Read J.L. Doty - Dead Among Us 01 - When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough for Free Online Page B

while Cloe struggled over her homework in the living room. What more could a man want?
    What more could a man want? And yet he knew full well what more he could want. He wanted Suzanna in his bed again. Not because he was horny, though he’d always loved the taste of her skin, the feel of her body pressed against his, and he certainly wouldn’t mind drowning in the passion they’d always shared. But his thoughts weren’t focused on a good roll-in-the-hay. He just wanted to hold her again, to have her lying beside him as he slept, to wake in the middle of the night and hear her soft, even breathing next to him, to wake in the morning and have her roll away from him, grumbling something unintelligible, frequently spiced with a bit of unconscious profanity, about not wanting to get up—she’d never been a morning person. And he wanted Cloe to bounce on his knee again, or to have her charge into the bedroom to wake him and Suzanna up on a Saturday morning. He wanted to lift her high over his head, hear her squeal with delight as he spun her around. He wanted to go for a Saturday walk in Golden Gate Park with the two of them, have a little picnic lunch in the shade of a tree. He wanted so many things, but he knew the only way he could have them was to allow his hallucinations to grow so powerful and intense that he lost all contact with reality.
    Whenever he thought of that he always put it out of his mind, but tonight it kept coming back and he couldn’t put the thought aside. It was frustrating, because a part of him knew there was something else, a part of him buried so deep he could usually squash it back down into that place in his soul where he’d hidden it. But tonight it wouldn’t stay squashed.
    Suzanna turned and looked at him, and his heart climbed up into his throat with such longing. I want it too, Paulie-boy, she said. We’re not complete without it. But what if we find what we desire? Will it be wrong? Will we regret it? And can it really be that easy?
    Yes, Paul thought, it could be that easy. She could be real again, not some figment of his fucked-up imagination. All he had to do was want it enough, wish for it enough, long for it enough. All he had to do—
    Cloe walked into the kitchen, her beautiful little face marred by fear. Daddy, there’s something in the living room.
    Without consciously considering it he stood, and his legs were trembling so much he had to lean on the table for a second. “What? What is it?”
    I don’t know. But something’s wrong.
    “ Wait here, both of you,” he said, and walked quickly into the living room.
    Earlier he’d been opening and paying bills, and the checkbook, pen, letter-opener and an unorganized pile of envelopes where still scattered on the couch. Cloe had spread her homework on the coffee table in front of the couch, but other than that, the living room was empty, no sign of any trouble, no sign of an intruder. He breathed a sigh of relief, realizing he’d probably been the victim of a child’s vivid imagination. But then he recalled she’d said there was something , not someone , in the living room. Something wrong , she’d said, and he too could sense the wrongness of it.
    Paulie-boy, what is it?
    “ Nothing,” he called. “Just wait there.” He scanned the room a second time, spotted his reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall above a little knick-knack table Suzanna had purchased. He was reminded of his dream. But he wasn’t dreaming now, and a piece of framed, silvered glass just didn’t induce that kind of fear in anything but a dream. Nevertheless, he looked at his reflection cautiously, noticed that the mirror appeared to be damaged, or perhaps just poorly made, because the glass distorted his image, made his face appear wavy and slightly misshapen. He crossed the room to look closely into the mirror, and as he watched, the face staring back at him began to distort further, a circular swirling as if someone had dropped a pebble