The Changing (The Biergarten Series) by Wright T. M.; Armstrong F. W

Author:Wright, T. M.; Armstrong, F. W. [Wright, T. M.; Armstrong, F. W.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Macabre Ink Digital
Published: 2011-02-11T05:00:00+00:00

Share your secrets, Greta. Bring them out, into the light, for me. Then, together, we can make them right and good.

Greta crumpled the letter in her fist and cursed savagely beneath her breath, just as Linda Bowerman appeared from inside the house, her little two-wheel grocery cart in hand.

"Come to the store with me, Greta?" she asked. Greta shook her head, eyes closed.

"Can I get you anything, then? It's no problem."

Again Greta shook her head; she opened her eyes, looked at Linda. "No, thank you. I don't need anything."

Linda shrugged. "Okay, suit yourself." She descended the porch steps, looked back, waved, and said, "See you later."

"Sure," Greta called back, and went sullenly up to her apartment.

~*~

It was simply furnished, because she was a woman of simple tastes. In her move from Erie, Pennsylvania, she'd either discarded or given to the Salvation Army a number of things that she and her estranged husband had shared and that he had—with unusual magnanimity, she thought at the time—let her keep. Things like a portable stereo, a ten-year-old color TV, two cherry end tables, a super-8-min movie camera and projector, which they'd used quite a lot during the first year of their marriage, and several boxes of essentially useless odds and ends.

She'd had to acquire a number of things when she'd moved to Rochester and settled into her apartment on Fairview Heights: furniture, cooking utensils, a bed. She bought them all in one day, using her savings to buy only the best, if not the best-looking, stuff she could find. Form, she believed, followed function; if something looked nice but didn't work, what good was it?

She also read quite a lot, and had built quite an impressive library. Her tastes were eclectic; the only sort of books she didn't read were modern romances. She read historicals, westerns and spy thrillers, horror, poetry, mainstream fiction, psychological fiction, self-help, and current events. She had all of the Arthur Conan Doyle books, all of Stephen King, Robert Ludlum, John Updike, T. M. Wright, Shirley Jackson, Richard Brautigan, Paula Fox, and Peter S. Beagle, to name a few of her favorite authors. And she read every night.

Tonight she would not read. Tonight she would spend her evening hours agonizing, in vain, over the "goddamned, cowardly bastard"—as she thought of him—who was writing her these anonymous, sophomorically philosophical, and weirdly accusative letters. Why, if he knew her awful secret, didn't he simply share it with her personally? That would be better. That would be better for both of them. Her anxiety followed her to bed and then into sleep.

~ * ~

The following morning, Saturday, May 3, was warm, dry, and cloudless, and Ryerson Biergarten thought there were places he'd rather be than trying to pump a possible murder suspect; the psychic effort always left him weary.

With Creosote tucked snorting under his arm, he knocked firmly on the massive oak door—there was a window in the middle of it covered by a sheer curtain—at 8 Fairview Heights, saw a doorbell, used it.

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