The Damned Summer (The Ruin Trilogy) Read Online Free

mom’s nose. “Breakfast?”
    Mom opened one eye. “What are you making?”
    “Not me,” her daughter smiled. “Daddy’s
wallet is the chef this morning.”
    Mom opened her other eye. “That, I can agree
with,” she replied with a smile. “Ten bucks says I’m ready before you.”
    “Game on!” Sarah jumped out of bed and ran
towards her room.
    Sarah’s mother, Linda, slowly climbed out of
bed and walked over to the cooling cup of coffee.
    “Works every time,” she said with a smile,
taking a sip.
     
     
    Frank opened his eyes and looked at the
ceiling of his bedroom. A slow sigh escaped him as he woke from a peaceful
sleep. Lloyd licked his face once and then sat down beside his right shoulder.
    “Few things rival a good night’s sleep when
you’re as old as me,” he said, rubbing Lloyd’s chest.
     Lloyd looked at him for a moment, then
blinked and looked away.
    “I didn’t do anything wrong,” Frank whispered
into the dog’s ear. “I made no promises to that fiend.” He sat up, throwing his
legs over the side of the bed.
    Lloyd groaned loudly as he lay down on
Frank’s pillow.
    Frank looked at his old friend, stretching
down so their noses touched. “Do you trust me?”
    Lloyd replied by licking his nose.
    “Then relax and let this play out,” Frank
petted Lloyd’s head. “I’m the brain of this operation, remember?” He pointed to
his chest. “You’re the brawn,” he said with a point at Lloyd’s.
    The dog let out three violent sneezes, which
caused Frank to laugh at the top of his lungs. He tried to ruffle his ears, but
Lloyd quickly sprang from the bed with a bark, refusing to let the old man
touch him as he ran out of the room and down the hallway.
    Frank got on his feet with a shake of his
head and a smile. His eyes fell across the picture of his dead wife as he made
his way out of the room. Pausing, he gazed at her when she was in her prime.
Deep beautiful brown eyes looked back at him as he picked up the old silver
frame.
    “Too good for the likes of this old fool,” he
whispered.
    The clacking nails of Lloyd’s feet came from
the hallway as he returned with raised ears.
    “I’m coming,” Frank replied hoarsely, setting
the picture back down.
    Lloyd sat down and waited for him.
    Frank reached the doorway and looked down at
his old friend. “I’ve shared more secrets with you than I ever did with her.”
    Lloyd looked down and moved to Frank’s leg,
leaning against it.
    “It’s not your fault,” Frank said, petting
him. “I know that. “It’s not my fault either.” He looked back at the picture.
“It’s just the nature of the Beast.”
    Shambling into the kitchen, Frank rubbed the
blur from his eyes, opening the silverware drawer to grab a butter knife. His
fingers went to the spot where he kept the butter-knives, but instead of
feeling a metal handle, something pierced his fingertip.
    The sudden pain caused him to remove his hand
from his face, looking down into the drawer. A steak knife laid among the
butters, its serrated teeth standing upwards like the lower jaw of a shark, a
lone tear of blood oozed down one of its tips.
    "How the hell did that get in the wrong
bin?" he asked himself when an old memory hit him as the blood started to
thin out on the knife, bringing the color of the steel to a metallic red. The
same color his father's switchblade had been the night Frank had slit a Viet
Cong's throat.
    Frank's father came to him on the night of
March 26th, 1969. Frank would be shipping out to the Vietnam War the following
morning. His father held out the knife. "Ain't got no advice for you when
it comes to war, boy, other than keep your head down. That's what kept me alive
in WW2," he had said with the same cold eyes he had both before and after
his war. He glanced down at the switchblade. "This came in handy a couple
of times as well. Killed more than one Nazi with this." He dropped it in
Frank's shirt pocket. "Keep her close and she'll do the same for you