Nebulon Horror Read Free Page A

into the bedroom. There were two beds in the room. Her daughter was asleep in the small one, lying curled up with her hands clenched and an almost ferocious scowl on her face. She seemed to have achieved her present position only after much squirming. The top sheet was half on the floor, and the one she lay on was a mass of folds. Olive was drawing the top sheet back over her when the telephone rang.
    She glanced in surprise at the clock on the dresser. Someone calling her at quarter to twelve on a Sunday night? It must be a wrong number. Annoyed, she went back into the living room and took up the phone.
    "Hello?"
    "Olive? This is Elizabeth Peckham. I hope I haven't got you out of bed. It's not a nice time to be calling."
    "No, I wasn't in bed."
    "It's important, believe me, or I wouldn’t. Olive, you recall that business with the frog, how shocked we both were?"
    "Yes, of course," Olive said, feeling her insides tighten.
    "Well, naturally I've been trying ever since to find out why, and just a few minutes ago Teresa broke down and told me. The fact is, Jerri put her up to it. I think you ought to know."
    After seconds of silence Olive said faintly, "Jerri? My Jerri?"
    "You'd better have a good long talk with your daughter, don't you think, Olive? What we witnessed just isn't natural for healthy young children. Olive?"
    After an even longer silence Olive again said woodenly, "Yes, of course." Her hand mechanically lowered the phone to its cradle, trembling on it for a moment after putting it down. She turned away. She walked back into the bedroom and stood beside her daughter's bed, gazing down at the sleeper. Should she wake the child and question her? No, not after what had happened at the park. It would be too much for both of them.
    With Elizabeth Peckham's charge still shrilling in her head, she undressed and put on her nightgown. In bed she lay motionless on her back and gazed unblinkingly at the ceiling while remembering the incident involving the frog.
    Jerri Jansen's best friend, Teresa Crosser, was a child of tragedy. Seven years old now and living with a maiden aunt in a huge gray house behind the town library, the child had lost her father at the age of five when Ed Crosser drowned himself.
    Ed had gone to West Palm Beach in his pickup truck to buy merchandise for his hardware store. His business concluded and the truck loaded, he drank a few beers in a West Palm bar before starting back to Nebulon. On, the way home he stopped at two other bars and had beer in each. After the second stop he lost control of the truck on a curve and it plunged off the road into one of the deep, dangerous canals that are so common in that part of Florida.
    When the vehicle was discovered the next day and pulled from the water, Ed was still inside it. A bruise on his temple indicated he had lurched against the wheel or some other part of the cab with considerable force and probably had drowned while unconscious.
    Ed's young wife Ellyn kept the hardware store going but it was hard. The establishment was in a poor location and had never made much money. She, moreover, was a girl who had always preferred to stay at home while Ed went to business, as she called it.
    Not that she was lazy. At home she was nearly always briskly busy. She sewed. She kept the house spic and span. She made a hobby of cooking. She was a conscientious mother.
    At the store she tried hard too, but it went steadily downhill despite her investment of energy. It would certainly have gone under eventually. Some in Nebulon were even unkind enough to suggest that the fire, which turned out to be the second major tragedy in little Teresa's brief life, was of Ellyn's own doing. For the insurance, they hinted. The truth was, neither the store nor its contents was insured for a cent. And had Ellyn not tried so desperately to put the fire out, she might not have been trapped by it.
    It was probably caused by spontaneous combustion, Fire Chief Ankers said. Paints, thinners,