The Last Days of October Read Online Free PDF Page A

said to that controlling, bullying little baby asshole when he tore up my
kitchen and then tried to tell me that I wasn’t going to leave him?
    Her imaginary
friends leaned over their drinks, eyes wide.   They waited.
    And waited.
    What did you say?
    She couldn’t
answer them.   She couldn’t answer them
because here, on the spot where she was supposed to make history, she couldn’t
speak a word.   Nothing came.  
    And so she did what
she always did in these situations: she retreated.   She turned and fled down the hallway,
hurrying for the stairs.   Before what
remained of her wits eroded and she degenerated into a crying mess.

 
    4.

 
    In the passenger
seat, Amber rocked back and forth with her arms wrapped around her knees.   Once, Heather would have fussed at her for
putting her feet on the upholstery—Mike had a thing about keeping the cars
clean.   But that time had passed.
    She slowed and
made a right onto Litchfield Avenue.   Leaves from oak and maple trees lay scattered in a brown carpet that
stretched from the street to the front porches of the two-story colonials on
both sides.   The leaves covered each yard
without discrimination, the coverage varying in intensity only by the size and
type of trees in the immediate vicinity.   No one had raked.
    Pulling up behind
Mike’s Ford F-150 pickup, the feeling of doom that had followed her away from
the Shell station intensified.   As soon
as the Durango rolled to a stop behind the pickup, she threw open the door and
jumped out.   “I’m going to find your
father,” she said.
    “Mom, don’t!”
    “His truck’s here,
and that means he’s here, too.   He’s probably inside.”
    “Mom, stop !”
    But Heather wasn’t
listening.   She slammed the door and
charged around the front bumper, banging her shin on Mike’s trailer hitch in
the process.   She stumbled but didn’t
fall—she didn’t have time to fall.   She
had to go see Mike.   Because Mike was
home, he had to be home, because as
mad as he’d been at her, as big a fight as they’d just had he would have never …
    “MOM!   STOP! ”
    Amber tackled her
right on the edge of the leaf-strewn grass.   She stumbled with the impact, waving her arms for balance.   Amber pulled her backwards until they both
slammed against the side of the truck.
    “What are you
doing?”   Heather gasped.
    “Mom, the door!”
    Heather looked.
    The front door to
their house stood open.   Only a crack,
but at an angle just slight enough to make visible the large cross spray
painted there.   Heather’s stomach
flipped, rolled and fell straight into her feet.   Her heart hammered against her ribs.
    “I’ve got to check
on Daddy,” she said.   “So let go of me,
okay?”
    Amber had her
enveloped from behind in a bear hug that she tightened now.   Heather worked a hand up between her
daughter’s arm and her own chest in order to keep breathing.   “We don’t know what’s in there,” Amber
said.   “It could be a quarantine sign or
something.   Like a disease or something.”
    “I know.”
    “And if you go in
there you’ll get it.   You’ll die.”
    “If he’s not in
there, I’ll come right back out.   I
promise.”
    “And if he is?”
    Heather swallowed
and closed her eyes.  
    “Then I’ll still
come right back out.   Okay?   Listen, we went inside that gas station.   I touched the screen door up at Mr. Cagle’s
house to tell him we were leaving.   If
there’s some kind of superbug on the loose, we already have it.”
    Heather felt Amber
shaking.   Gently, she reached her other
hand up and peeled her arms from around her chest.   She turned around and kissed her forehead.   Then she opened the door and sat her firmly
on the passenger seat.
    “Stay here.   I’ll be right back.”
    She turned and
started towards the house.
    Please, God, let him be in there napping on
the couch or something, maybe him and Clyde passed out on the floor from too
much beer, we