If Souls Can Sleep (The Soul Sleep Cycle Book 1) by David Michael Williams

Author:David Michael Williams [Williams, David Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: One Million Words, LLC
Published: 2018-01-29T22:00:00+00:00

***

Vincent opened his eyes and groaned. A sliver of yellow light pierced the blessed darkness of his room through the gap between his door and the floor. He heard a woman’s voice. He heard his name.

I’m not ready to be Vincent again…just five more minutes, Mom…

He rolled over. Whiskey splashed onto his neck, spilling from the bottle he forgot he was holding. Confident that the bottle had ended up in a more-or-less upright position, he buried his face into his pillow and tried to pass out again.

The three knocks battered Vincent’s brain like shotgun blasts.

“Go away,” he said, but the pillow swallowed the words. He turned his head, belched, and repeated, “Go away!”

“Dude, I think you should hear this message,” Jerry called through the door.

Half rolling, half stumbling out of bed, Vincent gave the f-word more syllables than it had any right to. He kept one hand on the wall to steady himself as he dragged himself to the door. The other hand still clutched the whiskey bottle.

Vincent opened the door and swore again when the searing light from the living forced him to squint. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry to bug you, but this sounded like it might be serious.” Jerry went to the answering machine and pressed a button.

A mechanical voice said, “Message one, 5:37 p.m., Saturday…”

What time is it now? How long was I out?

“Hey, Vincent. It’s Leah. I wanted to check in…again…and, well, I’m probably overreacting, but I just had a very strange conversation. I was trying to reach a professor who has done research on various sleep phenomena, but a man named Boden called back. He was fishing for information. I didn’t tell him anything about you, but…I don’t know…he gave me the creeps. I don’t think it’s anything to worry about…just…be careful, I guess. Anyway, I’m on my way to this family thing, but I’ll have my phone. Please give me a call when you get this.”

The answering machine beeped and went silent.

Leah’s words bounced around inside Vincent’s head, but he couldn’t concentrate on any of them long enough to come up with any kind of meaning.

“Is everything OK, man?”

Vincent saw Jerry look at the whiskey bottle and took a long, defiant gulp. The gesture was undermined, however, by the fury of coughs that followed.

“Just peachy, Jerry.” Cough. “Never better.”

Jerry frowned. Vincent smiled.

“Dude, I’m getting kind of worried about you.”

“Heh, join the club,” Vincent laughed. “My mom can be president, and Bella is the vice—”

Bella!

Vincent lurched forward and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught himself on the desk. Jerry stepped forward to help him, but something in Vincent’s expression must have made him change his mind because he quickly backed off.

“You son of a bitch,” Vincent spat. “You left the door open again. Today. This morning. And Bella came in. I came home, and my goddamned wife was lying on the couch because you don’t know how to use a fucking key!”

Jerry wore a look of absolute astonishment on his stupid face.

“Don’t you have enough

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