Twilight

by William Gay

God’s eyes flickered with electric blue light and the old man’s heart exploded in a torrent of black blood and corruption and he just dropped like a stone, dead before his body touched the stairs, and God went back to his seed catalog.

No one wouldexpect to find the things we did, not in a thousand years.

I’ve heard of them myself. But none where these vandals took pictures of you and a bunch of naked dead women and then hid them in the trunk of your car. Why do you reckon they did that?

Granville Sutter lived in a tiny house he’d built himself. Twominiature rooms, a kitchen and the front room he slept in. Most nights. Other nights he slept wherever he might be when night fell on him.

But it was more than the money. Something in his life that had been without form was taking shape. A dark, cauled shape that stood to the side and watched him with hooded, expressionless eyes. In some curious way he intuited that all his life previous had simply been a rehearsal for this.

Somehow this all felt preordained and out of control, as if someone was behind the curtains mimicking voices and controlling the strings. As if for all the years of his life he and Sutter had been passing and repassing in the dark and now here they were face to face in God’s own daylight and there was nothing for it.

He’d thought he was able to handle whatever befell him but this was something new. Something far outside the borders, and he could feel a panicky fear like cold waters rising about him. He didn’t know how deep they were and he didn’t know if he could swim in them.

You know when somethin bad happens, how folks kind of console one another? They say, well, it could of been worse. This or that could of happened. Well, not this time. Believe it. I am absolutely the worst thing that can happen to you.

Tyler went out without speaking and left the door ajar. The deputy’s voice said, Wouldn’t mind takin little sister a round myself.

Granville was a boy he woke up one time in the middle of

There’s things in this world better let alone. Things sealed away and not meant to be looked upon. Lines better not crossed, and when you do cross em you got to take what comes.

For years he’d felt madness sniffing his tracks like an unwanted dog he couldn’t stay shut of. He’d kick it away and it would whimper and cower down spinelessly and he’d go on, but when he looked back over his shoulder it would be shambling toward him, watching him with wary apprehension but coming on anyway.