Scowler by Daniel Kraus

Author:Daniel Kraus
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780307980878
Publisher: Delacorte
Published: 2013-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

2 HRS., 11 MINS. AFTER IMPACT

Ry swung into the dining room. Marvin and Jo Beth crowded there, faces broadcasting their fear that Ry might shout for help, because who had any idea what might happen after that. Five heavy raps upon the door—and then a silence in which none of them moved or breathed.

Then of course came more knocks, harder this time, and six of them; Ry now had an idea of what being shot felt like. People did not make idle sojourns to the Burke farm—it was on the way to nowhere—so this visitor had some good reason to be there, and knowing how farms operated the visitor might amble around back to hunt for them in the barns or fields. They had to face this right now.

“Anybody home?” boomed the voice. “You folks there?”

Phinny—oh, Christ, it was Phinny. Ry’s heart skipped and he gaped at his mother, guilt and heroism swirling in his throat, and she transferred his paralyzed appeal to Marvin. He bit his lip with such force that beard hairs shot outward like quills. He made a motion at his wife with the shotgun.

“Answer it,” he whispered. “Get him out of here.”

Jo Beth looked at her husband as if he had asked her to host an impromptu dinner party. Her eyes pleaded but he kept white-knuckling the gun, and the way the old parts rattled, agitating the loaded shell, made everyone nervous. Seconds, swollen with fear, dripping with torture, ticked by. At last Jo Beth moved her head in loose circles; maybe it was a nod, though it looked more like her neck had snapped.

She moved toward the door as if reeled by fish line. Marvin snatched a fistful of Ry’s shirt and pulled him against the dining room wall so that the two of them hid only a few feet from the front door, mere inches from Phinny’s view, the muzzle of the shotgun pushed into the back of Ry’s skull. There was a noise behind them, and both of them twisted their necks to see Sarah standing slack-jawed, the damp cloth draping from her forgotten injury. She might talk, she might scream—Marvin opened his mouth to deliver a warning but there was no time.

Locks snickered open and the door mewled like a cat.

“Why, Phinny.” Ry winced; the why was too much. He heard the rusted springs of the screen door push wide. “Good morning. Or is it later than that already?”

“You know you got live wires out here?”

Phinny was livid. As gregarious as the man was, he had no patience for incompetence, and the front yard writhing with downed wires had set him on edge. Ry pressed his eyes shut and told himself to stay quiet, stay quiet, stay quiet.

“Yes,” Jo Beth said. “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Lightning hit that thing? Sweet Jesus. Dangerous as hell. You’re keeping that girl of yours away?”

“I am. And I’ll call the phone company and get them to take care of it.”

“You’ll call them? With what?”

“With the …” Jo

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