Boy Robert Reed

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.The Boy by Robert Reed The mass market paperback edition of the Robert Reed's latest novel, Marrow, is just out from Tor Books.Mr.Reed tells us the inspiration for the following story came from two sources.“At a flea market, my wife bought one of those Christ-with-the-flock-of-sheep prints.She claims that she only wanted the frame, but somehow the Savior remains in his home.Nicely combed and very long hair; almost feminine, in some ways.” He also had a tall adolescent boy come to the front door and ask if he could pick one of his flowers.Those two incidents got the author thinking about a simple what-if.[Back to Table of Contents]Dies Veneris.A throbbing finds Helena.It is warm and insistent, and in a small hard way, it feels angry.For a slippery instant, the sensation is her own.Her heart is thundering, or maybe a sick artery is pulsing deep within her brain.Then she finds herself awake, realizing that a lazy after-lunch nap must have ambushed her, and as she sits up in bed, breathing in quick sighs, the throbbing turns from something felt into a genuine sound, and the sound swells until the loose panes in her windows begin to rattle, and the air itself reverberates like the stubborn head of a beaten drum.A car passes.Smallish, and elderly.Nothing about it fast or particularly dangerous.But it is endowed with oversized speakers, their unlovely, thoroughly modern music making the neighborhood shiver.Helena watches the car as far as her lilacs.Then it vanishes, and the rude noise diminishes, and she lies back on her pillow, considering.Considering how much time she has, and her mood.Twenty minutes left in her lunch hour.A six-minute drive to work, if traffic cooperates.Her right hand tugs casually at her zipper.An after-lunch indulgence, she's thinking.She thinks about one man, then another.But the music returns, and her window glass rattles until it stops in mid-throb—a cessation of sound that startles in its own right.Helena takes a breath, and holds it.Through the windows, a person appears.A male person.On foot, strolling with purpose along her narrow driveway.Helena feels embarrassed for no good reason.She sits up, telling herself that nobody can see her.And even if they could, she was doing nothing but enjoying a dieter's lunch and an innocent nap.Her doorbell rings.Helena gives her zipper a tug before slipping into her front room.She's not sure what to do.Nothing is a viable, sensible option.Stand and wait and do nothing.Because caution is always sensible, she reminds herself.Just last week, another local woman was raped, and they still haven't found the monster responsible.But then the doorbell rings again, gnawing away her resolve.Cathedral bells, it's supposed to sound like.But it's a cheap wireless bell that she installed herself, and the batteries are dying, and a bright sharp hum lingers.She can still hear the hum as she unbolts and opens the front door.Standing on her tiny concrete porch is a tall thin boy.He looks to be sixteen, with few pimples and a neat diamond-shaped scar standing on his right cheek.She doesn't know his face.Or does she? Placing a hand on the locked latch of her storm door, Helena begins with a soft cough, then growls,“Yes?”The boy seems to be staring at the rain gutter, eyes held in a half-squint and his narrow body held erect with his hands empty at his sides and his young, surprisingly deep voice saying to someone, “You're going to think this is retarded.” Apparently speaking to her, he asks, “Can I pick one of your flowers?”She thinks nothing at all.Except for a sudden relief that he isn't a rapist ready to crash through the glass.Why did she open her door to a stranger? How much good sense does that show? Even if it's daylight, in a good neighborhood.!“Ma'am?” he prompts.She says, “I guess.Of course.”Then she smiles, her expression going to waste.The boy says, “Thank you, ma'am,” without ever looking at her face.He seems embarrassed, turning and stepping off the porch, following the narrow walk to the driveway and the driveway out to where his ugly little car waits.Helena closes her door and bolts it.By the time she looks outside, the boy is carrying a single red tulip by the stalk.Her tulips are past their prime.One good shake, and that blossom flies apart.But no, he seems to be careful.Considerate.Climbing behind the wheel, the boy gently sets the flower on the seat beside him, then starts the little engine with a coarse rattle that brings back the music.Unchanged.Deep, and rhythmic.A male singer chants about some burning issue or love, but she can't quite make out the words, standing at her window, watching as the boy pulls into her driveway in order to back out again, turning back the way he started, again vanishing somewhere past the soft pink lilacs.Helena can't help but wonder who's getting her flower.Her big sedan is parked beside her very little house.East is the quick route.But today, Helena steers west.For a moment or two, she considers all the good sensible reasons to be curious about a stranger passing through her neighborhood.But she's not actually following the boy, she promises herself.Slowing at the corner, she looks ahead and then right, seeing the little car parked on the street, and silent.Nobody sitting inside it now.The boy stopped in front of Lydia's house.Unsure what she's thinking, Helena turns right and slows, staring at the brick bungalow with its little porch and little windows, its blinds and drapes pulled shut.She catches herself nearly stopping in the middle of the street.Then she accelerates, but only a little bit.And always staring.Lydia's car is nowhere to be seen [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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