Shivers 7 by Stephen King, Clive Barker, Bill Pronzini, Graham Masterton, Rio Youers, Ed Gorman, Rick Hautala, Norman Partridge, Norman Prentiss Page B

sounded.
    He leaned against the railing just the way she did. He remained silent. He smelled her perfume, her hair. God he loved her.
    When she spoke, her voice was faint. “I killed our son.”
    “Honey, we’ve been over this and over this. You were on the phone and he didn’t stay on the porch like you told him. He went into the lake despite everything we’d warned him about.”
    She still didn’t look at him. “I lied. I ran out the door in time to save him. I could have dived in and brought him back to shore. But I didn’t. I wanted him to drown, Kevin, because I was ashamed of him. All the women I know—they were always bragging about their sons and daughters. But Kevin Jr.—we did something wrong when we created him. He just wasn’t very smart. He would never have amounted to much. And so I let him drown. I stood there and let him drown while you were in the backyard.”
    He’d always felt that her grief was more complicated than the accidental death of their son. And now he knew that his guess had been correct. In addition to loss, she was dealing with a kind of guilt he couldn’t imagine.
    “You just thought I was in the backyard.”
    For the first time she turned and looked at him, her face in shadow. “But you were in the backyard.”
    “True. But only for a while. I heard him scream, too, I ran around to the side of the house. I was going to save him. That was all I thought about. But then I stopped myself. I started thinking—you know how in just a few seconds you can have so many different thoughts—I started thinking the same things you did. I loved him but we’d created a child who just couldn’t compete. Who’d never be able to compete.”
    She clutched his arm. “Are you lying to me, Kevin?”
    “No. I’m telling you the truth. And I’m telling you that we’re both equally guilty—and that we’re not guilty at all. We made a terrible mistake. We didn’t listen to our counselor. We designed our son badly. It wasn’t his fault and it wasn’t ours. I mean we had the best of intentions.”
    “But we let him die.”
    “Yes, we did. And you know what? We did him a favor. We’d already seen how mediocre his school work was. What kind of future would he have had? He wouldn’t have had any kind of enjoyable life.” He drew her close to him. “But now we have another chance, Jen. And this time we’ll listen to our counselor. Dr. Carmody will help us. We’ll create the kind of child we can be proud of. And when Stortz and everybody at the office starts bragging about their kids, I’ll finally be able to brag about mine.”
    She fell against him. This time joy laced her sobbing. He could almost psychically share the exuberance she felt knowing that he was as much to blame for Kevin, Jr.’s death as she was. There was such a thing as the saving lie and he was happy to relieve her of at least some of her guilt.
    A numbing wind swept up from the river. She shuddered against him.
    “We need some coffee,” he said. He slid his arm around her shoulders and together they started walking back toward the center of the city.
    “We never did decide if we want our daughter to be blonde or brunette,” he said.
    “Or a redhead,” she said. “I’ve got an aunt with beautiful red hair.”
    An image of an ethereal red-haired girl came into his mind. One who inspired lust and myth in equal parts. That was the kind of daughter they’d create. He couldn’t wait to see the envy on Stortz’s face when the daughter was fifteen or so. The envy would be something to exult about for weeks.

A Lonely Town in Alaska

    Darren Speegle

    “What’s your name?” said the woman through the open passenger window of the weathered Jeep Cherokee.
    “Hunter,” said the man at the wheel.
    “Hunter? That’s a bit obvious, isn’t it?”
    “Not if you’re from my generation.”
    “Your generation? How old could you be?” she said. “Thirty?”
    “Actually, I’m forty-seven. Call it living