Read Online A Choir of Ill Children by Tom Piccirilli - Free Book Online
Authors: Tom Piccirilli
Tags: Fiction, Horror, Southern States, Witches, supernatural, Brothers, Demonology, Spiritualism, Children of Murder Victims, Superstition, Children of Suicide Victims, Triplets, Abnormalities; Human
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mattress. They scurry away, one of them laughing as they move, in spasms, with a whirl of limbs and clashing purpose.
I get up and turn on the light. Rain thumps and the house creaks and settles. My brothers are under a sheet, flinching, pretending to sleep, baiting me. It gets like this sometimes.
The vast and overpowering noise of a massive tree toppling fills the room. It sounds as if the whole house is about to be crushed beneath a hundred tons of history. The rafters rock and the pounding rain withdraws into vacuum, the sudden displacement bringing us to total silence for an instant before the thunderous blast.
The oak falls directly past the window. A million branches undulate like snakes crawling by, striking the ground in an earsplitting explosion of mud and splintered timber.
I tear the sheet aside and grab hold of Sebastian, lifting his stunted frame and taking the others along too. The mouths are going at once, all of them talking at the same time with a dissonance of words, the tributary voice, the subtext and cacophony of tone and meaning.
They make no sense and neither do I. I’m yelling, but I’m not sure what about. I’m leaking all over, and I’ve got my own rage. This is when it’s good, when everyone is at his best. I try to look my brother in the eye but I can’t, he’s forever turned inward facing the others, glowering at Cole who continues to sob.
“Why did you bite me?”
“I didn’t,” Sebastian says from their throats.
“I’m bleeding.”
“No, you’re not.”
The blood drips and patters on the floor, loud in the room even with the wind bashing at the house. Is he being purposefully dense or is he playing word games? . . . telling me that another—the face that may be my sister—is the one who is bitten and bleeding? Is he trying to wrangle me into an admission? In that forebrain anything is possible.
“It hurt.”
“Not you it didn’t.”
I want to hit him but I’d break my hand on that threefold skull. I go to the bathroom to clean myself up, searching each shade and line of my side. I’m looking for the familiar face but see only Sebastian’s teeth marks.
Perhaps she’s with them now—adhered on a chest, growing in an armpit, or dangling off a kneecap—beloved and finally wanted, and so much the luckier for it.
D RAGGING HIS PAST BEHIND HIM LIKE A MILLSTONE, the private eye meets me in my office.
His name is Nick Stiel and two months ago his wife of eight years died of leukemia. He says it flatly without any emotion. His eyes are half-lidded as if it’s an ordeal for him to open them all the way. His hands are slender but his wrists are surprisingly thick. The watchband is too tight, and coarse black hair sprouts from around it. His palms are callused, the first two knuckles scarred and distended. He’s studied martial arts for years. One of the Japanese disciplines, I’d guess. None of the spiritual doctrine has helped him to get over her loss.
I’ve given him one file containing a full report on the situation concerning Eve and another on the dog kicker. There’s also a map of the county, names and home addresses of everybody currently involved, photos of Eve, keys to a 4x4 wagon I rented for him, and a three-thousand-dollar retainer.
“Why me?” he asks.
“You concentrate on lost child cases and you’ve got a high rate of success.”
“In Los Angeles. This is a whole different world.”
“You ain’t kidding.”
He blinks, attempting to think it through. He knows it doesn’t feel right but he’s too distracted by his wife’s death to get past the fog. His heartbreak is so apparent I can tell he’ll get along well in Kingdom Come. If he tried to beguile the people of Potts County, or lie to them or provoke or bully or trade witty banter, he wouldn’t get so much as a shrug from any of them.
“You don’t have a lost child here,” he says. “You’ve got a found one.”
“A considerably harder job for you, I’d
I get up and turn on the light. Rain thumps and the house creaks and settles. My brothers are under a sheet, flinching, pretending to sleep, baiting me. It gets like this sometimes.
The vast and overpowering noise of a massive tree toppling fills the room. It sounds as if the whole house is about to be crushed beneath a hundred tons of history. The rafters rock and the pounding rain withdraws into vacuum, the sudden displacement bringing us to total silence for an instant before the thunderous blast.
The oak falls directly past the window. A million branches undulate like snakes crawling by, striking the ground in an earsplitting explosion of mud and splintered timber.
I tear the sheet aside and grab hold of Sebastian, lifting his stunted frame and taking the others along too. The mouths are going at once, all of them talking at the same time with a dissonance of words, the tributary voice, the subtext and cacophony of tone and meaning.
They make no sense and neither do I. I’m yelling, but I’m not sure what about. I’m leaking all over, and I’ve got my own rage. This is when it’s good, when everyone is at his best. I try to look my brother in the eye but I can’t, he’s forever turned inward facing the others, glowering at Cole who continues to sob.
“Why did you bite me?”
“I didn’t,” Sebastian says from their throats.
“I’m bleeding.”
“No, you’re not.”
The blood drips and patters on the floor, loud in the room even with the wind bashing at the house. Is he being purposefully dense or is he playing word games? . . . telling me that another—the face that may be my sister—is the one who is bitten and bleeding? Is he trying to wrangle me into an admission? In that forebrain anything is possible.
“It hurt.”
“Not you it didn’t.”
I want to hit him but I’d break my hand on that threefold skull. I go to the bathroom to clean myself up, searching each shade and line of my side. I’m looking for the familiar face but see only Sebastian’s teeth marks.
Perhaps she’s with them now—adhered on a chest, growing in an armpit, or dangling off a kneecap—beloved and finally wanted, and so much the luckier for it.
D RAGGING HIS PAST BEHIND HIM LIKE A MILLSTONE, the private eye meets me in my office.
His name is Nick Stiel and two months ago his wife of eight years died of leukemia. He says it flatly without any emotion. His eyes are half-lidded as if it’s an ordeal for him to open them all the way. His hands are slender but his wrists are surprisingly thick. The watchband is too tight, and coarse black hair sprouts from around it. His palms are callused, the first two knuckles scarred and distended. He’s studied martial arts for years. One of the Japanese disciplines, I’d guess. None of the spiritual doctrine has helped him to get over her loss.
I’ve given him one file containing a full report on the situation concerning Eve and another on the dog kicker. There’s also a map of the county, names and home addresses of everybody currently involved, photos of Eve, keys to a 4x4 wagon I rented for him, and a three-thousand-dollar retainer.
“Why me?” he asks.
“You concentrate on lost child cases and you’ve got a high rate of success.”
“In Los Angeles. This is a whole different world.”
“You ain’t kidding.”
He blinks, attempting to think it through. He knows it doesn’t feel right but he’s too distracted by his wife’s death to get past the fog. His heartbreak is so apparent I can tell he’ll get along well in Kingdom Come. If he tried to beguile the people of Potts County, or lie to them or provoke or bully or trade witty banter, he wouldn’t get so much as a shrug from any of them.
“You don’t have a lost child here,” he says. “You’ve got a found one.”
“A considerably harder job for you, I’d
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