Books Of Blood II by Barker Clive

Author:Barker, Clive [Barker, Clive]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fantasy, Horror, Collections
ISBN: 0425087395
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1984-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Books of Blood II

Aaron’s face was thrust into the stinking crotch of his father’s jeans.

“Yes, sir.”

“He stays with me, woman. You’re not taking him out into that fucking shack one more time. He stays with his father.”

The skirmish was lost and Lucy knew it. If she pressed the point any further, she only put the child at further risk.

“If you harm him —”

“I’m his father, woman,” Eugene grinned. “What, do you think I’d hurt my own flesh and blood?”

The boy was locked to his father’s hips in a position that was scarcely short of obscene. But Lucy knew her husband: and he was close to an outburst that would be uncontrollable. She no longer cared for herself— she’d had her joys — but the boy was so vulnerable.

“Get out of our sight, woman, why don’t you? The boy and I want to be alone, don’t we?”

Eugene dragged Aaron’s face from his crotch and sneered down at his pale face.

“Don’t we?”

“Yes, Papa.”

“Yes, Papa. Oh yes indeed, Papa.”

Lucy left the house and retired into the cool darkness of the shack, where she prayed for Aaron, named after the brother of Moses. Aaron, whose name meant “exalted one”; she wondered how long he could survive the brutalities the future would provide.

The boy was stripped now. He stood white in front of his father. He wasn’t afraid. The whipping that would be meted out to him would pain him, but this was not true fear.

“You’re sickly, lad,” said Eugene, running a huge hand over his son’s abdomen. “Weak and sickly like a runty hog. If I was a farmer, and you were a hog, boy, you know what I’d do?”

Again, he took the boy by the hair. The other hand, between the legs.

“You know what I’d do, boy?”

“No, Papa. What would you do?”

The scored hand slid up over Aaron’s body while his father made a slitting sound.

“Why, I’d cut you up and feed you to the rest of the litter. Nothing a hog likes better to eat, than hog-meat. How’d you like that?”

“No, Papa.”

“You wouldn’t like that?”

“No thank you, Papa.”

Eugene’s face hardened.

“Well I’d like to see that, Aaron. I’d like to see what you’d do if I was to open you up and have a look inside you.”

There was a new violence in his father’s games, which Aaron couldn’t understand: new threats, new intimacy. Uncomfortable as he was the boy knew the real fear was felt not by him but by his father; fear was Eugene’s birthright, just as it was Aaron’s to watch, and wait, and suffer, until the moment came. He knew (without understanding how or why), that he would be an instrument in the destruction of his father. Maybe more than an instrument.

Anger erupted in Eugene. He stared at the boy, his brown fists clenched so tight that the knuckles burned white. The boy was his ruin, somehow; he’d killed the good life they’d lived before he was born, as surely as if he’d shot his parents dead. Scarcely thinking of what he was doing, Eugene’s hands closed around the back of the boy’s frail neck.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.