Ghouljaw and Other Stories Read Online Free Page A

struggling to pry on his sneaker, stopped suddenly. “You know Winston?”
    Gina snorted—the ember of her cigarette glowed for a moment before she answered. “Yeah, I know Winston.”
    Max let that sink in. Everything in the room was at once crystallized and distorted. He found his flannel shirt and fumbled with the buttons. As he stood, he tripped and fell. Gina let loose a small chain of giggles. “Amateur,” she said and clicked her tongue. “Winston was right about you, prettyboy .”
    Wavering, Max got to his feet again, but now he was moving quick—panic propelling him forward. The light in the hallway stung his eyes with antiseptic starkness, and he teetered as he slid his hands along the wall, stumbling toward the stairs. The other girl, Nancy, who’d been at the bottom of the stairwell, was gone; but her collage still lay scattered on the landing.
    People, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, were gathered down in the main hall. With his hand clutching the railing, Max craned his head above the top of the crowd, which seemed to be congregated in the living room near the front door. And now he could see what they were watching.
    Winston Kolb had Jerry pinned-up against the wall near the front door. Jerry’s face—having obviously suffered some trauma—was horribly florid; his lip was split and a rill of blood ran from his nose. He struggled against Winston, who threw a vicious, under-arcing punch into the smaller boy’s stomach. Jerry slid down the wall, hitting the floor with both knees before doubling up in a fetal position. Max noticed the whisker-patchy hippie he’d seen when they’d arrived; he was drinking a beer and blocking the front door.
    “You stupid, thieving motherfucker,” Winston said, breathing in wheezy bursts. “You thought you could steal from my buddy and get away with it?” Winston gritted his teeth as he kicked Jerry in the lower back.
    For the first time in hours—in weeks, in months—things appeared clear to Max. Jerry, of course, had stolen the drugs. Max shouldn’t have been here tonight—tonight was a trap for Jerry. Winston was grinning, showing a bit of blood around his teeth. Maybe Jerry tried to fight back . The obstinate glee of the thought was remote and fleeting. As close as they were to the front door, it occurred to Max that maybe Jerry had tried to make a break for it.
    “You poseur piece of shit,” Winston said, readying himself to deliver another kick, when he glanced up toward the back of the crowd—Winston’s face contorted, locking eyes with Max. “That guy!” he shouted, raising one of his meaty hands and pointing. “That guy came with McWilliams!”
    Max’s mind seemed to be catching up with his body, and it took him a moment to register that he’d wheeled past a few of the hallway gawkers and was now rushing toward the back door. Someone made a lazy attempt to stop him as he ran through the kitchen, but Max shoved the guy aside and burst through the back screen door.
    The cold rain and night air steeled Max and steadied him as he darted across the unkempt back yard, ducking under a clothesline before slamming against a wooden fence. Max grabbed the top of the fence, his sneakers skidding against the damp planks as he hauled his body up and over, falling sideways into a row of trashcans.
    There were people in the yard now. Frantically, Max pushed himself up and ran for cover in a small belt of trees that lined a junk-cluttered backstreet. Just as one of the pursuing partiers had edged over the top of the fence, Max clawed through a few branches and lost his footing, slipping and tumbling down a steep hill and landing in a soggy, leaf-choked creek. Covered in septic-smelling muck, Max stumbled forward, slinking up the other side of the ravine without looking back. Soon he reached a chest-high chain-link fence, lifting his leg up awkwardly and vaulting himself over, his body jarring as he landed on the puddle-pocketed gravel of a sidestreet. The