Read Online The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi - Free Book Online Page A

turned onto Columbus Court, it was just after ten o’clock. He was starving—the last thing he’d eaten was an apple with peanut butter around noon—and his mood hadn’t changed much since getting his bumper nudged on the beltway. When he heard his cell phone chime, he groaned and fumbled it out of his jacket pocket. It was a text from Kathy, asking where he was. When he glanced back up, the pale shape of a man, illuminated by the Bronco’s headlights, filled his windshield.
    David simultaneously jerked the wheel and jumped on the brake. Had he been driving a less weighty vehicle, the thing would have fishtailed or simply plowed into the man. But the Bronco was a sturdy ride, and it shuddered to a stop in the middle of the street.
    â€œHoly shit.” The words wheezed out of him in sour notes, as if he were a punctured accordion. He spun around in his seat, craning his neck to glimpse the pale figure through the side window. David didn’t think he’d struck the man—he was still standing, after all—but he couldn’t be positive. The damn fool had appeared out of nowhere.
    David climbed out of the Bronco, his sweat-dampened shirt growing chill in the cold night. He hustled around to the rear of the Bronco and saw the man still standing there, now tinted red in the glow of the Bronco’s taillights.
    It was Deke Carmody, clad in nothing but a pair of threadbare boxer shorts. Deke’s ample gut spilled over the boxers’ waistband, a runway of black hair rising from his navel and fanning out across his heavy, sagging breasts. His feet were bare, and as David stared at him, Deke took a shuffling step toward him through a puddle of black water.
    â€œDeke, what the hell are you doing out here?”
    â€œThat you, David?”
    â€œLook at you.” David approached him, touched the man on one shoulder. Deke’s flesh was cold, wet, and knobby with goose bumps. The feel of it made David recoil, and he was quick to withdraw his hand. “What’s going on here, Deke?”
    Deke blinked at him, as if to clear his vision. There was muddled confusion in his eyes. David wondered if Deke was in shock from having nearly been run over.
    â€œHey, David.” Deke broke into a wide smile. The sight of it chilled David further. “How you been?”
    â€œDeke, man, why are you standing out here in the middle of the night in your underwear?”
    Deke glanced down. His bare feet shuffled around in the puddle. His toes were practically blue. When he looked up and met David’s eyes again, there was still no clarity there.
    â€œCome on,” David said, grasping Deke high on one forearm; it seemed his fingers sank too easily into the pliable flesh. “First thing, let’s get you inside.”
    â€œOh,” Deke said. “Okay, David.”
    David led Deke up the walk of the man’s house. When he reached out and grasped the doorknob, he found the knob wouldn’t turn.
    â€œChrist. Door’s locked, Deke. You locked yourself out. In your undies, no less.”
    â€œSide door’s unlocked, I think,” Deke said.
    â€œLet’s go see,” David said. Still clutching Deke’s forearm, he went around the side of the house and found the side door was, in fact, unlocked. And not just unlocked— open. David glanced at Deke again, hoping to ascertain some semblance of normalcy behind the man’s eerie, vacuous stare. But Deke Carmody’s eyes were like two dead headlamps. It was like some vital fuse had burned out inside of him.
    â€œGo on,” David said, urging him toward the doorway. “Get in.”
    Deke shuffled inside and David followed. The lights were off, and David felt along one wall for the switch. When he found it, he flipped it on, and the single bulb over the kitchen sink winked on. Deke quit shuffling and stared up at the naked bulb as if in awe.
    Unmarried and without children, Deke Carmody lived