Something Bad Read Free Page B

answered.
    The beginnings of another contraction grumbled through Gabe’s midsection, so he shifted his weight and took a deep breath. He wanted to go into the store. Tending to his business would dull the cramps, but he couldn’t move. He needed to see what happened next.
    John turned to say something, but he spun back around when Billy flicked his eyes back to the rectory. The two strangers emerged from the doors and stopped on the porch. The small man presented the large man with a white envelope, and the giant turned on his heels and jogged to the U-Haul. He sped away like he wanted to put a great deal of distance between him and his employer as quickly as possible.
    The little man moved back toward the rectory doors, but suddenly spun around, stiff-necked, to face the general store.
    Gabe felt the little man’s eyes burn into his, and his stomach let loose with a powerful pain that nearly doubled him over. Hair raised on his arms. He felt like he was looking through a telescope, with a fix on the man—nothing in the periphery of his vision. His knees went weak. The little man had high-arching eyebrows and a mouth guarded by narrow lips that were straight for most of their length. The corners of his mouth appeared to turn in upward arcs, ninety degrees, giving the mouth a strange grin. But the upward turns didn’t look the same as the lips. His eyes were dark, cold looking, as if there were no irises, only pupils.
    A shock of panic hit Gabe from head-to-toe all at once. He wanted to drop on the ground and curl up into a ball. His heart produced an extra beat, then another, and his throat felt thick, full. Lightheadedness darkened his peripheral vision. No way this should be happening here, in his comfort zone.
    As quickly as the little man made the long-distance visual acquaintance, he terminated the greeting with a pivot, again with stiff neck, and short-stepped back into the rectory.
    Someone spoke, but Gabe didn’t focus on it. His mind was closing down. Something in its deep recesses tried to warn him that the little man was familiar, and evil, but that was as far as it went. Gabe had no active recollection of the man, yet connections were coming, each with a wrong-number hang-up. He resisted the urge to drop to the floor, and hunched slightly to get control of his heart. The words came out of his mouth involuntarily, but loud, interrupting John in mid-sentence.
    “Something bad.”
    “What?” Billy said.
    Gabe blinked three times and focused on the three men. “Huh?”
    “You said, ‘Something bad,’“ John said. “You know that man?”
    “No, I don’t think so,” Gabe said. “Must have been day dreaming. I have to go now. See you later.” Gabe turned and headed for his pickup.
    “Thought you had to do some shopping,” John said.
    Gabe didn’t react. A command echoed in his head, its source unknown. “You’ll forget what you saw today if you know what’s good for you.” But who had said it? Did it have to do with the little man in the rectory? Was it a clue to his missing years? He had to find out. Even though his instinct screamed for him to run.

CHAPTER
     

3
     
    Lake Oswald, Jefferson County, Two weeks later
     
    A BRIGHT STREAM of crimson light shot through his closed eyelids and heated the pain in his head. Gabe curled tighter, into a ball. He crossed his arms over his head, bringing his hands over his eyes, but the pain wouldn’t go away. It throbbed with his pulse, way too fast. He turned slightly, and the surface gave with his weight. He was in a space that was small, confined—he felt something solid with his feet and with the top of his head. He knew his left side was on some kind of soft floor, and his back against a soft wall. Then, he felt the cold. A shiver started in his back and diverged into two waves; one ran down his legs and the other up his torso. The violence of the first wave pulled his hands away from his eyes and he closed them tight to keep the light from