Seldom Seen in August

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Book: Read Seldom Seen in August for Free Online
Authors: Kealan Patrick Burke
Tags: Horror, Short Stories, +IPAD, +UNCHECKED
fifteenth birthday. There was a boy with you. Do you
remember?”
    Wade remembered the man clearly, the
boy only vaguely.
    “Not the kid. Only met him that one
time,” he said. “But the guy had it coming.”
    “Or so you were told. That he deserved
to die. If they’d said the same about anyone, whether it was true
or not, you’d have done what they asked of you, wouldn’t
you?”
    “I suppose so,” Wade said. “It was the
way things were.”
    “And it was the way you wanted it to
be.”
    Wade frowned. “Have we entered the
psychological evaluation stage of our relationship, Mr.
Cochran?”
    Cochran ignored him. “The boy’s name
was Eddie Scarsdale. Like you, he wanted to be a gangster, wanted
some way to make a lot of money so he wouldn’t get mocked at school
anymore for having holes in the soles of his shoes, but he didn’t
have the chutzpah , the nerve to take the life of another
human being. After you killed the old man, he was so distraught, so
guilty, he went home and got his father’s straight razor…” He waved
a hand in the air. “You know the rest.”
    Wade thought of the kid in the bathroom
upstairs and shook his head. “So it’s my fault he took the
chickenshit expressway?”
    Cochran just stared, his face
unreadable.
    “Whatever,” Wade said. “So who was the
old floating bitch in the bedroom?”
    “My wife,” Cochran said
evenly.
    “Whoops.” Wade chuckled. “I’d put my
foot in my mouth if it wasn’t tied to the chair.”
    “She was never the same after Eddie’s
death.”
    Despite the lingering skeins of
disorientation, Wade was able to connect the dots fairly quickly.
“Your wife?”
    Cochran nodded.
    “So then, this Eddie character was your
son?”
    “No.”
    “All right then, I’m lost.”
    “He was already dead by the time I met
and married his mother.”
    “Gotcha.”
    “But I saw how she suffered. Saw how it
ate away at her worse than any cancer.” A distant look entered his
eyes. “I think she married me just so she wouldn’t be alone. Not
sure there was any love there. At least, from her.”
    Wade leaned forward as much as his
restraints would allow. “Can I interrupt you for a sec?”
    Cochran waited.
    “Thanks. Um…how did you get the
impression from my record, which I assume you’ve read in detail,
that I would give a cartwheeling fuck about anything you’ve just
told me?”
    Cochran shook his head.
    “Hey, look, I am sorry about what
happened to your…whatever he was to you, and your wife. Really, I
am.”
    Cochran gave a feeble smile. “Perhaps
you should care, Wade. It is, after all, part of the reason you’re
here.”
    “Okay, so what’s the other part of the
reason?”
    “Do you know what nanotechnology
is?”
    “Computer classes for
grandmothers?”
    “Funny,” the old man said. “But no, it
refers to control of matter on the
atomic and molecular scale.”
    “Sounds
fascinating. And is it safe to assume that it also means we’ve
moved from psychoanalysis to psychics? Because if we have I’d like
to apologize in advance if I nod off during your
lecture.”
    “In this case,
they’re interlinked.”
    “Your losing me
again.”
    “Then I’ll
condense it for you,” Cochran said patiently. “In 2000, my company
announced a breakthrough in psychotherapy following a fusion of two
distinct but radically different departments of the University of
Ca—
    “Jesus Christ,
get to the point already,” Wade said around an exaggerated
yawn.
    “Very well.
What we developed was called “nanoreality”—a means of using
nanotechnology to construct realistic visual images, or as you so
rightly guessed, “mental holograms” based on the memories of a
subject.”
    “Interesting,”
Wade said, sounding bored. “But it makes me wonder why you felt the
need to strap me to a chair when just listening to you would have
been enough to bore me into a coma.”
    Cochran
continued, unfazed. “It was primarily developed as a way for
doctors to

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