Weird Horror 4 by Michael Kelly

Author:Michael Kelly [Kelly, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Undertow Publications
Published: 2022-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

~

I watch some TV—a documentary about Hemingway. It’s probably excellent but I doze for a while twenty minutes in and then can’t really pick up the thread. I’ve never read any Hemingway. I feel as though I should but I’ve never quite got around to it. What I do gather from the program is that he was a prick. Talented though. I’m confident that I have the prick part nailed down; the talent bit is proving more elusive. I let the wave of self-pity have its way with me—it’s addictive and oddly pleasurable after all—then make my bed on the sofa and fall asleep.

The voice that wakes me is light and familiar. “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

I sit upright, cricking my neck. “Holly. Jesus Christ.” There’s little light and I can sense rather than see her. “What are you doing?”

“The front door was open.”

“That’s not an answer. I mean, what the actual fuck?” I struggle into a sitting position. The air is fetid and my mouth tastes foul.

“You’re not a bastard. It’s not your fault that I am … how I am.” I’m getting used to the light now and I can see Holly’s outline. She’s knelt on the floor, close to the sofa, her head angled towards me. I claw my way through the outrage and disorientation and try to formulate a response. I become aware of the rankness of my scent and breath. “You did abandon me, though, Dan. You just did.”

“I know, Holly. I know.”

“But the weight…well, that was Mum. She was always on at me about it, ever since I was little.”

“It was never…”

“I know.” Her voice had become soft but it sharpens now as she cuts me off. “I know, Dan. I guess I wasn’t quite enough, that’s the long and short of it. And I can’t blame you for that, can I? Not really.”

“Look …” I feel her hand, cool against my forearm, stilling me.

“She called me a fat cow. Can you believe that?” Actually I can. “Said I’d never get a man looking like I did. Said that was why you left. So it was something, wasn’t it? Something I could control. A way of shutting her up.”

“Okay,” I say slowly. I stand and flick on a lamp. It’s a little after five. Holly blinks up at me. She’s wearing the same clothes as earlier. “I’m sorry. For everything. Really. But you can’t do this. You can’t just …”

“I thought you needed to know. It wasn’t your fault.”

“So it was your mum’s …”

She cuts me off again as she stands. “No. I’m slim because of her. I suppose I should thank her, really.”

“Then what the…”

“It’s your brother, Dan. He’s the bastard.” Her head flicks from side to side as she surveys the wreckage of this awful room.

A chill forms inside me. “My brother’s dead, Holly.”

“Well, I know that,” she says as she faces me. She’s too close again and her smile is too wide. “I’m not silly.”

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