20th Century Ghosts Read Online Free PDF

your stories, 'Buttonboy,' in True North , and I liked it quite a bit. I was hoping to use it in this year's collection." He paused, then added, "You haven't been so easy to get in touch with."
    "Come up," Kilrue said, and stepped back from the top of the stairs.
    Carroll started up the steps. Below, the fat brother began to wander down the hall, Carroll's coat in one hand, the Kilrue family mail in the other. Then, abruptly, the fat man stopped, looked up the stairwell, waggled a manila envelope.
    "Hey, Pete! Mom's social security came!" His voice wavering with pleasure.
    By the time Carroll reached the top of the staircase, Peter Kilrue was already walking down the hall, to an open door at the end. The corridor itself seemed crooked somehow. The floor felt tilted underfoot, so much so that once Carroll had to touch the wall to steady himself. Floorboards were missing. A chandelier hung with crystal pendants floated above the stairwell, furred with lint and cobwebs. In some distant, echoing room of Carroll's mind, a hunchback played the opening bars of The Addams Family on a glockenspiel.
    Kilrue had a small bedroom located under the pitch of the roof. A card table with a chipped wooden surface stood against one wall, with a humming Selectric typewriter set upon it, a sheet of paper rolled into the platen. "Were you working?" Carroll asked.
    "I can't stop," Kilrue said.
    "Good."
    Kilrue sat on the cot. Carroll came a step inside the door, couldn't go any further without ducking his head. Peter Kilrue had oddly colorless eyes, the lids red-rimmed as if irritated, and he regarded Carroll without blinking.
    Carroll told him about the collection. He said he could pay two hundred dollars, plus a percentage of shared royalties. Kilrue nodded, seemed neither surprised nor curious about the details. His voice was breathy and girlish. He said thank you.
    "What did you think of my ending?" Kilrue asked, without forewarning.
    "Of 'Buttonboy'? I liked it. If I didn't, I wouldn't want to reprint it."
    "They hated it down at Katahdin University. All those coeds with their pleated skirts and rich daddies. They hated a lot of stuff about the story, but especially my ending."
    Carroll nodded. "Because they didn't see it coming. It probably gave a few of them a nasty jolt. The shock ending is out of fashion in mainstream literature."
    Kilrue said, "The way I wrote it at first, the giant is strangling her, and just as she's passing out, she can feel the other one using buttons to pin her twat shut. But I lost my nerve and cut it out. Didn't think Noonan would publish it that way."
    "In horror, it's often what you leave out that gives a story its power," Carroll said, but it was just something to say. He felt a cool tingle of sweat on his forehead. "I'll go get a permissions form from my car." He wasn't sure why he said that either. He didn't have a permissions form in the car, just felt a sudden intense desire to catch a breath of cold fresh air.
    He ducked back through the door into the hall. He found it took an effort to keep from breaking into a trot.
    At the bottom of the staircase, Carroll hesitated in the hall, wondering where Kilrue's obese older brother had gone with his jacket. He started down the corridor. The way grew darker the further he went.
    There was a small door beneath the stairs, but when he tugged on the brass handle it wouldn't open. He proceeded down the hall, looking for a closet. From somewhere nearby he heard grease sizzling, smelled onions, and heard the whack of a knife. He pushed open a door to his right and looked into a formal dining room, the heads of animals mounted on the walls. An oblong shaft of wan light fell across the table. The tablecloth was red and had a swastika in the center.
    Carroll eased the door shut. Another door, just down the hall and to the left, was open, and offered a view of the kitchen. The fat man stood behind a counter, bare-chested and tattooed, chopping what looked like liver with a