more than unopened cans of soft drinks and bottles of beer.
But after all, he was dealing with contamination. Couldn't be too
careful. No measure was too extreme.
Not merely bacterial contamination, either. If only it was that
simple. God, if only. Spiritual contamination. A darkness capable of
spreading through the heart, seeping deep into the soul.
Don't even think about it. Don't. Don't.
Too tired to think. Too old to think. Too scared.
From the garage he fetched a blue Styrofoam cooler, into which he
emptied the entire contents of the bin under the automatic ice-maker in
the freezer. He wedged eight bottles of beer into the ice and stuck a
bottle opener in his hip pocket.
Leaving all the lights on, he carried the cooler and the shotgun
upstairs to the back bedroom, where he had been sleeping for the past
three years. He put the beer and the gun beside the bed.
The bedroom door had only a flimsy privacy latch in the knob, which he
engaged by pushing a brass button. All that was needed to break
through from the hallway was one good kick, so he tilted a
straight-backed chair under the knob and jammed it tightly in place.
Don't think about what might come through the door.
Shut the mind down. Focus on the arthritis, muscle pain, sore neck,
let it blot out thought.
He took a shower, washing himself as assiduously as he had scoured the
soiled portions of the house. He finished only when he had used the
entire supply of hot water.
He dressed but not for bed. Socks, chinos, a T-shirt. He stood his
boots beside the bed, next to the shotgun.
Although the nightstand clock and his watch agreed that it was
two-fifty in the morning, Eduardo was not sleepy. He sat on the bed,
propped against a pile of pillows and the headboard.
Using the remote control, he switched on the television and checked out
the seemingly endless array of channels provided by the satellite dish
behind the stables. He found an action movie, cops and drug dealers,
lots of running and jumping and shooting, fistfights and car chases and
explosions. He turned the volume all the way off because he wanted to
be able to hear whatever sounds might arise elsewhere in the house.
He drank the first beer fast, staring at the television. He was not
trying to follow the plot of the movie, just letting his mind fill with
the abstract whirl of motion and the bright ripple-flare of changing
colors. Scrubbing at the dark stains of those terrible thoughts.
Those stubborn stains.
Something ticked against the west-facing window.
He looked at the draperies, which he had drawn tightly shut.
Another tick. Like a pebble thrown against the glass.
His heart began to pound.
He forced himself to look at the TV again. Motion. Color. He
finished the beer. Opened a second.
Tick. And again, almost at once. Tick.
Perhaps it was just a moth or a scarab beetle trying to reach the light
that the closed drapes couldn't entirely contain.
