Read Under the Lake for Free Online Page B

toilet, still drunk, still sick, and shivering with cold. He tried not to think. That was the trick, he said to himself, struggling to his feet and leaning heavily against the wall; no thinking.
    He shuffled out of the bathroom, through the living room, toward the kitchen. Don’t think about the girls you’ve screwed, don’t think about your wife; don’t think about the work and the glory; don’t think back, don’t think forward; don’t think about God or what’s waiting; don’t think at all. He noticed vaguely that it was still raining outside. Don’t think about the rain. He made it to the kitchen and flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. Power failure. He ripped back the curtain and found the cold steel, found the box of fire and lead. He bruised a shoulder on the kitchen doorway in the darkness, dropped the shotgun, picked it up again, got to the living room.
    He sat down on the back of the sofa, facing the lake, and fumbled for the shells. Don’t hesitate, don’t think; onemove after the other, no pauses. He got two shells into their chambers. Would it take two? Don’t think about it, keep moving right along. He turned the gun around, rested the stock on the floor, and put the barrels into his mouth. Steely, oily taste. He couldn’t reach the triggers and still keep the barrels where they would do the most good. He kicked off a shoe, ripped off a sock, and felt for the triggers with his big toe, trying twice and failing. His legs were too weak; his foot trembled uncontrollably whenever he lifted it from the floor.
    He went to the desk and got a pencil, good old No. 2, yellow job, schoolboy’s friend. Don’t think about school, childhood; he wedged the pencil between his toes, put the barrels back into his mouth, got the toe-held pencil through the trigger guard, and pushed. The pencil slipped sideways, couldn’t be held by the toes. There was a flash of lightning, illuminating everything, making the barrels gleam, huge sticks of licorice protruding from his mouth. Finally, he got the pencil back into the trigger guard, froze it there for a moment, lifted his other foot to the pencil, and pushed it against the triggers, hard, with both feet.
    Howell thought he wouldn’t hear anything, but it was the loudest noise he had ever heard. He let go of the shotgun, fell over the back of the sofa, and sprawled on the floor, the noise still in his ears. The windows and French doors rattled violently. Thunder, unbelievable thunder, and he was still alive. Why hadn’t the shotgun gone off?
    He struggled to his feet and started around the sofa to find the shotgun; then he stopped. It had gone very quiet. It was pitch dark, but he knew absolutely. There was someone else in the room.
    He stood perfectly still, held his breath, and listened.He could hear breathing, and it wasn’t his. He let out his breath as slowly as possible. He opened his mouth and breathed in again. “I know there’s somebody . . .”
    His words turned into an involuntary shout as a blinding-white flash of lightning lit the room for a tiny moment, fixing everything in it in his mind’s eye before winking silently out, leaving him cringing, blinded. He saw it all against the insides of his tightly closed eyelids, the room, the rug, the furniture, and—standing with back not quite turned to him—a child of eleven or twelve, a farm child, in overalls and a blue workshirt, pigtails, a girl, standing at the window, nearly in front of him, eight or ten feet away, ignoring him, gazing out over the lake.
    Howell opened his eyes to blind blackness, then jammed them shut again as a second roaring explosion of thunder assaulted the cabin, violently rattling the windows and the French doors, making him think the glass would shatter. As he opened his eyes again, another, steadier roar filled the cabin and, as suddenly as the lightning, the lights came on, causing him to jump and cry out. The child was gone. One of the French doors was open and