eBook
About This Book
Something was ripping Terry Baker's arms and legs out of their sockets, pulling and straining at the muscles and tendons, trying to separate them from bone. The boy tried to open his eyes but his lids were pressed hard against the searing pain behind them. The ache in his limbs was dull but powerful, like the breathless strain of a chest-cold cough.
It's nothing to worry about. I'm just asleep and this is a dream, Oh, gosh, don't wet the bed again and raise Father's anger yet another time. I promised I'm not going to do it. Am I? No ...
No! That wasn't right. He wasn't home in bed under his Roy Rogers flannel sheet. This was some place and something else that would cause his daddy's wrath to erupt from beneath the thin layer of tension where it seethed like an angry swarm of bees.
If Father knows where I went, I'll be black-and-blue for a month. He'll tell me that as he raises the belt to spank me another time. Whatever ...
...Whatever was going on, Terry wanted it to be sleeping so he could wake up because waking up would mean the end of this dream that was rushing out of control toward a nightmare. But he couldn't remember ever being inside a dream and knowing it.
I don't care what that half-baked teacher tells you about the woods. They're not safe, Terry. And the only thing you'll see there are the same trees and flowers and bushes and weeds we've got in the backyard, which by the way I told you to clean up, so you better get to it before the end of tomorrow. Get out and work some of that fat off. Be good for you. You go in the woods and you'll come back with poison ivy all over you. Remember what it was like when you and that Winslow kid decided to go stomping off across Whitaker's field to his pond for a swim last summer? Your eyes were swollen shut for two weeks. Goddamn kid. Should be playing ball. What kind of a shit teaches twelve-year-olds that kind of shit anyway? And don't forget what I said about the yard. You do what I say because I'm your ...
Father hadn't always talked in shouts. The new voice started when he lost his seat in the House, which, if Terry remembered right, came to pass just after mommy started disappearing and coming back again.
Terry felt something sharp and cold, like an icicle, tracing its way slowly across his naked stomach. Then came a warm, burning wetness. Was it pee? Was he wetting the bed yet again? No. Pee would ooze between his legs to his backside and soak into the sheets. It wouldn't flow down both sides of his rib cage.
It's nothing to worry about. I'm just asleep and this is a dream, Oh, gosh, don't wet the bed again and raise Father's anger yet another time. I promised I'm not going to do it. Am I? No ...
No! That wasn't right. He wasn't home in bed under his Roy Rogers flannel sheet. This was some place and something else that would cause his daddy's wrath to erupt from beneath the thin layer of tension where it seethed like an angry swarm of bees.
If Father knows where I went, I'll be black-and-blue for a month. He'll tell me that as he raises the belt to spank me another time. Whatever ...
...Whatever was going on, Terry wanted it to be sleeping so he could wake up because waking up would mean the end of this dream that was rushing out of control toward a nightmare. But he couldn't remember ever being inside a dream and knowing it.
I don't care what that half-baked teacher tells you about the woods. They're not safe, Terry. And the only thing you'll see there are the same trees and flowers and bushes and weeds we've got in the backyard, which by the way I told you to clean up, so you better get to it before the end of tomorrow. Get out and work some of that fat off. Be good for you. You go in the woods and you'll come back with poison ivy all over you. Remember what it was like when you and that Winslow kid decided to go stomping off across Whitaker's field to his pond for a swim last summer? Your eyes were swollen shut for two weeks. Goddamn kid. Should be playing ball. What kind of a shit teaches twelve-year-olds that kind of shit anyway? And don't forget what I said about the yard. You do what I say because I'm your ...
Father hadn't always talked in shouts. The new voice started when he lost his seat in the House, which, if Terry remembered right, came to pass just after mommy started disappearing and coming back again.
Terry felt something sharp and cold, like an icicle, tracing its way slowly across his naked stomach. Then came a warm, burning wetness. Was it pee? Was he wetting the bed yet again? No. Pee would ooze between his legs to his backside and soak into the sheets. It wouldn't flow down both sides of his rib cage.