Wolf at the Door: a Novel by John Yount

Author:John Yount
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497669734
Publisher: Open Road Media

Chapter Ten

When he turned to leave the terminal, people watched him. The two girls behind the Eastern Airlines desk, official-looking in their smart uniforms, kept their eyes on his face as he passed. He felt distractedly flattered by it. But in the next moment he caught a short, middle-aged woman, with a sleepy child hanging on each arm, looking at him the same way, and immediately he saw that a man having his shoes shined was watching him too. They were looking at him as if he were horribly disfigured, or as if they could see into his heart—see the death that snuggled in its chambers. He half expected to see them shrink from him. A family of four, standing among their suitcases and talking, suddenly grew quiet; and in unison they watched him pass. And he realized they were not so much afraid of him as afraid for him; they looked as if they were watching a blind man who, confidently waving his white cane, was about to step in the path of a truck. In the glass door to the outside the reflection of his face loomed up as pallid and shining as the moon, and when he stepped through it into the cold, he realized his face was streaming wet.

It was a long way back, and the lights of the city were bleared; headlights and streetlights and neon colors smeared before him in confusion. Miraculously, he collided with none of them. He seemed to have spent a long time and covered much distance before he finally pulled to the curb in front of the apartment. He sat appalled with the idea of entering its empty rooms, but that was a part of it, a necessary part of the catharsis, and he forced himself to get out of the car and climb the stairs. The silence of the apartment was deep, and it took the very last of his strength. He got out of his coat and fell across the bed. With his eyes closed, he saw Maggie’s thin, vulnerable back retreating across the airstrip and her ankles turning slightly, childishly, in her high heels. His body seemed to soak up fatigue from the bed like a sponge; his limbs grew heavy with it. His thoughts derailed, and he slept.

When he woke in the morning it was as if he woke to a dream—dreaming that Maggie was gone, that he’d reached into his chest and ripped her out, and he was alone. But it wasn’t a dream. The bed was empty of her. The apartment was empty of her, and there was no sound except the sounds he made of breathing, of the sweep of his limbs against the sheets, and they seemed unnaturally prolonged.

“Now,” he said and licked his lips. “Now! How long will I give you to live?” The thought sent a shudder of pleasure through him. He felt powerful and free. To choose the extent of his life and the moment of his death was a wonderful thing, ordered and clean.

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