Nebulon Horror Read Free

say. I'm not a doctor."
    "It can't be too bad. She's just a little girl."
    They both looked again at Jerri, and the child sat there staring down at her hands. The hands, Melanie thought, that just a short while ago had made a horror of Vin Otto's face.
    "Jerri," Olive said.
    The child looked at her.
    "You love Vin?"
    Jerri nodded. Tears glistened in her blue eyes and the little bow-shaped mouth trembled.
    Olive seemed satisfied. "All right. It's time you went to bed. Go on now." When the youngster obediently slid from her chair, she herself stood up and turned toward the kitchen. "I'll make us some coffee," she said to Melanie over her shoulder.
    It was quiet in the apartment then. The child undressed in the bedroom she shared with her mother, went to the bathroom, returned to the bedroom, and shut the door. In the kitchen the kettle came to a boil and whistled for a second, and Olive made small noises as she mixed two cups of instant coffee. In the living room Melanie sat on the sofa and took up a Pink Swan restaurant menu from a lamp table, glancing at it without interest. The Pink Swan was where Olive worked as a waitress every day but Sunday.
    Bringing the cups of coffee from the kitchen; Olive handed one to Melanie and went across the room with the other and sat down. She was pale, Melanie noticed. Her hands shook so that her cup jiggled on its saucer. "I should have known it wouldn't last," she suddenly said.
    "How do you mean?"
    "With Vin and I. For the first time in my life I’ve been happy. You know? I was never happy with Hayden, even when we were just goin' steady in high school. I always had a scary feelin' about him. But Vin was different. With him I never felt scared. Now this."
    "I'm wondering," Melanie said.
    "What?"
    "If possibly Jerri was asleep, lulled by the music, and had a dream that someone was touching her. If she didn't just wake up and react without knowing what she was doing."
    Olive pondered the suggestion and seemed about to say something but suddenly reached out, put her coffee cup on a table, and slumped back in her chair with a heavy sigh. Her eyes closed. The silence that filled the room lasted a moment or two, and then was disturbed by the sound of a key turning in the door. The door opened. Vin Otto walked in followed by Keith Wilding.
    Olive opened her eyes. Opened them wide and struggled to her feet. "Oh my God!" she whispered.
    "Do not be upset now." Vin put his arms around her. "It is not so bad as it looks."
    She pushed herself out of his embrace and stepped back and gazed at him. From his forehead to just above his mouth, his face was bandaged, with openings left for eyes and nostrils. Above and below the strips of bandage she could see the tops and bottoms of the gouges made by her daughter's fingers. "Oh, Vin!" she cried.
    "I said it is all right. There is nothing to be alarmed about. The doctor says I may remove these bandages in the morning." He reached for her hand and held it, staring at her through the bandage slits as though desperately anxious to know what she was thinking. "How is Jerri?"
    "She's in bed."
    "Has she said anything more about what happened?"
    "She doesn't remember what happened, Vin."
    He seemed relieved. "Then she is all right? Whatever it was, she is over it?"
    "I hope to God."
    "Good, then. Look, Olive. I will drop Keith and Mel off at the park on my way home; their car is still there." Vin never stayed overnight at the Jansen apartment. His old-world parents had brought him up to believe one didn't sleep with a woman unless married to her. "Good night, sweetheart." He drew her gently into his arms again. "I will come by tomorrow after work."
    "You won't be working tomorrow, you big ox," Keith said.
    "But I will. We have that citrus to bud, remember?"
    Keith looked at Melanie with a shake of his head that said, "What can you do with a guy like that?" Good nights were said to Olive, and the three of them departed.
    Olive sat and finished her coffee, then went