Pulped by Hallinan Timothy

Author:Hallinan, Timothy
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 0-9828302-6-2
Publisher: Hallinan Consulting LLC
Published: 2017-06-08T16:00:00+00:00

24

Custard-Yellow Suit

THE FOG HAD MADE A reappearance, heavier, whiter, ropier, and wetter than before. I stalked up the hill feeling like I was trying to bat my way through clotheslines sagging with damp sheets, wishing I could burn a tunnel through the white with the heat of anger.

God knew I was mad enough. Years and years of paralyzing boredom vaporized in a flare of fury and fear.

One thing the designers of this place hadn’t stinted on was fragrance. The moisture floating in the air released the sharp, treble scent of sage. I passed a big star anise bush and grabbed a blossom, crushing it between my fingers and inhaling the black smell of licorice, strong enough to be intoxicating.

A fragrant flower in one hand, a heavy Glock in the other, I scuffed my way up the hill, making as much noise as possible.

And at the center of my chest, I felt the heart-catch of Madison’s fear.

Lobelia had dropped in, looking worried about me, with a bag of brownies and some kind of hyper-fragrant tea. She’d found me staring out the window at the hawk-shaped hole in the sky, still dark and sharp-edged. Then, as Madison’s panic reached across the distance to squeeze me, the first twists of fog made their appearance, long, trailing tendrils untangling themselves over the chaparral.

And somewhere down there, I knew that things were going wrong.

Lobelia had barely put the brownies down and uncapped the dreadful tea when I turned her around and pushed her out the door again, sent her to go get the only people who might be able to help.

Just a minute or two after she left, I heard voices from the hilltop.

I hadn’t had the gun in my hand for a long, long time. It felt good, it felt as natural and as direct as a clenched fist. It almost made me feel real again. I pressed the hand gripping the gun tightly against my leg, as though I thought something might emerge at my side from the fog to snatch it away.

I wouldn’t say I was hoping to kill someone, but the fact that I wouldn’t say it didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

I hadn’t killed many people in the books, and when I had, it hadn’t been an experience I’d been eager to repeat. But right then, with things going wrong for me up here, and something terrifying Madison down there, killing someone seemed like it might be… therapeutic.

The wind took a swipe at me at the top of the hill, sending the fog skidding from right to left. The area up there is about the same size as the construction pad that holds my house, which means I had about thirty feet to the rear of the lot, with a sheer drop-off beyond that, and roughly seventy feet in front of me, to the cliff that falls twenty feet to the parking area in front of my shack. The unbuilt pad stretched about sixty-five feet from left to right, and I was on the right edge, at least the way I was facing.

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