Closing Time and Other Stories
Language: English
Pages: 255
ISBN: 1887368906
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
From award-winning author and storyteller Jack Ketchum comes nineteen bleak stories of loss and pain. This is the author's newest collection, and includes his Bram Stoker Award-winning novella "Closing Time." Also included: "Returns," "Damned If You Do," "Station Two," "Elusive," "Papa," "The Fountain," "Do You Love Your Wife?", "At Home with the VCR," "Those Rockports Won't Get You Into Heaven," "Olivia: A Monologue," "Brave Girl," "Honor System," "Lighten Up," "Hotline," "Monster," "Consensual," "Seascape," and "Snarl, Hiss, Spit, Stalk." "Though Stoker-winner Ketchum is best known for his novels of hardcore horror (Off Season, etc.), the 19 stories in this collection reveal his skill at crafting short and subtle mood pieces about everyday folk who find themselves wrestling with overpowering emotions that occasionally open them to macabre experience." -Publisher's Weekly
synthetic cannabis, almost though not quite a hallucinogen—and this was similar. He’d have one more drink and then go for a walk, he thought. Central Park ought to be just right for this stuff. He poured one for himself and another for Kelly and slid Kelly’s across the table. “You’re a real pain in the ass, you know that?” Kelly said. “What?” “You. You’re a real pain in the ass. All that bullfighting, hunting, fishing bullshit. Like I’m really supposed to believe you carried some soldier into
there’s Mary, and you cheat on her with Adriana. What the hell is it with you? You got to keep your dick wet all the time?” McPheeters gulped down the rest of his drink. Okay, he had it now. The guy was nuts. The guy was practically giving off sparks. He’d only married twice, actually. It was time to go. Game over. He set down his glass and stood up and so did Kelly. “Look Mike, I tried to tell you. I’m not Papa. Papa’s long gone.” It was like he didn’t hear him. “And then what do you do?
a white tee-shirt, tights and headphones. Ordinarily she wouldn’t have minded his watching the brunette. Now suddenly everything he did seemed to frighten her. “Three years, Hal.” “In December. It’s only August.” “I put you through school for godsakes.” “You made the cash, sure. I put myself through school.” Even through the fear and sadness it galled her. “All our expenses. The rent. Everything. On my feet all day, just like this poor kid you just snapped at over the goddamn fish.” “I
our hotel to do what we did best together and it was only when she showed me the Louisville Slugger that I got worried. We were lying in bed. Mr. Muscle was very sore. “Correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t that assault and battery? No pun intended.” “Not if it’s consensual. I figure if you choke up high on it you can bring it down right over my forearm.” “Both hands?” “I think you’d have to use both hands, yeah. Otherwise it’s not gonna break. I’ll just wind up with a hell of a bruise.” “And
Your wife is waiting. By now she’ll be fast asleep. You’ve had too much to drink again. So? What else is new? Go home. A cab cruised past him going west. Northwest was the direction of his apartment. The cab’s sign was lit. He could have flagged it down. A simple wave of the hand. He didn’t. He needed something. He wanted to feel something. Now what the hell does that mean? 59th was quiet. No breeze. Nobody on the street but him. There was traffic heading south on 9th half a block away but