Something Stirs by Charles L. Grant

Author:Charles L. Grant [Grant, Charles L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, occult
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2015-10-25T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

An old-fashioned room, more suited to the house than the people who lived there: carpet fringed and darkly floral, wallpaper a trellis of rose vines with large leaves, small chandelier teardrop crystal with a brass globe in its center, oval mirror, china closet, sideboard, dining room table large enough to seat four, or would be if half hadn’t been covered by textbooks, notebooks, legal pads, a mug with pens and pencils, a portable electric typewriter.

Scott leaned over his history book, not at all enthralled by the economic background of the Civil War, grunting silently as he tried to wedge charts and maps and the facts they represented into memory for tomorrow’s test. He’d been trying to study since getting home and couldn’t hold his concentration. Opposite him, his mother, chewing on a pencil eraser, the pencil itself flopping side to side, flipped pages of a much larger text, swearing and grunting herself. He watched without raising his head, his hair a veil he didn’t bother to lift. Blowing up only fluttered it; swiping at it was futile.

“Sheepdog,” she said.

“Huh?”

She smiled and leaned back, stretched her arms over her head. “Get a haircut. You look like a sheepdog.”

A draft fluttered across the back of his neck. He didn’t bother to check for an open window. It was the house. Every inch of it could have been sealed, the house itself buried under tons of mud and rock, and the draft would be there, summer and winter. But only for those who sat in this chair.

“When I was your age, boys had to prove they had ears.” He curled a lip—ha ha very funny—and closed his book, rubbed his eyes, yawned so widely his jaw popped twice. “I quit.”

“Do you know it?”

“If I don’t know it now, I never will.”

“You want me to quiz you?”

As he shoved the book aside he shook his head and reached for the newspaper.

“Scott,” she said, “you’ve read that a hundred times tonight.”

His knuckle lightly rapped the story of Slap’s death. “I just can’t believe it, that’s all.” He scanned the three short paragraphs; there was, again, nothing new. “I didn’t think he was that dumb.” Another rap, harder. “He knew better, Mom.”

“Maybe he was drunk.”

Wearily: “No. He didn’t hardly drink. He wasn’t a wino, Mom. He just … I don’t know … he just lived on the streets.”

There was no evidence of belief in her expression, nor was there inclination to argue. Just a tolerant half-smile that told him not to bother trying to convince her. Suddenly he remembered Mr. Relbeth’s remark, and stared more closely at her—hair as fair as his and longer, a rounded face with heavy lips and eyes a spring sky; when she stretched again, letting the pencil fall to the table, he had to look away to avoid noticing her figure. It embarrassed him. She was almost sexy.

“Mom, how come you never married again?”

He gasped and sat back. God, he hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t even known he’d been thinking it.

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