Button, Button: Uncanny Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

powered the Ford back along the road, then turned in and braked in front of the cafe.
    "Boy, I'm starved," he said.
    "So am I," Jean said. "I was starved last night, too, until the waitress brought that food to the table."
    Bob shrugged. "So what can we do?" he said. "Is it better we starve and they find our bleached bones in the desert?"
    She made a face at him and they got out of the car. "Bleached bones," she said.
    The heat fell over them like a waterfall as they stepped into the sun. They hurried toward the cafe, feeling the burning ground through their sandals.
    "It's so hot," Jean said, and Bob grunted.
    The screen door made a groaning sound as they pulled it open. Then it slapped shut behind them and they were in the stuffy interior that smelled of grease and hot dust.
    The three men in the cafe looked up at them as they entered. One, in overalls and a dirty cap, sat slumped in a back booth drinking beer. Another sat on a counter stool, a sandwich in his hand and a bottle of beer in front of him. The third man was behind the counter looking at them over a lowered newspaper. He was dressed in a white, shortsleeved shirt and wrinkled white ducks.
    "Here we go," Bob whispered to her. "The Ritz-Carlton."
    She enunciated slowly, "Ha-ha."
    They moved to the counter and sat down on stools. The three men still looked at them. "Our arrival in town must be an event," Bob said softly.
    "We're celebrities," Jean said.
    The man in the white ducks came over and drew a menu from behind a tarnished napkin holder. He slid it across the counter toward them. Bob opened it up and the two of them looked at it.
    "Have you got any iced tea?" Bob asked.
    The man shook his head. "No."
    "Lemonade?" Jean asked.
    The man shook his head. They looked at the menu again.
    "What have you got that's cold?" Bob asked.
    "Hi-Li Orange and Dr Pepper," said the man in a bored voice.
    Bob cleared his throat.
    "May we have some water before we order? We've been-"
    The man turned away and walked back to the sink. He ran water into two cloudy glasses and brought them back. They spilled over onto the counter as he set them down. Jean picked up her glass and took a sip. She almost choked on the water it was so brackish and warm. She put down the glass.
    "Can't you get it any cooler?" she asked.
    "This is desert country, ma'am," he said. "We're lucky we get any water at all."
    He was a man in his early fifties, his hair steel-gray and dry, parted in the middle. The backs of his hands were covered with tiny swirls of black hair, and on the small finger of his right hand there was a ring with a red stone in it. He stared at them with lifeless eyes and waited for their order.
    "I'll have a fried egg sandwich on rye toast and-" Bob started.
    "No toast," said the man.
    "All right, plain rye then."
    "No rye."
    Bob looked up. "What kind of bread have you got?" he asked.
    "White."
    Bob shrugged. "White then. And a strawberry malted. How about you, honey?"
    The man's flat gaze moved over to Jean.
    "I don't know," she said. She looked up at the man. "I'll decide while you're making my husband's order."
    The man looked at her a moment longer, then turned away and walked back to the stove. "This is awful," Jean said.
    "I know, honey," Bob admitted, "but what can we do? We don't know how far it is to the next town."
    Jean pushed away the cloudy glass and slid off the stool.
    "I'm going to wash up," she said. "Maybe then I'll feel more like eating."
    "Good idea," he said.
    After a moment, he got off his stool, too, and walked to the front of the cafe where the two restrooms were.
    His hand was on the doorknob when the man eating at the counter called, "Think it's locked, mister."
    Bob pushed.
    "No it isn't," he said and went in.
    Jean came out of the washroom and walked back to her stool at the counter. Bob wasn't there. He must be washing up, too, she thought. The man who had been eating at the counter was gone.
    The man in the white ducks left his small gas stove and came