Nightmares & Geezenstacks Read Free Page A

only the one bedroom and he knew in advance, before accepting her invitation, that he could not possibly have accepted her offer to sleep, herself, out here and let him and Betty have the bedroom. There are degrees of hospitality which one cannot accept, even from one’s own sweet and loving spinster sister. But he’d felt sure, or almost sure, that Betty would wait out his sister’s going to sleep and come to join him, if only for a few affectionate moments—for she might be inhibited in giving more than that lest sounds might awaken Debbie—to give him a better “good night” than, under his sister’s eyes, they’d indulged in.
    Surely she’d come to him—at least for a real good night kiss, and if she was willing to risk going beyond that, so was he—and so he’d decided not to go to sleep right away, but to wait for her to come to him, at least for an hour or so.
    Surely she would—yes, the door was opening quietly in the darkness and quietly closing again, only the faint click of the latch being really audible, and then there was the soft rustle of her nightgown or negligee or whatever falling, and she was under the covers with him, pressing her body against his, and the only conversation was his whispered “Darling…” and her whispered “Shhhh…” But what more conversation was needed?
    None at all, none at all, but for the so-long so-short minutes until the door opened again, this time with glaring white light coming through it, outlining in white horror the silhouette of his wife standing there rigid and beginning to scream.

NIGHTMARE IN BLUE
    He awoke to the brightest, bluest morning he had ever seen. Through the window beside the bed, he could see an almost incredible sky. George slid out of bed quickly, wide awake and not wanting to miss another minute of the first day of his vacation. But he dressed quietly so as not to awaken his wife. They had arrived here at the lodge—loaned them by a friend for the week of their vacation—late the evening before and Wilma had been very tired from the trip; he’d let her sleep as long as she could. He carried his shoes into the living room to put them on.
    Tousle-haired little Tommy, their five-year-old, came out of the smaller bedroom he’d slept in, yawning. “Want some breakfast?” George asked him. And when Tommy nodded, “Get dressed then, and join me in the kitchen.”
    George went to the kitchen but before starting breakfast, he stepped through the outside door and stood looking around; it had been dark when they’d arrived and he knew what the country was like only by description. It was virgin woodland, more beautiful than he’d pictured it. The nearest other lodge, he’d been told, was a mile away, on the other side of a fairly large lake. He couldn’t see the lake for the trees but the path that started here from the kitchen door led to it, a little less than a quarter of a mile away. His friend had told him it was good for swimming, good for fishing. The swimming didn’t interest George; he wasn’t afraid of the water but he didn’t like it either, and he’d never learned how to swim. But his wife was a good swimmer and so was Tommy—a regular little water rat, she called him.
    Tommy joined him on the step; the boy’s idea of getting dressed had been to put on a pair of swim trunks so it hadn’t taken him long. “Daddy,” he said, “let’s go see the lake before we eat, huh, Daddy?”
    “All right,” George said. He wasn’t hungry himself and maybe when they got back Wilma would be awake.
    The lake was beautiful, an even more intense blue than the sky, and smooth as a mirror. Tommy plunged into it gleefully and George called to him to stay where it was shallow, not to swim out.
    “I can swim, Daddy. I swim swell.”
    “Yes, but your mother’s not here. You stay close.”
    “Water’s warm , Daddy.”
    Far out, George saw a fish jump. Right after breakfast he’d come down with his rod and see if he could catch a