The Killing Vision Read Online Free

teeth on the butt of the
cigarette.  “What are you saying, Scotty?”
    “Her body’s been kept refrigerated.  Probably
frozen.”

 
     
     
     
     
    Friday, July 6
    3:23 AM
    Joel sat in the dilapidated recliner in the living
room, watching the lightning flash outside.  An hour ago, the power had gone
out, leaving the house in utter darkness.  He had awoke in the sudden blackness
and fumbled for the battery-powered weather radio in the bedside drawer, and
when he was sure there were no tornadoes heading his way, he tried to go back
to sleep.  But the crashing thunder kept rousing him, and he finally got out of
bed and shuffled to the living room to wait out the storm.
    Sometimes he wished during one of these big storms
that the wind would just suck up this house where he had grown up and
everything in it—the furniture, the knick-knacks, the memories.  He hated the
place.  He hated the old life it represented, the way things were before his
mother and stepfather got killed.  It was as if the house had held on to all
the hate and oppression and now leached it back out like some deadly radiation,
a force that had weakened him so that he could never get away from it.
    Mama and his stepfather Clifton had been dead for
five years now.  They had been killed when Clifton had pulled in front a train
at a crossing in town.  The stupid bastard.  He had been trying to outrun it,
to save a couple of minutes, but he had misjudged the distance.  The freight
train, hauling seventy-three loaded coal cars, had slammed into the pickup
truck and dragged it a mile before it could stop.  Mama and Clifton were both
dead at the scene.
    In a way, it was a relief.  The fucker was dead.  He
could never hurt anyone anymore.
    Clifton Roberts had come into their lives when Joel
was three and Wade was seven.  Their real father, Paul Coffman, had died a year
earlier in a mining accident.  Mama seemed to waste no time in finding another
man; hell, she knew she needed a man if she and the boys were to
survive.  She and Clifton dated a few weeks and were married one day on
Clifton’s lunch hour.  By the time she discovered the monster he really was, he
had already adopted the boys and taken control of all their lives.  It was too
late.
    When Joel was ten, Clifton lost his job at the
quarry.  As time passed with no other job prospects in sight and money becoming
tighter, Clifton grew increasingly irritable, increasingly violent.  Any cross
word or transgression by the boys, no matter how unintentional, resulted in
immediate and merciless punishment. 
    Clifton’s favorite method was surprise. He would
come at you without warning, without any indication that you were a target. 
The first time Joel could remember was when he had spilled his milk at the
dinner table.  Clifton stood up and slapped Joel so hard that he fell out of his
chair. 
    “Clean that mess up,” Clifton spat.  “You know how
expensive milk is.  We’re barely makin’ it, and you go spill all that.”
    With the side of his head stinging in pain, Joel got
to his feet and grabbed a dishcloth from the kitchen counter.  He sopped at the
milk, tears streaming down his cheeks.
    “Stop that goddamn blubberin’.”
    Carefully, Joel wiped up the rest of the milk.
    “Now sit down and eat.”
    Joel looked at his empty glass.  “Can I get some
more milk?”
    Rage flared in Clifton’s eyes.  “Hell, no.  You’re
gonna have to do without.”
    The hatred, the anger in that voice pierced Joel to
his very core, and the tears started up again.
    Suddenly, Clifton was on his feet, pulling his belt
from around his waist.  “I said stop that! ”  The belt came cutting through
the air with a whistle, striking the side of Joel’s head.  He screamed and fell
to the floor.  He lay on the hard floor like a slug, his mind spinning toward a
circle of black.  Mama had not moved an inch, had not uttered a word of
protest.
    When Clifton found work, the tension over