Nightmares & Geezenstacks Read Free Page B

lunch for them.
    A path along the edge of the lake led, he’d been told, to a place a couple of miles away where rowboats could be rented; he’d rent one for the whole week and keep it tied up here. He stared toward the end of the lake trying to see the place.
    Suddenly, chillingly, there was an anguished cry, “ Daddy, my leg, it —”
    George whirled and saw Tommy’s head way out, twenty yards at least, and it went under the water and came up again, but this time there was a frightening glubbing sound when Tommy tried to yell again. It must be a cramp, George thought frantically; he’d seen Tommy swim several times that distance.
    For a second he almost flung himself into the water, but then he told himself: It won’t help him for me to drown with him and if I can get Wilma there’s at least a chance…
    He ran back toward the lodge. A hundred yards away he started yelling “ Wilma! ” at the top of his voice and when he was almost to the kitchen door she came through it, in pajamas. And then she was running after him toward the lake, passing him and getting ahead since he was already winded, and he was fifty yards behind her when she reached the edge, ran into the water and swam strongly toward the spot where for a moment the back of the boy’s head showed at the surface.
    She was there in a few strokes and had him and then, as she put her feet down to tread water for the turn, he saw with sudden sheer horror—a horror mirrored in his wife’s blue eyes—that she was standing on the bottom, holding their dead son, in only three feet of water.

NIGHTMARE IN YELLOW
    He awoke when the alarm clock rang, but lay in bed a while after he’d shut it off, going a final time over the plans he’d made for embezzlement that day and for murder that evening.
    Every little detail had been worked out, but this was the final check. Tonight at forty-six minutes after eight he’d be free, in every way. He’d picked that moment because this was his fortieth birthday and that was the exact time of day, of the evening rather, when he had been born. His mother had been a bug on astrology, which was why the moment of his birth had been impressed on him so exactly. He wasn’t superstitious himself but it had struck his sense of humor to have his new life begin at forty, to the minute.
    Time was running out on him, in any case. As a lawyer :t who specialized in handling estates, a lot of money passed through his hands—and some of it had passed into them. A year ago he’d “borrowed” five thousand dollars to put into something that looked like a sure-fire way to double or triple the money, but he’d lost it instead. Then he’d “borrowed” more to gamble with, in one way or another, to try to recoup the first loss. Now he was behind to the tune of over thirty thousand; the shortage couldn’t be hidden more than another few months and there wasn’t a hope that he could replace the missing money by that time. So he had been raising all the cash he could without arousing suspicion, by carefully liquidating assets, and by this afternoon he’d have running-away money to the tune of well over a hundred thousand dollars, enough to last him the rest of his life.
    And they’d never catch him. He’d planned every detail of his trip, his destination, his new identity, and it was foolproof. He’d been working on it for months.
    His decision to kill his wife had been relatively an afterthought. The motive was simple: he hated her. But it was only after he’d come to the decision that he’d never go to jail, that he’d kill himself if he was ever apprehended, that it came to. him that—since he’d die anyway if caught—he had nothing to lose in leaving a dead wife behind him instead of a living one.
    He’d hardly been able to keep from laughing at the appropriateness of the birthday present she’d given him (yesterday, a day ahead of time); it had been a new suitcase. She’d also talked him into celebrating his birthday