Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) Read Free

a good idea to hide money behind the pictures. He
didn’t find any, just a bunch of faded photographs of Pap-pap when
he was younger, with people Tommy didn’t recognize.
    Mrs. Tanner moved on to the closet, checking
the pockets of Pap-pap’s coats and shirts.
    The rattling sound of Mr. Tanner’s truck
approached the house, and Mrs. Tanner straightened up. She raced
back to the dresser and slammed each of the drawers.
    “Get out of here!” she growled at Tommy. “Go
on and get washed up.”
    Tommy ran down the hall to the bathroom. He
didn’t know what was coming, but for sure Mr. Tanner had a
punishment in mind by now. He scrubbed his face, hands and arms. He
looked at the splintery handmade cross over the sink, and he prayed
for protection against Mr. Tanner.
    “Where is that boy?” Mr. Tanner shouted from
the front door. “I’m ready for him now. The Lord has spoken to
me.”
    “He’s up here,” Mrs. Tanner called.
    Tommy crept out of the bathroom. Mrs. Tanner
was hastily folding the clothes she’d flung into the cardboard
boxes. As Mr. Tanner clomped up the stairs, Mrs. Tanner heaved the
mattress back onto Pap-pap’s bed and slid it into place.
    Mr. Tanner paused at the front of the
upstairs hall, his boots and jeans spattered in mud, his cowboy hat
tipped back to reveal his angry face. His boots thudded on the
boards as he approached. He glared at Tommy, who cringed by the
door to Pap-pap’s room, and then at Mrs. Tanner kneeling on the
bedroom floor, folding clothes.
    “What are you doing alone with him,
Courtney?” Mr. Tanner asked. “What were you two getting up to?”
    “Nothing, Mr. Tanner,” Mrs. Tanner said.
    “Why are you in Pap-pap’s room?”
    “I was just neatening up. Getting things
squared away.”
    “And who told you to do that?”
    “You always want me to do things without you
telling me,” Mrs. Tanner.
    “This ain’t one of them,” Mr. Tanner said.
“Put it back just like it was.”
    “But— ” Mrs. Tanner said.
    “ Like it was!” Mr. Tanner grabbed
Tommy by the sleeve and pulled him down the hall towards the
stairs. Tommy stumbled along and fought to keep his balance. “And
you got to come to church with me. You got to pray.”
    Tommy didn’t want to go to church, but he
didn’t say anything. He didn’t want a whupping.
    Mr. Tanner took him downstairs and out the
back door of the house, past the stables, and out past the goat
pen.
    “They say it was just a heart attack,” Mr.
Tanner said. “Well, the Devil covers his cloven tracks, don’t he? I
said don’t he, boy?”
    “I guess so.”
    “What’s that?”
    “I don’t know, sir,” Tommy said.
    “I knew something was wrong with you,” Mr.
Tanner said. “From the day you got here. Right from your baptism. I
told my wife, that one’s been touched by Satan himself.”
    Tommy didn’t say anything.
    Mr. Tanner had left the local church after
getting into a dispute with the pastor. In fact, he’d gotten into
disputes with every pastor and preacher in the county, often by
standing up in the middle of a Sunday sermon and shouting fiery
criticism about the church, its leadership, and its interpretation
of the Bible. Mr. Tanner had his own peculiar religious ideas,
which nobody else seemed to care about, at least not when he was
screaming them in the middle of their church.
    Since he couldn’t find a church to his
liking, he’d cleaned out the ancient gray barn near the back of the
property. Beyond it were the corpses of even older buildings that
had collapsed long ago, blown over by the prairie winds and left to
rot, their wood gone dry and brittle like bones in the sun. The
gray barn itself was too decrepit for any working use, but Mr.
Tanner had nailed a cross on top of it and held service for his
wife and foster children there each Sunday. Sometimes other days,
too, as the mood struck him.
    Mr. Tanner pulled open the creaky barn door
and waited for Tommy to step inside.
    The inside of the barn church