Strange Robby Read Online Free PDF

took a deep breath. "Look at me, would you? It must be PMS . . . In those trenches in Baghdad . . . the guys I was killing . . . they were just like me. They thought they were right . . . on the right side, you know? That was their only crime, and I killed them for it. But here on the streets . . . the scum out there. Their crimes aren't just that they're on the wrong side; their crimes are against mankind. But them I'm expected to let go . . . to just let them slip between the cracks. Sometimes I just can't.
     
    "It's crazy, Henry. I'm damn near forty, and I haven't done a damn thing with my life. No partner, no kids. Hell, I don't even have dishes, and I can't remember the last time I used my fucking cook stove. I live on cold cereal, Ramen soup, and salad. What the hell for? I can't remember the last time I felt any joy, the last time I even really felt alive . . . Henry, you're lying here unable to move, to talk, and I'm the one who doesn't know how to live. Something's got to change, but I'm damned if I know what—or how to find out."
     
     
     
    She'd driven around for an hour and finally wound up at a bar looking to pick someone up. But it was early in the morning, the pickings were slim, and when it came time to put up or shut up, she went home alone. She should have been exhausted, but she wasn't. She lay in her recliner and stared at the ceiling. The TV was on, but she wasn't watching it.
     
    Her apartment was small. A tiny bathroom, a kitchenette, and the combined living/bedroom—that was it. She had it fixed up nice and kept it clean. Which was more than you could say for the hallways and the other apartments. The landlord wouldn't fix anything. But for the rent she was paying she didn't mind fixing things when they broke, or replacing the steam heater with electric baseboard heaters when the steam became erratic, or buying new appliances when the old ones died.
     
    Usually just being at home, a place that was hers alone, made her more relaxed. Not tonight—or morning, rather. It just felt empty, as empty as her life. She looked at the clock hanging on the wall. It was five o'clock in the morning. She wished she was tired. She looked at the wall of shelves full of books, but couldn't make herself get up to go get one. She stared back at the TV. Mindless drivel. Eventually it succeeded in numbing her brain, and she went to sleep in the recliner.
     
    She dreamt about her again, the woman without a face. About noon she woke up with a crick in her neck, feeling more frustrated and empty than she had the night before. She wished she had to go to work, but she didn't. Two whole days off, two days with nothing to do. If she had a life, that would have been great. Since she didn't, it was a living hell. At three o'clock she got a call from IAD asking her to come in so that they could run over the incident report one more time, and she was more than happy to go. Even though the whole thing was in the computer, and she knew damn good and well that all they wanted to do was get her to say that she killed the guy on purpose. Which she wasn't crazy enough to do—yet.
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Four
 
"Two are better than one; because they have a good
reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift
up his fellow. But woe to him that is alone; for he has not
another to help him up." Ecclesiastes 4:9&10
     
    Robby went in the bar to see if the manager had a pick-up for him, to return the barstool he had repaired, and to pick up the money owed him.
     
    The manager looked the stool over, nodded in appreciation and paid Robby. Then he told him where the trash was, and Robby turned to leave.
     
    Just then the man walked into the bar, a big black hole sucking in the energy from all those around him. A great big evil. Robby's flesh crawled, and then he was filled with righteous anger. He saw the man beating women, making them do things they didn't want to do with him and with other men.