarily studying the complete strangers displayed in each frame and portrait, one by one, with an occasional glance beside and behind him in wary alertness for any sign of Salvatia --who disappeared since his entrance-- or for anyone stirred from slumber by his presence or by the urge for a midnight snack.
The immediacy of his situation left him with little time to peruse the way he preferred. He came across a snapshot of a dark-skinned black-haired man sporting a beer belly and a foot-long fish upon a boat at sea. Another was a portrait of a light-toned woman, probably in her early forties, with long brown hair and fleshy cheeks, flashing a stiffened smile and wearing a black evening dress before a generic backdrop of autumn leaves. Another portrait was of the two together, the previous man this time a bit older and more the woman’s age, in a wedding photograph.
The next picture Simon came across was that of a boy, autumn leaves backdrop and everything, smiling whimsically and seated casually upon a stool.
Simon gasped; the boy appeared young, about seven or eight years old. And he looked exactly like Simon did, when he was that age. Same boyish features, same brown hair even cut to nearly the same length and parted to the right, brown eyes and painted-thin eyebrows, rounded face and chin, straight pool-stick tip rounded nose....
Before Simon could turn away, his penlight veered to yet another photograph, a photograph nestled dead center and prominent upon the fireplace mantle.
The photograph was of two infant babes, side by side and against one another, heads touching, in button-up white bedtime knits decked in blue rocking horses, nested wide-eyed and lying face-up at the camera against an enormous white pillow.
And they were very nearly a mirror image of each other.
That was why Salvatia had bothered to tell Simon at the start that this Andrew was his brother, this brother he was to kill.
It was true.
And Simon would have found this to be true, eventually.
He was confronted again by the feeling that he’d been here before, but this time the feeling was more profound, followed by a thought, perhaps, an awareness....
He had lived here before.
If this was the case, that his mother and brother had resided here since he was an infant and ever since...since whatever conflicting circumstances separated him from this house...they had remained here in anticipation of his return.
That was silly. They would’ve considered him dead by now.
Yet here he was.
He returned.
To kill them.
His attentions were riveted from the fireplace mantle when he heard the screams and he turned to the vast living room darkness before him, his penlight poised. He moved rapidly past the furniture towards the entrance of the hallway. From there, he didn’t know which way to turn, for the screams had silenced.
Standing within the hallway, his penlight flashed within the darkness upon an upright metal wall heater and upon one, two, three, four opened doors.
He entered the opened door to his left. As he did, a commotion emitted from the hall behind him from one of the other rooms, followed by a deep bellowing gasp, a brisk ka-thump as though something struck against a wall, then the sound of shattering glass abrupt enough to be, perhaps, the toppling of a vase or some other fragile structure.
Simon pivoted from the yawning entranceway of the first room, swung back, then turned back again to the disturbance, which suddenly silenced. He was panicked, unsure of himself or where to