Mike Nelson's Death Rat! Read Online Free

about it since. It was perhaps most troubling in the area of romance. He’d had four dates in the last fifteen years (coincidentally, all of them had been with local television news anchors), and none of them had gone very well. For an hour or so during one of them, he held hope for a relationship with Rebecca Sparks, the coanchor of the ABC affiliate. She was attractive, meticulously groomed, bright, flirty. Bromstad had felt himself becoming interested, but then, when he’d tried to act flirty in return, not his specialty, he’d bungled it and come off as menacing. She cooled on him; he blamed her and became sullen. They parted on chilly terms. For several months afterward he’d watch her broadcasts, eat pizza rolls, and wonder if she was thinking of him.
    Years ago there had been his common-law wife, Marion, but that had been a match of convenience; they’d remained a couple mainly because after college, on a whim, they’d purchased a duplex together. They’d met in the St. Odo the Good marching band, and the first time he’d kissed her, they were both wearing three-foot-tall white, fur-covered hats. Later he wondered if that wasn’t perhaps the first of many, bright, legible signs that theirs wasn’t exactly a romance for the ages.
    Still, after she moved out, he was morose. He had a night job at a low-wattage radio station at the time, and when he wasn’t working, he padded around the duplex wearing flannel pajamas and mixing himself strawberry daiquiris, sometimes as early as nine-thirty in the morning. When the renters on the other side of the duplex moved away, he didn’t bother renting it out again; he simply moved over to that side, leaving the newly vacant portion nearly condemnable.
    But he did find love again, a far deeper love than Marion could ever have given him. With Marion, even had it lasted, there would always have been her stinky herbal teas, her cut-off military pants, her belief that Watership Down was one of the greatest novels of the century. His true love had none of these rather serious blemishes. No, his love was perfect and pure, unchanging.
    His public. That was his true love. They understood him, they did not judge or condemn; they simply adored him. And in return he loved them—or rather loved their love of him. Not as individuals and not in person, however. To him that was horrible. It was too close. Like trying to see your lover by examining her scalp with a microscope or by looking under her toenails. No, his lover was best loved from afar, and as a whole. Not as each separate, lumpy, often unattractive sub-unit.
    His love was here today, ringing a field of green beneath him. When they’d introduced him before the game, the roar from the crowd was their declaration of love, and it satisfied him deeply. They cheered loudly when he threw out the first pitch, despite the fact that it was a good thirty-five feet short and half again as many wide of the plate. Love was like that, always forgiving and supportive. It was a glorious display of their love and a glorious day, despite the strong smell of beer, which he detested. In fact, he avoided alcohol altogether, mainly because the first time he’d tried it, he felt out of control the whole time, and when he woke up, he discovered that he had wet the bed.
    â€œMr. Bromstad, I think today’s event can be classified as a great success, don’t you?” asked Darlene Pedersen, eager to get past the unpleasantness with the chicken legs.
    â€œWell, I have very little experience with bobble-head dollpromotions,” he said without a hint of humor. Most of the people in the suite laughed, but he was able to shrug off the jocularity and continue to be prickly. “But, yes, I suppose it’s going as well as one would hope.”
    Bromstad, snackless but with drink in hand, sat down again next to his hostess in what he imagined was supposed to be the seat of honor. Since the