Crucifax Read Free Page A

eyes stretched open wide, still on the sky but seeing, for a heartbeat, his sister's warm smile. Guilt sliced through his chest like a just-sharpened razor.
    Then it was gone.
    The clouds were dark.
    A car horn honked as the traffic slowed for another red light.
    Jeff turned to see the Calvary Youth slowly moving about, picking up their scattered literature; one of the girls was on her knees, bent forward, her hands clasped before her face, rocking back and forth as she mumbled frantically into her hands. One of the pamphlets whispered over the cement and came to rest at Jeff's feet as the breeze gently backed off.
    "… Spirit is speaking to you through these young people, my friends," Bainbridge was saying, pointing to the girl with his Bible, "for a little child shall lead them, and if you ignore the Word…"
    Jeff looked at Mallory; she was still staring at the sky. Her mouth was open and her brow was creased, but it was more a look of wonder than a troubled frown.
    She whispered, "Did… you… see something?"
    Jeff looked up again. Nothing but clouds and darkness. A knot had tied itself in his stomach, and a dull ache was coming up in his head, like mud from the bottom of a stirred-up pond. His hands were trembling, and he wasn't sure why.
    The others were moving haltingly toward Tiny Naylor's; they took a few steps, stopped, looked up; Brad shook his head, Tina folded her arms across her breasts, Bobbi grumbled something, and they moved on.
    "No," Jeff said, his mouth dry. "I didn't see anything. Come on." He took her elbow and led her toward the restaurant.
    He suddenly felt as if he had lied to his sister. But he hadn't; there had been nothing to see. Nothing.
    And although it was a hot, damp night, he suddenly felt a chill….

Three

    A few minutes before Jeff Carr walked out of the Studio City Theater, his mother, Erin, was holding the head of a fat man between her hands, pressing her thumbs down hard on his eyes. His smiling mouth opened and closed when she tugged the string she'd threaded through the small hole in the top of his skull.
    The arms of his headless body dangled limply as she lifted it from the table and attached the head. Pushing her chair back, Erin stood and lifted the T-shaped handle to which the little man's strings were attached. She carried him to the full-length mirror on the broom closet door and lowered him until his feet touched the floor. Manipulating the strings with her fingertips, Erin made his arms move up and down, then close together in an embrace; smiling, she put him through a gentlemanly bow, a little of the old soft shoe, a belly-jiggling laugh—and his left eye popped off.
    "Shit!"
    Bending down, Erin plucked the staring eye from the carpet with thumb and forefinger and returned to the kitchen table with a sigh.
    She had been working on Mr. Spiropolous for days, and he had to be ready by noon tomorrow. First his jaw had been loose, then his head wouldn't nod. Next his belly didn't jiggle properly—now the eyes were popping off.
    Fine, she thought, so I'll be up awhile longer.
    She probably couldn't sleep anyway, hot as it was. Her temples were damp with perspiration, and her salmon-pink top, though light and sleeveless, was spotted here and there. She could only afford to run the air conditioner during the day, when the heat was at its worst. At night she opened the doors and windows and hoped for a breeze; mostly she got flies.
    Erin poured herself a glass of ice water and took it out on the patio.
    It wasn't a patio, really, just a small rectangular space, a folding chair, a waist-high wooden railing with a window box on it. But it was all the patio she needed.
    She touched the cold water glass to her forehead and rolled it back and forth. It left beads of cool moisture on her skin; she didn't wipe them off. Leaning back on the rail, she looked through the sliding screen door at the round and lifeless form of Mr. Spiropolous and smiled a little, pleased with the little man,