Read Online The Rampant Reaper by Marlys Millhiser - Free Book Online

it was caused by frostbite from walking to school in an Iowa winter wearing heavy mittens, while Charlie ran off to school bareheaded without gloves or boots because fashionable kids didn’t wear jerky stuff. Charlie lived only a block and a half from her grade school, for godsake.
    She passed a derelict Solemn Lutheran Church that looked rather cheerful with the sun shining through all the holes and the bright colors of the maples around it.
    She could hear footsteps behind her on the white rock drive to Gentle Oaks, but didn’t turn and look. With any luck, poor, demented Marlys Dittberner had been curious enough to follow her.
    But when she reached the white columns holding up the porch roof, it was the deep and unmistakable voice of Kenny Cowper behind her that said, “I’ll say one thing for you Auchmoodys—you
sure know how to move right in a pair of jeans.”
    Charlie’s gut knew a dangerous man when her eyes saw one, ears heard one. An if-it-looks-too-good-to-be-true-it-probably-is kind of thing. Her inner voice reminded her of what Mitch Hilsten had said a short time ago—she was particularly vulnerable right now and it had little to do with the full moon, but a lot to do with her female rhythms, as Marlys put it. There were certain times of certain months when Charlie didn’t go out at night. And it wasn’t only to protect herself.
    He held the outer door for her and she stepped in, but he didn’t follow. She turned to see him facing the drive with hands on hips. He appeared to be breathing deeply. It wasn’t until she’d crossed the lobby that she realized he too had Charlie’s, Libby’s, and Marlys’s almost black eyes. Was one of Charlie’s progenitors a Cowper? But his hair was so dark—brown, not black, but dark—and he had a pronounced widow’s peak. Inbreeding? Different traits appear? Could inbreeding explain the unreasonably long-lived people here even when they’re at death’s door?
    Charlie carefully opened the inner door this time, nobody flew out and no alarm startled the quiet of the place. Now the odor was of cooked food rather than what it would become later. She’d turned toward a nurses’ station when a clanking sounded behind her and a raspy voice said, “Got a match?”
    Something hard poked the middle of her back. “No.”
    â€œGot a cigarette?”
    â€œNo.” Nobody would have a gun in a nursing home, would they? Sure what it felt like.
    â€œYou smoke?”
    â€œNo.” Charlie whirled to find a small man pointing a cane at her.
    â€œCan I borrow a cigarette?”
    â€œI don’t have any. I don’t smoke. Now leave me alone.”
    He wore overalls way too short for him and a shapeless
pinstripe suit jacket that looked like gangster-era Chicago. So did his hat. And shapeless slippers with white socks. His ankles were enormous.
    â€œWell, you don’t have to get nasty about it.” The clanking started up again the minute he did. “Tart.”
    â€œSherman, you get back here with that silverware.” An RN, by her badge, came around the curve in the hallway and passed Charlie to grab his arm. “Hi. You must be the girl from L.A. Come on in the dining room. Got to unload his socks.”
    â€œThe silverware?”
    â€œYeah. Wouldn’t mind so much but he steals the dirty stuff off the trays before we can get to it. Before I went into nursing, I used to work in a preschool and believe me, it was easier than this.”
    â€œIs he an Auchmoody or a Dittberner or—”
    â€œSherman’s a Rochester—and a disgusting one. This is awful, old man. Look at your socks. Ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
    â€œCiga-riga-roo?” A florid lady howled from across the room—the only person left except for the busboy who came to put Sherman’s stolen goods in a pan with water.
    â€œHarvey’s