At Fear's Altar Read Online Free PDF

course it’s Bev. Of course it is. And my name is Colin Edward Best. And this is my home in the village of Shelford, Ontario. And I am eating Black Forest ham on wheat .   .   .’
    The silly naming of Black Forest flung Colin’s attention back to today’s dense and confusing forest. And the heat. And the unfamiliar church with those awful sights inside .   .   .
    Colin set the plate to one side and closed his eyes once more. For a long time his mind lingered in a semi-relaxed state. He could hear every chirping sparrow, each distorted voice from the yards beyond his window. Colin wondered how his neighbours could be so complacent, so assured of the trees and copses that had wreaked havoc with him.
    The illogic of it all, the sheer randomness, made his head swim. He drew in a long breath, held it, and when he finally released it Colin imagined his exhalation fanning out like great wings, ones that freighted his psyche to more tranquil climes.
    He saw himself lazing in a great meadow, his body domed by the gentle shade of a willow. Everywhere Colin looked he saw long and supple grass that had never known the taming hand of humanity. The wind that bullied them was cool and fresh. There were no sounds beyond the perennial gush of the willow boughs.
    All too swiftly, the dream began to sour and darken.
    Gone was the clean-smelling air, the pacific atmosphere. Now there was only the stinking cloister of a taboo chapel. Colin’s dreaming self looked about, grateful for the shadows that had congealed over the walls and pews, guising the pornographic tapestry. He was wrung with a raw hot fear when he discovered that he was not alone.
    The faceless bodies began to depict the acts he’d seen in those wrinkled magazine images. Colin bottomed out completely. He tried to turn away, but one of the crawling, slippery-skinned women was familiar to him. He’d know Beverly’s smile anywhere.
    He started awake, unaware of not only who he was, but indeed if he was. The house was silent, and for one icy moment Colin felt utterly marooned.
    A reflexive grunt slipped out as he pushed his trunk off the mattress. The air inside his mouth was sour. He stole a draught from the water glass, but it did nothing to rinse the taste from his palette. He rose and shambled out to the living room.
    His granddaughters were visible through the box window. Muted by distance and filtered by grimy glass (Colin just that moment remembered his plan to wash all the panes before Paula’s visit), the girls appeared as actresses in a silent movie. Colin found himself trying to read their lips, to interpret what every gesture insinuated. He was half waiting for explanatory subtitles to stain the air between them.
    He didn’t spot Paula until he entered the kitchen to fix himself a rye-and-ginger. She was standing where the front lawn hemmed the main road. She was talking with Millie Fuerstein. Whatever the spinster from across the road had to say, it was delivered with dramatic flair and was drawn out.
    Colin cowered behind the yellowing lace of the curtains Beverly had sewn the year they’d bought this house. He peeped as Millie used her pruning shears as a pointer, singling out his house of all things. She flattened a gloved hand across her chest, roughly where her heart would be. Was she offering Paula sympathy? His daughter had her back to the window, but Colin could see her nodding, nodding, slowly.
    He backed away and resumed mixing his drink, wondering why the fluid in his bottle of Crown Royal was so thick and gummy. His confusion worsened when he read the bottle’s label and discovered he’d taken a bottle of vegetable oil from the cupboard instead of his favourite whiskey.
    To avoid any embarrassing confrontations with Paula, Colin dumped both oil bottle and drinking glass into the trashcan.
    Any doubts he may have harboured about Paula and Millie’s conversation being about him were removed once Paula entered the house. She was pleasantly