FEAST OF THE FEAR Read Free Page A

she called. No one else gave a damn. Everyone was afraid of her. Can you believe that? A beautiful woman like her. The women all hated her, yeah, including my wife, because she was so beautiful, and the men all wanted her. She wouldn’t spit in any of their faces, so they made up stories about her. Said she was a whore, and a witch, because she used to read peoples fortunes and some of her predictions didn’t turn out so good.”
    “ You mean she was wrong?”
    “ No! Jesus, no! She was right! Don’t you see? She could see right through these pathetic fools in this pathetic town and they couldn’t stand it. And she saw other things, too . . . the murders and all, you remember the murders, don’t you, Mitch, when you were a kid? All the talk around that she was the one causing ’em, and some even wanted to burn her at the stake. But she wasn’t to blame. Christ, she only saw things, she didn’t do ’em. So help me, if anyone had ever laid a hand on Elizabeth Redlon I would have killed the bastards! Help me God, I would have. Even though I grew up here and knew these people, I would have killed anyone that touched her.” Al stopped. His face was vivid with rage and he was puffing asthmatically through noisy airways.
    “ Why didn’t you take her in after your wife died, Al?”
    Al flapped a contemptuous hand. “I would have in a minute, Mitch, but she didn’t love me . Christ, I’m a junk man, and she was a goddess. After she fell down the cellar stairs and lost the use of her legs, I came by every day, though, just like this morning, and did things for her, stuff she couldn’t do for herself. And I did love her, and I know she knew it, even though neither of us ever spoke of it. For me it was just enough to be around her. But you can’t understand that, can you, Mitch. When you got old enough you bailed out leaving her to fend for herself.” Al was staring accusingly at Mitch.
    “ God damn it, Al, my childhood was one long fucking nightmare. I had to leave. You know that.” Mitch turned, facing the ramshackle house that had once been his home. “What happened to me in that house, Al? If anybody knows, you do. I could never get Ma to talk to me rationally about it. About the nightmares and the things I saw. The murders you were just talking about. I saw them all, Al. And they were real. How is that possible, Al? How is it possible that a little kid saw such terrible things in his nightmares?” Mitch suddenly yanked the hem of his shirt out of his trousers, lifting it, showing Al the ugly scar that ran the entire length of his right torso. “This has something to do with it, Al. What is it? Do you know? If you do, for God sakes tell me. It’s been there for as long as I can remember and nobody has ever explained to me where it came from!”
    Al’s entire body seemed to deflate inward all at once. His face went ashen. He turned and began walking away from Mitch, shaking his head. Mitch went after him, grabbing his arm and pulling him around. “You do know, don’t you?”
    “ Your mom was no ordinary woman, Mitch. She was exotic and beautiful, and she had this kind of magnetism. When she first came to Eden, everybody felt it, and most were drawn to her and this place. Some became her friends, and some used her. They came every day in the beginning; two and three at a time, like followers of some . . . cult, to get their fortunes read and hear about their futures. But when they started to realize it wasn’t a game, that your mom could actually read the future, and some of the things she read came true and weren’t very pleasant, that’s when they turned against her. You see, people don’t really want to know the truth about themselves. They only want to hear the good stuff, never the truth.”
    “ Al, I know all that. For Christ’s sake I had to live with her. What I don’t know is what it all has to do with this.” Mitch pointed again at his right side. “And what about the murders? “Who did