Live Girls Read Free Page A

Walt.” He turned an ear to the door.

    “And you'll find the flavor of fruit in every bite..."

    Benedek turned the doorknob. The door unlatched and opened a crack. A cold spot bloomed like a flower in Benedek's stomach. Doris seemed to have a new lock installed on the door every month and she never left them unlatched, even so early in the day.

    After a moment of hesitation, Benedek pushed open the door and stepped inside. From the doorway, he could see half of the television set in the living room at the end of the short hall. Before the television he saw two feet in furry white slippers, two bare legs lying very still, and around them splashes of reddish brown on the creamy carpet.

    “Oh God, Doris?” he called, nearly a shout, as he rushed down the hall, leaving the door open behind him. When he rounded the corner, he saw his sister lying face-up on the floor. Her blood was dark and crusty on the carpet around her.

    Benedek's palm slapped over his mouth as he retched, then swallowed and gasped several times to keep from vomiting. He staggered forward and got down on one knee beside his sister's body. Then the other knee. Then one hand. He reached the other hand out to touch her, but couldn't.

    “Oh, dear Jesus, sis? Sissy?” he croaked.

    Her robe was open and her nightgown — silk, dark blue, very matronly — was torn nearly all the way down the front exposing her flesh, which was now marble white. Her mouse-brown hair was tangled and stringy with blood. Her eyes and mouth were open wide. So was her throat. The flesh had been torn open, clearly exposing blood, gristle, and her trachea. It looked like a garden hose that had been chewed in two by a dog. Her flesh had been torn open all the way down to her chest and pinkish-white bone showed through the drying blood. Her hands were the worst. The fingers of one hand were tangled in the tendons that ran along her neck and the fingers of the other were clutching her left clavicle, like a choking man trying to pull away the tight collar of his shirt.

    “Oh, Christ, sis...” His tears fell freely onto her body and his big shoulders shuddered with quiet sobs. He sat up suddenly, scrambled to his feet, gasping, “Janice!” He said the name softly at first, then roared "Jaaah-nice!" as he bounded across the living room and into the kitchen.

    There was a single streak of blood on the door of the white refrigerator. Through the kitchen, Benedek could see into the dining room where his niece was sitting up against the wall by an overturned chair. With a pained, rumbling groan, Benedek hurried to the girl's side.

    “Please, God...” he hissed as he knelt beside her.

    She was wearing blue jeans and her legs were sprawled on the floor before her, feet bare. The plaid shirt she'd been wearing had been ripped off and lay half in her lap, half on the floor. Her arms were limp at her sides, hands palm up. She was naked from the waist up and part of her left breast had been torn away and was dangling from her chest. Her head hung at a sharp angle to her right and her long silky blond hair —“ the stuff angels’ wings are made of,” Benedek used to tell her when she was little — hid her face and tangled in the yawning hole that was once a smooth and graceful throat. Her blood was splashed in dark designs on the beige wall behind her.

    Benedek pushed himself away from the dead girl, moving crablike over the floor. He bumped into one of the stools at the bar that separated the kitchen and the dining room and the stool fell. Benedek leaned against the bar, pressed his back against it hard as he clutched his face with his big hands and sobbed into his palms. He realized that he was breathing in small bursts and he tried to take deep breaths and think.

    “Okay,” he said soothingly to himself, “oooookay."

    Without looking at the corpse against the wall, Benedek stood, crossed the dining room, and went to the doorway that opened onto the hall.

    “Vernon?” he