Read Online The Donzerly Light by Ryne Douglas Pearson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Ryne Douglas Pearson
Tags: Suspense & Thrillers
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double damn certain when he was looking behind and saw Carrie not there. Saw nothing there. But...
Oh, wonderful. Now he was hearing things.
I see you Jay
And half way around again he spun, looking back toward past the coins, toward the dim and empty living room. Looking because he had heard that. Had heard it said. Or...
I see you Jay
...had he?
It was there, yes, the words. But, and he looked back and front once more, had he heard them? Or had it been something—more than sound, more than sight, more than feeling—in his head? Something that was more of a...knowing.
I see you Jay
He remained still this time. Still as a stone. Hardly breathing. Not a muscle twitching. Nothing moving.
Nothing but the coins.
On the table before him they had begun to tremor. To twitch and shudder like kernels of popcorn did just before exploding. Like the Mexican jumping beans his uncle had given him when he was six. But mostly like the old electric football game he had gotten for Christmas before times got hard. The kind where the field was green sheet metal and something beneath it made it shake when a switch was flipped, which would send defense one way and offense the other in a haphazard advance toward their goal lines. The coins were moving like those old plastic players now, only their slow motion rush was not haphazard at all. They were moving, all right, in one vibrating mass in the direction of Jay.
And when the first one had almost reached the table edge they all stopped.
Jay’s breath hitched in and out as he stared at the coins, and after a moment they shook again in place, not moving this time. As if they wanted attention. As if they wanted...
...to be picked up again?
And they stilled. Waiting.
This was not the booze. No way was this the booze. This was something way more than the booze. Something...elemental. Something primal.
The coins jittered briefly again, then quieted.
“All right,” Jay said quietly, and took them in hand again, and dropped them on the paper again, and they came up heads again. For the sixth time they came up heads, and why that mattered or what it meant he had no—
I SEE you Jay
And the coins tittered almost gleefully for just a second.
Jay gazed at the coins, and he thought of the ‘thing’ he was knowing in his head. The words that...
I SEE YOU Jay
...that...
And, yes, the coins quaked where they lay.
I SEE YOU JAY
...were not words at all.
I. SEE. YOU. JAY.
Jay’s eyes swelled in steps like slowly inflating balloons—wide, wider, HUGE.
I. SEE. YOU. JAY.
The coins tremored again, lightly, almost humming.
Jay’s gaze brightened with wonder. Before them, knowing surfaced in a black void of ignorance. A knowing that came not with the sudden flourish of summer rockets bursting in the sky with dazzling colors and sharp cracks of mini-thunder, but with a mystical grace, as if it had been there all along, barely veiled and the veil had been drawn casually aside to reveal and oh so obvious certainty. A certainty that nine rounds of metal had led him to.
I. SEE. YOU. JAY.
He understood none of it, and craved to understand all of it, but for the moment he could only revel in it. This thing. This knowing.
Not words at all , he thought, a slim, cautious smile creeping onto his face as the coins shuddered one final time. Not words at all.
ICUJ
Four
Magic Moments
Carrie woke at eight and rolled toward Jay, planting a soft kiss on his shoulder. He lay facing away from her, dead to the world, whatever he’d ingested the night before anchoring him in a deep sleep that numbed any reaction he might have to her touch. That was all right, she thought, smiling. He would suffer when he woke. By his own hand (the one that had lifted the glass to his lips again and again) he would be made to suffer.
For now, she would let him sleep.
She slipped out of bed and took her robe from its hook on the back of the bedroom door, which she closed behind as she stepped quietly to the
Oh, wonderful. Now he was hearing things.
I see you Jay
And half way around again he spun, looking back toward past the coins, toward the dim and empty living room. Looking because he had heard that. Had heard it said. Or...
I see you Jay
...had he?
It was there, yes, the words. But, and he looked back and front once more, had he heard them? Or had it been something—more than sound, more than sight, more than feeling—in his head? Something that was more of a...knowing.
I see you Jay
He remained still this time. Still as a stone. Hardly breathing. Not a muscle twitching. Nothing moving.
Nothing but the coins.
On the table before him they had begun to tremor. To twitch and shudder like kernels of popcorn did just before exploding. Like the Mexican jumping beans his uncle had given him when he was six. But mostly like the old electric football game he had gotten for Christmas before times got hard. The kind where the field was green sheet metal and something beneath it made it shake when a switch was flipped, which would send defense one way and offense the other in a haphazard advance toward their goal lines. The coins were moving like those old plastic players now, only their slow motion rush was not haphazard at all. They were moving, all right, in one vibrating mass in the direction of Jay.
And when the first one had almost reached the table edge they all stopped.
Jay’s breath hitched in and out as he stared at the coins, and after a moment they shook again in place, not moving this time. As if they wanted attention. As if they wanted...
...to be picked up again?
And they stilled. Waiting.
This was not the booze. No way was this the booze. This was something way more than the booze. Something...elemental. Something primal.
The coins jittered briefly again, then quieted.
“All right,” Jay said quietly, and took them in hand again, and dropped them on the paper again, and they came up heads again. For the sixth time they came up heads, and why that mattered or what it meant he had no—
I SEE you Jay
And the coins tittered almost gleefully for just a second.
Jay gazed at the coins, and he thought of the ‘thing’ he was knowing in his head. The words that...
I SEE YOU Jay
...that...
And, yes, the coins quaked where they lay.
I SEE YOU JAY
...were not words at all.
I. SEE. YOU. JAY.
Jay’s eyes swelled in steps like slowly inflating balloons—wide, wider, HUGE.
I. SEE. YOU. JAY.
The coins tremored again, lightly, almost humming.
Jay’s gaze brightened with wonder. Before them, knowing surfaced in a black void of ignorance. A knowing that came not with the sudden flourish of summer rockets bursting in the sky with dazzling colors and sharp cracks of mini-thunder, but with a mystical grace, as if it had been there all along, barely veiled and the veil had been drawn casually aside to reveal and oh so obvious certainty. A certainty that nine rounds of metal had led him to.
I. SEE. YOU. JAY.
He understood none of it, and craved to understand all of it, but for the moment he could only revel in it. This thing. This knowing.
Not words at all , he thought, a slim, cautious smile creeping onto his face as the coins shuddered one final time. Not words at all.
ICUJ
Four
Magic Moments
Carrie woke at eight and rolled toward Jay, planting a soft kiss on his shoulder. He lay facing away from her, dead to the world, whatever he’d ingested the night before anchoring him in a deep sleep that numbed any reaction he might have to her touch. That was all right, she thought, smiling. He would suffer when he woke. By his own hand (the one that had lifted the glass to his lips again and again) he would be made to suffer.
For now, she would let him sleep.
She slipped out of bed and took her robe from its hook on the back of the bedroom door, which she closed behind as she stepped quietly to the
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