Gage Creed came in, dressed in his burial suit. Moss was growing on the suit’s shoulders and lapels. Moss had fouled his white shirt. His fine blond hair was caked with dirt. One eye had gone to the wall; it stared off into space with terrible concentration. The other was fixed on Jud. Gage was grinning at him. “Hello, Jud,” Gage piped in a babyish but perfectly understandable voice. “I’ve come to send your rotten, stinking old soul straight to hell. You fucked with me once. Did you think I wouldn’t come back sooner or later and fuck with you?” Jud raised the cleaver. “Come on and get your
Gage Creed came in, dressed in his burial suit. Moss was growing on the suit’s shoulders and lapels. Moss had fouled his white shirt. His fine blond hair was caked with dirt. One eye had gone to the wall; it stared off into space with terrible concentration. The other was fixed on Jud. Gage was grinning at him. “Hello, Jud,” Gage piped in a babyish but perfectly understandable voice. “I’ve come to send your rotten, stinking old soul straight to hell. You fucked with me once. Did you think I wouldn’t come back sooner or later and fuck with you?” Jud raised the cleaver. “Come on and get your pecker out then, whatever you are. We’ll see who fucks with who.” “Norma’s dead, and there’ll be no one to mourn you,” Gage said. “What a cheap slut she was. She fucked every one of your friends, Jud. She let them put it up her ass. That’s how she liked it best. She’s burning down in hell, arthritis and all. I saw her there, Jud. I saw her there.” It lurched two steps toward him, shoes leaving muddy tracks on the worn linoleum. It held one hand out in front of it as if to shake with him; the other hand was curled behind its back. “Listen, Jud,” it whispered—and then its mouth hung open, baring small milk teeth, and although the lips did not move, Norma’s voice issued forth. “I laughed at you! We all laughed at you! How we laaaaaauuughed—” “Stop it!” The cleaver jittered in his hand. “We did it in our bed, Herk and I did it, I did it with George, I did it with all of them. I knew about yo...
...more
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
your whores but you never knew you married a whore and how we laughed, Jud! We rutted together and we laaaaaaaaaughed at—” “STOP IT!” Jud screamed. He sprang at the tiny, swaying figure in its dirty burial suit, and that was when the cat arrowed out of the darkness under the butcher block where it had been crouched. It was hissing, its ears laid back along the bullet of its skull, and it tripped Jud up just as neat as you please. The cleaver flew out of his hand. It skittered across the humped and faded linoleum, blade and handle swiftly changing places as it whirled. It struck the baseboard with a thin clang and slid under the refrigerator.
