63

The instant Jason stood clear of his car, his bones chilled at the sound. A wail, feral, primal, muffled by walls and locked doors into a distant sound.

Coming from his father’s house.

He bolted. Across the lawn, up the steps.

He tore the screen door back, pounded on the wood, shouted. “Dad! Dad!”

Max barked from the other side, whined, and again tried to howl out his fear.

The doorknob wouldn’t budge. Jason shook it, shouldered into the door, but it had no give to it at all.

He turned and ran to the side of the house. Max wailed sadness and want, the siren of it rising and falling, cutting through the house’s sides to ice Jason’s core.

The door next to the gravel driveway was solid too. The old man refused to put bars on his windows, but nobody would get in through these doors. Jason shouted through it, but the only answer came from Max.

He went for the gate to the backyard. Maybe the old man hadn’t reinforced the door in the back of the house. Jason’s fingers scratched for purchase on the latch to free the gate, tripped it. He crashed into the backyard.

He’d been through the back door thousands of times. This one had never been changed. Max’s cries came through more clearly here.

Jason seized the knob. It was locked, but it wobbled in his hand. The deadbolt above it would be locked too. But this old door wouldn’t hold. He leaned into it. Backed away, shoved it. Stepped back. A running start, and he crashed into it.

Something cracked. Either his shoulder or the door.

Five steps back now. He sprinted at it. It exploded inward. Jason stumbled into the kitchen. He lost his footing, broke his fall with his hands.

He looked up. Level with Jason’s face, Max barked out his fury, teeth long, eyes red where they should be white at the edges. But the dog didn’t bite. Max turned and ran out of the room. Returned, barked some more. Jason got to his feet.

“Dad?”

He willed himself forward. He stepped on the stained linoleum as if the thin layer were the only thing between his feet and oblivion. From the back of his mind came information on the composition of linoleum from research he’d done on a loan to a flooring company. It was worthless information, and he despised himself for thinking about linseed oil and limestone here and now.

He rounded the corner. Max stood whimpering at the end of the hallway, where a doorway led to the bedroom.

A smell hit him. Vomit. Excrement. He covered his nose and mouth.

“Oh, no.”

He walked to Max.

Hank Dunn lay half off the bed, his face buried in the carpet. The seat of his pajamas was stained, and near his pillow another stain pooled, peppered with partly digested chunks of food. The telephone was off the hook, the handset dangling by the extended looped cord to within an inch of the floor.

Jason knelt next to his father’s head. “Dad?”

Max nosed in to lick the unmoving face.

“Dad?” Jason put his hand on the old man’s shoulder. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d touched him. “Dad?”

He pushed on the shoulder. No response.

His fingers probed into the folds of the old man’s neck. Along the ribbed tube of his father’s windpipe, he searched for a pulse.

There.

A faint quiver against his fingertips.

He pulled his hand away. The smell assaulted his throat. His hand again went to his nose.

No noise came from the phone. It must have been off for a while. He’d been on the phone when it happened. Or he’d tried to call 911.

Jason went to it and pressed the button, held the handset to his ear. When he had a dial tone, he dialed the three numbers. He was in the middle of giving the address when his father spoke.

Jason put down the receiver. “Dad? What?” He went to his knees.

The old man’s face drooped as if half of it was melted. One eye blinked slowly and remained partially open. The right side of his lower lip pressed against his teeth to form a sound, and then the lips drew together again to end it. It was one word, and Jason knew the word even though the old man’s tongue couldn’t make the L sound anymore.

He was trying to say Philip’s name.

Jason returned to the phone, confirmed the address, and hung up on the operator.

He decided to try to move his father. It couldn’t be good for him to be in that position, whatever the problem was. He slid his arms underneath his father’s shoulders and lifted him onto the bed. When he had him lying down, his arms were underneath his father’s shoulder blades. It occurred to him that this was the first time he’d hugged him since he was a child.

He stood away. The old man was still trying to say Phil’s name, and something else. One eye wouldn’t open, but the right eye flickered at Jason like a dying lightbulb.

His father was trying to tell him Philip was dead.

“I know, Dad. That’s why I’m here.”

“Ph-p, ne-n,” he kept saying out of the right side of his mouth. He couldn’t make the D sound or the L sound with his tongue. His head was inches away from what he’d thrown up.

His old right eye closed slowly. It reopened.

In the distance, a siren wound through the air. Paramedics would be here soon.

The right eye closed again. A frown pinched the right side of the old man’s forehead, then smoothed.

The eye didn’t open again. His father’s chest thinned into the bed.

Deep in the emptying cavern of Jason’s mind, he wondered if he should call 911 and tell them they could turn off their siren now.