Read Online Offspring by Jack Ketchum - Free Book Online Page A

think there might even be a little airport around Lubec. I don’t remember.” She smiled shyly. “I mean, you don’t look like you’d have a whole lot of trouble affording it, you know?”
    He laughed. He stubbed out the Winston.
    “The problem is I’m a nervous flyer. I hit a downdraft coming home into Kennedy one time that scared the hell out of me. Once burned, twice shy, you know? That kind of thing.”
    They like it when you appear vulnerable, he thought. Even though in this case the downdraft story was true.
    “Kennedy? You’ve come all the way up from New York?”
    “Connecticut, actually. I was visiting . . . a friend there.”
    “Oh.”
    He had to be careful. He was giving her too much information. He was already memorable. The suit, the red silk tie, the Mercedes.
    He probably should not have picked her up in the first place. He’d wanted the company.
    It gave him an idea.
    “Listen. Maybe you could help me out here.” He smiled his most disarming smile and shook his head. “The thing of it is, I really don’t know
where
the hell I’m going and I’m hopeless reading road signs at night. What would you say to driving up with me? Ride shotgun. Just get me up there. Then I’d drive you over to the airport at Machias or Lubec or wherever and put you on a plane back to Portland.” He laughed. “That is assuming you aren’t afraid of flying too. On my tab, naturally. And I’ll give you fifty, seventy-five dollars for your trouble. It’s going to get dark in a couple hours. You’d really be helping me out. What do you say?”
    The girl just looked at him, caught completely by surprise. Well, he was a stranger after all. He guessed she would be.
    “I . . .”
    “What time are you supposed to be there? Is there anybody you could call to say you’d be a little later than expected? Your boyfriend? We could stop at a pay phone somewhere. Call’s on me of course. I’d really appreciate it. You said it was pretty country.”
    “But how could I . . . ? I mean, Portland’s less than an hour from here.”
    “So?”
    “Dead River has to be two hundred miles up the coast. More, probably. It’ll be nine or ten o’clock before you even get there. By the time I got a plane back to Portland, even if I was
lucky
it’d be midnight!”
    He laughed. “Think of it as an adventure.”
    She stared at him.
    Staring was rude. The girl wasn’t as well mannered as he’d thought
.
    He honestly couldn’t see why it should be such a terribly big deal to her. It was only a couple of hours. A nice pleasant drive in the country. He’d picked her up, hadn’t he? Given her a ride? Didn’t she owe him a little something?
    “Make it a hundred,” he said. “Think about it.”
    She flinched as he reached abruptly across her lap to the glove compartment and pulled out the bottle. Her flinching amused him.
    Skittish little thing
.
    He offered her the vodka. He smiled.
    “Let me buy you a drink,” he said.
    She shook her head.
    “Oh, come on. You don’t want to force me to drink alone, do you? What’s your name, by the way?”
    He unscrewed the cap on the bottle.
    “S-Susan.”
    “Susan. That’s a nice name. Suzie. Suzie Cream-cheese. Lazy Susan. Suzerain. Suzerain means feudal lord, did you know that? Someone to whom allegiance is due. Let’s see. Oh Susannah. Sweet Sue. He ever call you that? Your boyfriend? Sweet Sue?”
    He drank.
    “I . . . I think I’d like to . . . get out now,” she said. “Stop anywhere, okay?”
    “Out?”
    “Yes.”
    “You’re going to Portland, aren’t you?”
    “Yes, but . . .”
    “You want to get out?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    “You’re drinking.”
    “That’s true. I am.”
    He drank again.
Fuck her
, he thought. She was either going with him or she wasn’t, and either way she was going nowhere.
    It had been a very bad day, he reflected. And obviously it wasn’t getting any better because the goddamn fucking girl was giving him trouble and would probably