The Autopsy: Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea by Michael Shea

Author:Michael Shea [Shea, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781614983842
Publisher: Hippocampus Press
Published: 2022-11-15T17:00:00+00:00

Guy, standing back from the window a ways in the shadows of his living room, trained his field glasses down on the coffee shop across the street. There at a sidewalk table, yet again, sat Kathleen’s ex, gazing up at his window.

He’d had a chance to study good old Monk’s face for several days now. At first he’d just seen jealousy in it, that odd vacillation between anger and fear that he had grown acquainted with in other men. But now he’d begun seeing something odd in the man’s look, a kind of objectivity, a musing quality there, as if the guy were weighing options. It was the look of a man who was trying to figure out how to do something he’d already decided to do.

And this was very interesting indeed.

Guy’s gift for reading eyes was key to his success with women. When younger, he’d been amazed at how flagrantly people’s faces declared their thoughts and feelings. It had taken him some time to realize that most people didn’t see nearly so much in others’ faces as he did. He remembered this dawning on him in his teens: that compared to him, most people lived in glass houses with all their motives on display.

Quite interesting. Look at the man’s expression: just a hint there of self-awe, as if he couldn’t quite believe his own thoughts or intentions. The man—gazing up at Guy’s window—was trying to get his mind around something he hadn’t contemplated before. The anxious fixity of his eyes, as if he sought to focus something almost too far off to see … it suddenly recalled to Guy his own gaze lingering in a similar way, weighing the sublime act of murder, determining for this or that prospect if it could be pulled off, gauging the optimum moment and manner of its execution.

My goodness! Could that be it? Was this man thinking of killing him?

Now here, by God, was a fascinating possibility.

Fascinating in what it implied. Many people, including discarded lovers, “wanted to kill someone” now and again, but that fleeting impulse never frightened them, because they never really believed they were going to do it.

But this Monk down here—awed and uneasy—was plainly convinced that he would. And what that meant, inescapably, was that the man knew that Guy himself was a killer—knew that Kathleen’s life was in imminent danger.

How on earth could he know that?

Guy set about brewing himself a nice pot of dark roast. This was a solemn and an exciting moment. He had never doubted the perfection of his methods. Time had proven the absolute untraceability of the nine murders he had performed in the last seven years. Not one of them could be known to this man, or to anyone at all. How could this plodder have found him out? A college instructor, a mild, bookish type …

He raised the binoculars to his eyes again—but it was no field of vision he beheld. Another pair of eyes met his, magnified eyes that filled his sight.

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