Hellgoing Read Online Free Page B

the street, wanting sunglasses to fend off the bright of the sidewalk. Meanders to the end of the block and turns down toward Water Street as per the girl — Raylene’s — instructions. The sign is big, hand-painted. An obtrusive sandwich-sign, meant to impede pedestrian traffic. “Dave’s Charters.” Inside is Dave, sitting behind his counter, cap pushed back on his head, and idly surfing the internet. Raylene’s father. Brother of Ned. As tall as Ned is burly, but with the same bunching eyebrows.
    He jumps up at the sound of the door — someone has stationed a too-large set of wind-chimes above it. They jangle around like the sound of madness. “Hi,” Jane shouts above the chimes.
    â€œAh,” says Dave. “It’s she-who-wouldn’t-come-to-supper.” He stands, semi smiles. All Ned’s family behave as if they’ve known her forever, and furthermore do not approve.  
    â€œI understand you’re very busy,” apologizes Jane.
    Dave squints, frowning the same puckered, stagey frown with which his daughter favoured her moments ago. “My dear,” says Dave. “I’m busy going broke.”
    Dave has several photographs for sale. Shots of the tower, the batteries that dot the hill — guns toward the water — the icebergs, reprints of the old Marconi photos. Quality reproductions in deliberately rough, wooden frames. Overpriced. Jane pretends to study them, giving the hangover-mind time to catch up. What Ned told her versus what he told them. And why. And why? Eventually buying two of the things by way of apology, once the gears have clicked more firmly into place. To make up for cancellation of the boat ride, but also the fact that she — just remembered! — can’t make dinner this evening after all. She’s got a flight to catch. Also she must make up for the fact that she was, apparently, staying directly across the street from Dave and family the whole time she was here. Dave with the long “a” sound in his name, across the street from her hotel.
    Because, no. No indeedy, Ned. I will not do this thing with you.
    Yet kept insisting, apparently, she’d have no time for a visit. No time for anyone but Ned. Then all of a sudden demanding a ride in the boat! This, she’s gathered from Dave’s gruffness, is not how things are done. She selects a third print to take home, apologizing numbly all the while. It’s cutting little salt with Dave. He’ll be on the phone the moment she jangles her way out the door. Alerting local media. West Coasters Big for Britches, As Suspected All Along.
    The prints of Marconi are the same images she saw at the tower for the most part. Different vantages of the same scenario; the photographer must have circled him, hoisting his heavy tripod around, ducking his head beneath a black shroud. The serene fanatic seated in his desolate, wind-blasted room at the top of the hill, wire-mess of his obsession on the table in front of him. A scribble of potential — connection unconnected. Oh, this? This is nothing.

HELLGOING

O nce she got back Theresa told her friends about how her father said she was overweight not even an hour into the visit. Just — boom, you’re fat , he lays this on her. “Not, you know,” said Theresa, “you look well, or you look healthy or, you know, maybe: however you might look, it’s good to see you.” Her friends held their faces and smiled in pain, the same way her brother had when he was sitting across the kitchen table from her with their father hunched and slurping tea between them.
    Her brother had been her enemy once. Even though it was just the two of them, and only a year’s difference in their age, they had never been the kind of siblings who were each other’s greatest ally and defender. They weren’t really each other’s greatest enemy either — just petty rivals, but the rivalry was