Nebulon Horror Read Online Free PDF Page A

them."
    "You can't just say to hell with them if they're your customers."
    "Can't I? Watch me."
    "No, Keith. I'm serious. What will you do?"
    After another brief silence he said, "Mel, Vin didn't touch that child. I don't know why she accused him but I know him, and I'm positive he didn't do any such thing."
    Melanie had already mentioned her theory that the youngster might have been dreaming. She repeated it now and Keith nodded.
    "That has to be it, hon. It made sense last night and still does. She fell asleep. She dreamed he was touching her. She turned on him without really waking up." Leaning over, he kissed her slowly and thoroughly on the mouth before sliding out of bed. "Who makes breakfast?" he demanded then. Living alone, he had become a skillful cook and enjoyed proving it—at least to someone as appreciative as she.
    "You do," she told him. "It's your turn. Besides, I want one of your fancy omelets."
    Showered and dressed, Keith went into the kitchen while she was bathing, and took time to concoct a breakfast that would please her. He enjoyed pleasing her at all times but especially when she did him the honor of spending the night with him. They would marry eventually, of course. They both took that for granted. Meanwhile he ran the nursery and she her little gift shop in town, and except that they maintained separate residences and hadn't been pronounced man and wife by a third party, they were married. Into the omelets this morning went fresh sweet basil and chives from the herb garden outside the kitchen door, and immeasurable love.
    After breakfast Melanie departed, driving off in her own small car, which had been in the yard since before the concert. She would go home before going to her gift shop. She lived in a rented apartment on the lake, not larger than the one Olive and Jerri Jansen occupied in town, but newer and nicer. Like Olive she was a Nebulon girl—had in fact been only a year behind Olive in high school. Her father, Sam Skipworth, owned a garage and was so respected a mechanic that he was given all the local farm machinery to fix . Her mother was shamefully fat but so unfailingly good-natured that no one thought a thing about it.
    After watching her car turn at the gate, Keith went to work. There was much to do at the nursery, and except on special occasions he had only the one assistant. This morning he walked along rows of tropical fruit trees—sapodilla, custard apple, carambola—for the production of which he was beginning to acquire a reputation. People came from far away to buy them.
    It was a little after eight o'clock. The low morning sun made an acre of shimmering leaves glisten as though they had just been dipped in dark green enamel. He loved every leaf.
    He too had been born in Nebulon. After earning his degree at the University of Miami and failing to find a job, he had decided the social sciences were not for him anyway. While in college he had worked summers at a south Florida nursery to help pay expenses, and had found the work fulfilling. So that was it. Some men had to stumble around for years before finding their milieu. He was lucky; he had it right away.
    Moving back to Nebulon where no one had thought of doing that kind of thing, he started the Wilding Nursery on a few dollars borrowed from his mother, who was well enough off to risk losing the money. His father, a builder, had been dead a year then, of a heart attack at the age of fifty-two.
    Keith straightened from picking a caterpillar from a Guiana chestnut leaf. A car had turned in at the gate, the same car he had driven from the park last night after little Jerri Jansen had torn the face of its owner. Not only here but early , he thought, shaking his head in admiration. Wondering whether Vin had removed Doc Broderick's bandages, he hurried down the path to the nursery office.
    No bandages, he noticed as the car stopped and Vin got out. But it might have been better had they been left on. On each side of Vin's face