Authors: Jack Ketchum
The Lost
HOW DOES IT FEEL?
Katherine took another sip of vodka.
Ask him
, she thought.
It’s sick but it’s what you really want to know most of all, isn’t it? So go on and ask him. Truth or lie you want to hear his answer
. She lit a cigarette and shook out the match.
“So you didn’t tell me, Ray,” she said. “What did it feel like?”
“Huh? I did tell you.”
“You told me how it felt after. Not then. Not at the time.”
She took another long drink and looked at him.
“Not when you were out there killing people.”
“Jesus, Kath.” He looked uncomfortable as hell but she noticed that the spark had come back to his eyes. “You really want to know this?”
“I guess I must. I’m asking.”
The house was silent. She could hear the ice clink in his scotch as he tipped the glass and drank. She felt absurd for a moment and a little frightened. Like they were sitting around a fire and she was about to hear him tell a ghost story.
He pushed himself up on the couch. He wouldn’t meet her eyes.
He spoke slowly, carefully. . . .
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Text copyright © 2001 by Dallas Mayr
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140
ISBN-13: 9781477833421
ISBN-10: 1477833420
Thanks to Neal McPheeters, Charlie Grant, Neil Linden,
Robert Murphy, and Theo Levine for the info and
especially to Marie Jones of the Cape May County Public
Library, who I pestered quite a lot. To the folks at
Manhattan Vet for the cat stuff, to Paula White for the read,
and to Christopher Golden for the jump-start.
This title was previously published by Dorchester Publishing; this version has been reproduced from the Dorchester book archive files
.
“We all hope for a superior brand of madness but our
wounds are considerably less interesting than our cures.”
—Jim Harrison,
The Beige Dolorosa
Contents
Chapter One: Friday, August 1, 1969 The Cat/Schilling
Chapter Three: Saturday, August 2 Anderson
Chapter Four: Sunday, August 3 Katherine
Chapter Seven: Monday, August 4 Tim
Chapter Nine: Jennifer and Ray
Chapter Ten: Tuesday, August 5 Schilling
Chapter Thirteen: The Cat/Sally
Chapter Fourteen: Wednesday, August 6 Anderson
Chapter Seventeen: Schilling/Ray
Chapter Twenty: Thursday, August 7 Tim/Jennifer
Chapter Twenty-two: Friday, August 8 Ray/Katherine
Chapter Twenty-three: Saturday, August 9 The News
Chapter Twenty-five: Katherine
Chapter Twenty-six: Monday, August 11 to Friday, August 15 The Week in Review
Chapter Twenty-seven: Saturday, August 16 Schilling
Chapter Twenty-eight: Ray/Anderson
Chapter Twenty-nine: Schilling/Tim
Chapter Thirty-three: Sunday y August 17 Jennifer/Katherine/The Cat
Chapter Thirty-five: Happy Hour
Chapter Forty-four: Jennifer/Katherine
Chapter Forty-six: Schilling/Tim
“This world is long on hunger,
This world is short on joy.”
—Jackson Browne
That big wide Elvis grin that contained a subtle sneer. He flashed it at the both of them. He liked Jennifer scared even more than he liked her jealous. He couldn’t say why, he just did. Tim said nothing but that was because Tim was basically too chicken. They were both just a couple of kids when you came right down to it. He decided to push it some.
“Pop ’em.” he whispered. “Hey, me and Tim even talked about it, couple of times. Right, Tim? What it would be like to pop somebody. See, you never hunted, Jen. You don’t get it. You never shot a rabbit. Me and Tim have though. You see it in their eyes. One minute everything’s fine. Hey, we’re hoppin’ down the bunny trail! Next minute, rabbit hell. And you caused it. You took him there and he ain’t coming back. So you got to think how it would feel to shoot a person. And lezzies, screw ’em, they’re barely human anyway. They’re never gonna have kids, right? Who’s gonna miss ’em?”
“Ray, for godsakes, you don’t know they’re lezzies. Not just from a kiss and getting naked together you don’t.”
He could hear the anxiety in Tim’s voice. He liked hearing that there too. A little too much of it, though.
“Keep it down, for chrissake, will you, Tim?”
“Okay, all right. But you
don’t
know they’re lezzies. I hear people in Europe get naked together all the time. I hear girls hold hands in the streets over there. It’s an affection thing. Maybe give one another a kiss now and then right out in public. Maybe they’re European.”
He could barely keep from howling.
“Tim, you are
so
full of shit. European!”
“Well, you don’t know, do you?”
“That brunette’s no European. That brunette’s homegrown American as apple pie. Got money up the wazoo, too. So what do you figure? Pop her or fuck her?”
“Jesus, Ray.”
He shrugged and smiled. “You got to figure the options, Timmy. You got to always figure the options.”
“You’re a beautiful girl for godsakes,” Elise had said to her. “To hell with Phillip. You’ll find somebody who’s a whole lot better, you’ll see.” And then reached out and touched her long dark hair and gave her a little kiss.
It was just the kind of kiss goodnight they’d always given one another when they were little girls just before the lights went out at bedtime. A sleepy, sleep-over kiss and it was a comfort to her.
And right now she needed some comforting.
The sun had helped and the cool clear water of the pool had helped. Hell, even the franks and beans were helping. It was getting out of Short Hills for the day that was important and Elise had been the one to realize that. It figured it would be Elise. Of the two of them she was the strong and certain one, the one apt to take charge. Though she certainly didn’t look it, slim and frail-looking as she was, with all that frizzy red hair.