فصل 10 - بخش 07

10

Around three o’clock that afternoon, Flint City PD dispatcher Sandy McGill looked up to see Jack Hoskins standing in front of her desk with his back turned.

‘Jack? Did you need something?’

‘Take a look at the back of my neck and tell me what you see.’

Puzzled but willing, she stood up and looked. ‘Turn to the light a little more.’ And when he did so: ‘Ow, that’s one hell of a sunburn. You should go down to the Walgreens and get some aloe vera cream.’

‘Will that fix it?’

‘Only time will fix it, but it will take some of the sting out.’

‘But a sunburn is all it is, right?’

She frowned. ‘Sure, but bad enough to have blistered in places. Don’t you know enough to put on sunblock when you’re out fishing? Do you want to get skin cancer?’

Just hearing her say those words out loud made the back of his neck feel hotter. ‘I guess I forgot.’

‘How bad is it on your arms?’

‘Not quite so bad.’ No burn on them at all, in fact; it was just on the back of his neck. Where someone had touched him out at that abandoned barn. Caressed him with just his fingertips. ‘Thanks, Sandy.’

‘Blonds and redheads get it the worst. If it doesn’t get better, you should get it looked at.’

He left without replying, thinking of the man in his dream. The one lurking behind the shower curtain.

I gave it to you, but I can take it back. Would you like me to take it back?

He thought, It will go away on its own, like any other sunburn.

Maybe so, but maybe not, and it really did hurt worse now. He could hardly bear to touch it, and he kept thinking of the open sores eating into his mother’s flesh. At first the cancer had crawled, but once it really took hold, it galloped. By the end it was eating into her throat and vocal cords, turning her screams into growls, but listening through the closed door of her sickroom, eleven-year-old Jack Hoskins had still been able to hear what she was telling his father: to put her out of her misery. You’d do it for a dog, she’d croaked. Why won’t you do it for me?

‘Just a sunburn,’ he said, starting his car. ‘That’s all it is. A fucking sunburn.’

He needed a drink.