The Caretaker of Lorne Field by Dave Zeltserman

Author:Dave Zeltserman
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Horror, General, Literary, Suspense, Carnivorous plants, Horror fiction, Fiction, Monsters
ISBN: 9781590203033
Publisher: Overlook Press, The
Published: 2010-08-26T02:01:44.634123+00:00

Chapter 7

The next morning Jack Durkin was out of bed two hours earlier than usual. Keeping as quiet as he could, he snuck down to the kitchen, poured himself a bowl of cereal, made a cup of instant coffee and was out the door before Lydia woke up, or at least before she had a chance to come downstairs and nag at him. He was two-thirds done with his second pass of weeding when Wolcott and two town police officers, Bob Smith and Mark Griestein, approached the field. The three men walked up to him, and Wolcott told him he was under arrest for cutting off his son’s thumb.

“It’s a long hike back to the cruiser, Jack. I’m hoping I don’t have to put handcuffs on you. You’ll come along peacefully, won’t you?”

Durkin nodded. He looked from Wolcott to the other two men with him. Griestein’s face was a blank screen, his eyes shielded by mirrored sunglasses. Bob Smith, on the other hand, looked deeply worried. Durkin had finished his freshman year of high school before dropping out. During that year he played third base for his school’s varsity baseball team, while Bob Smith, a senior, played first. His coach thought Durkin had major league potential, and so did the scouts who came to watch him play. That was the reason he dropped out after one year; he didn’t want to hear about all the potential he had when his future was already set. But during that season him and Bob had been good friends.

“Okay, Jack,” Wolcott said, “you can leave the canvas sack where it is. Let’s go.”

The last thing Durkin wanted to do was give Wolcott any satisfaction, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying how an Aukowie chewed off Lester’s thumb and if his boy couldn’t remember what had happened it was because of his being in shock.

“Is that so?” Wolcott said. “One of these weeds bit it off, huh? It’s funny, to me they only look like weeds. Maybe godawful ugly ones, but still just weeds. How about you, Mark? These weeds look like they could bite off someone’s thumb?”

Griestein shook his head.

“How about you, Bob?” Wolcott asked. “You think they could do something like that?”

“Dan, let’s just do our job and get out of here.”

“One minute. I just want to see how hungry these man-eating weeds really are.” Wolcott walked over to a clump of two-inch Aukowies and lowered his hand towards them. Durkin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to watch what was going to happen. After several seconds of squeezing his eyes shut tight, he was surprised when he didn’t hear any screaming.

“Come on, Jack,” Wolcott said, “take a look for yourself and tell me why my fingers aren’t being bitten off.”

Jack Durkin opened his eyes. Wolcott’s fingers were right in the middle of the Aukowies. He could see their little faces as they smirked at him, and he understood.

They knew.

How?

Somehow they knew they could hurt him if they resisted their natural urges. That they could beat him this way.

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.