The Painted Darkness Read Free Page B

hot chocolate. He and his father were near the end of the driveway—his father using the big coal shovel his father had handed down to him while Henry worked with his plastic shovel. Henry looked up at his father, trying to hide the exhaustion and the cold creeping into his bones. His father saw the fatigue, of course.
    “Go inside, Henry, and help your mother with the hot chocolate so she gets it just right. But don’t forget to save some for me!”
    Henry smiled, tossed his shovel into the snow, and ran to the front door, which his mother was holding open. She tussled his hair as he passed by and she called after him to stop and take off his yellow rain boots. He didn’t have snow boots yet, but these kept his feet warm and dry, which seemed good THE PAINTED DARKNESS
enough for his mother—as long as he didn’t track snow through the house.
    Henry drank his hot chocolate and watched his morning cartoons while his mother finished washing the dishes from the previous night’s dinner. Henry waited patiently for his father to come inside so they could plan their big snow day together, but when Henry’s father finished the driveway, he hurried to take a shower and soon after he announced he had to leave for work.
    “Why, Dad? It snowed!” Henry said, dumbfounded. He and his mother had checked the local newscast a couple of times to confirm the schools were closed and Henry didn’t have to get ready for the day right away like he did on a normal morning.
    “Well, the schools are closed for students, but I have a job to do, even if there aren’t going to be any kids in the classrooms,” his father explained, tussling Henry’s hair like his mother had earlier.
    Henry wasn’t pleased at all, and his mother saw this, so she offered to play with him until she had to leave for work. Although Henry loved his mother with all his heart, the offer just wasn’t the same—but being smart for his age, he said nothing as he watched his father carefully steer the station wagon down the slick driveway, waving one last time as he pulled away.
THE PRESENT (3)
The Boiler Gulps
T

wo hours after Henry breaks through the
    mental wall, a noise from the cellar awakens him from his creative half-coma, and he mutters a curse when he realizes what the sound is: the thump-thump-thump of the boiler gulping for oil while trying to expel its belly of built-up pressure.
    The boiler can devour as much oil as it wants—and the big beast does, according to the hefty bill left on the front door every time Greensburg Oil & Gas fills the tank—but the unit cannot drain itself of the used water, and without proper drainage, the dirty water and the steam pressure can build and build until it has nowhere to go but through the weakest seams in the pipes. The results could be deadly, a fact that isn’t lost on Henry even when his mind is cluttered with other worries.
    Henry forgot his morning maintenance session in the cellar today, and now the boiler is calling for him. Warning him in the only way it can.
    Better get moving, boy, ’cause things are getting a bit tight in here.
Henry heeds the call and rushes down the attic stairs, past the family photos and the spacious rooms their unassuming furniture can’t fill. He doesn’t bother to stop and put on his shoes, although he should, considering what’s waiting for him in the cellar.
Henry hurries into the brightly painted country kitchen where he and Sarah had their fight the night before. The cellar door is tucked to the left of the pantry almost as an afterthought. He grabs the glass doorknob in one smooth motion, picking up the heavyduty flashlight off the kitchen counter at the same time.
Thump-thump-thump, calls the boiler.
“I hear you, you stupid fat bear,” Henry replies, using his father’s phrase without even realizing what he’s saying.
He opens the door and flips the light switch. It flickers to life in a yellow burst above his head, but there’s darkness beyond the bottom of the