Read Online Ladies' Night by Jack Ketchum - Free Book Online

there was one thing, it was smiling . But it was not a smile you could look at without getting scared sick that such a thing existed. It was not just crazy. The face looked at him the way a sewer rat had looked at him once down by the East River, eyes red with the pure love of biting and killing.
    And this face smiled .
    He did not look back or worry about Jimmy. Four blocks away he got the guts to turn and saw she wasn't following. Another two blocks and he realized he still had her purse dangling from his fist.
    He stopped and opened it half-blindly, breathing hard, not even knowing why he was doing it except it was the right thing to do, it was normal, you stole a purse you went through it.
    He turned it inside out on the sidewalk.
    Lipstick. Hairbrush. Matches from MacInery's . Gum. Scraps of dirty paper. He found the wallet and opened it. There was a single dollar bill inside and a dime and a nickel in the change compartment.
    It was the worst night of Boot's life.
    And it was just beginning.

Strange About Mom

    Andy didn't know what the noises were at first but they woke him from his dream.
    He was at summer camp climbing a mountain. There were shade trees all around. The quiver of arrows was slung over his back — though for some reason the bow was missing — and the scout knife was in his hand. The knife was open to the big blade because there was something on the mountain he was supposed to be afraid of. He wasn't really afraid, though. He felt sure that whatever was up there wouldn't hurt him. The knife was just in case.
    As he climbed, though, the nature of whatever was up there began to change. He didn't know how he knew that but he did. At first it was a cat like a mountain lion, then something insect-like whirring out of sight above his head as he crawled up the rock face. Then he was walking past a storefront, somehow not out of place there, and knew that whatever it was, it was inside the store now and had changed again.
    He was opening the storefront door when something woke him. It sounded as though she was crying.
    He pushed off the covers and got out of bed and peered into the hallway, listening.
    She was crying all right. In her sleep?
    For some reason he felt she was asleep.
    Little liquid crying sounds. And the breathing wasn't right .
    He wondered if he should go in there. If he was wrong and she was awake, she might feel bad about him seeing her like that. He didn't want to make her feel bad. He walked out into the hall.
    She'd left the door open. There was light in the room from the streetlight. He could walk by, pretend he was going to the bathroom, take a peek and keep on going. That way if she was awake he wouldn't have to embarrass her. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes, assumed what he thought was a normal, going-to-take-a-whiz-in-the-middle-of-the-night pace, and walked by. And stopped.
    She was alone. His father wasn't there.
    She was asleep.
    And she was naked.
    He was not supposed to see her that way.
    She was lying atop the covers with her nightgown open, naked underneath. He had never in memory seen his mother naked before. He had never seen what she was doing either.
    Not in real life. In some of the R-rated movies they rented sure and even then you didn't see much. But not a real woman.
    Not his mom.
    He felt dizzy. A wave of heat passed over him, then a wave of chilling cold.
    There was something . . . not right about it.
    It wasn't the masturbation. He knew about masturbation — at least he knew people did it, though he'd never heard of anybody doing it in their sleep before. And it wasn't just that it was his mother either. Though it was partly that.
    It was the sounds .
    Whimpering, crying.
    Then growling . Low in her throat like an animal.
    He didn't know how he dared but he moved closer, into the room, a few feet from the bed.
    She was sweating. Her body was coated with sweat, plastering back her hair, pooling where her breasts pressed together trembling—trembling