Thursday, August 11, 2016

'Til Death Do Us Part - Part 39


Buck felt his heart thunder in his chest like the time he and his brother had been caught by the sheriff smoking weed in the woods. The logical part of his mind knew that it was probably just Roger walking through the door, but the irrational part of his mind, the part that jumped at shadows in the dark, envisioned Emma's stocky figure bursting through her bedroom door, yelling at him and Shirley Sue for sharing the couch past midnight. He felt his pulse slowly dial back when he looked in the direction of the noise and saw no sign of Emma's writhing bathrobe nor her wild, sleep twisted hair.

Buck realized that he was watching the adjacent room with the intensity of an owl tracking its prey. He heard the front door creak shut, followed by the clomping of shoes working their way down the wooden floor of the mudroom. Shortly thereafter, Roger passed into the arch which connected the living room and mudroom, with Sarah on his heels. Under his eyes were bags of exhaustion, illuminated by the dim light generated by the flashing cathode-ray tube across the room. Roger and Sarah's movements were stiff and mechanical as they walked as though they had spent the last hour doing squats or running on the treadmill. Buck wasn't sure if it was just the light, but he though they both looked a little pale.

“Hey Roger. Hey Sarah,” Buck said in a voice that hovered above a whisper. “Welcome back.” Buck studied his brother's face. Behind Roger's eyes he caught a glimpse of something. Fear. His pupils were dilated and his face was indeed pallid. “Somethin' the matter?”

“We ran into our old friend Aura,” Roger said. “And she tried to kill us.”

Sarah and Roger walked into the room. Sarah sat down in Emma's recliner, and Roger plopped down on the loveseat on the other side of the living room.

Roger and Sarah launched into their alleyway encounter. Buck sat rapt, eyes wide with disbelief.

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