Hole: A Ghost Story by Rod Redux

Author:Rod Redux [Redux, Rod]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Cobra E-books
Published: 2011-04-01T04:30:00+00:00

15.

He was checking his cell phone when the headlights of Steve’s Kia splashed across the bay window and the lawn out past the back patio. Thirty-seven missed calls, Hank noted with a grimace. He didn’t think he’d ever had so many calls in such a short space of time. Two were from his mother, one from Travis, and one from his cousin Billy Joe, the Elvis impersonator. The other thirty-three were from Penny. Nine from the Dutch Bakery, twenty-four from her cell phone. Surely she’d heard about Mary by now. Couldn’t she give him a day or two to attend to his wife?

Then Steve was pulling in and Hank shut his phone off.

He’d deal with Penny later.

He heard the patio door open. Steve slipped inside and padded quickly across the kitchen, headed toward the guest bedroom.

“You’re back,” Hank called. Steve hadn’t seen him standing in the dining room.

He heard Steve pause in the den, then call back, “Yeah… I’m back.”

Hank came around through the living room, but Steve had already hurried on down the hallway. Before Hank could say anything else, Steve shut the door of the guest bedroom.

Guess he’s tired, Hank thought with a frown.

He was a little disappointed. He was hoping for some conversation. That’s when, for no particular reason, he remembered the name of the song Mary liked, the one he wanted to play at her service, and he walked down the hall to tell his brother-in-law he’d remembered it, excited.

Hank and Mary had always had an open-door policy in their marriage, so Hank pushed through into the guest bedroom without thinking.

Steve was standing with his back to the door. He’d just pulled off his shirt and was naked from the midriff up.

“Jesus Christ!” Hank exclaimed.

Steve wheeled toward him, startled. His flesh, from the waistband of his jeans up, was mottled with bruises. It looked like someone had tried to draw a map of the world on his torso with brass knuckles. Steve tried to cover the injuries by crossing his narrow arms, but it was too late. Hank had already seen them.

“Did Dean do that?” Hank demanded.

“No!” Steve answered quickly. It was such an obvious lie that Steve’s cheeks grew red and splotchy.

“Bullshit!” Hank hissed. “Tell me what happened, right now.”

Steve hesitated, then dropped his arms to his sides.

He was a skinny fellow, all ribs and stringy muscle, and he had one of those sunken chests. What was it called? Cobbler’s chest, or something like that. He didn’t look Hank in the eyes, just stood with his head hanging down, his bangs obscuring his face, while his brother-in-law ogled his bruises.

They were fresh-- purple and swollen and rimmed in red. There were three or four on his belly and the left side of his ribs, then two more on the right side of his chest. His back was similarly discolored. There was a red mark just above his elbows, as if someone had grasped his arms too tightly, and his right cheekbone was a little red and swollen, too, though it wasn’t bruised.

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