Br’er Robert
Well, I can fix that, Frankie thought. Nobody scares ‘em like me. But somehow he couldn’t seem to get started, couldn’t seem to think, couldn’t do nothing but listen to the pounding in his ears.
Bobby said, “What’s he doing to Brian? Is he hurting him?”
Now’s the time, Frankie thought, I’ll really get him. Now was the time to start gibbering and capering and telling the littlefucker how his brother was getting eaten and he was next, but all he did was stand there like a fieldmouse watching a snake and said, “Yes.”
Bobby smiled.
He leaned back against the carpeted wall, eyelids drooping with something that looked like pleasure. A freezing hand reached into Frankie’s guts and grabbed on. Bobby said dreamily, “Please please please, don’t hurt my little brother…”
He fixed Frankie with that half-lidded stare and grinned like a hungry wolf. “Whatever you do, don’t mess with that Brian Patch.”
Frankie’s guts, his knees, everything inside him turned to icewater. He started to back away, he wanted to turn and run, run from the terrible hunger in Bobby’s eyes. His feet tangled and he fell hard on the asphalt. He couldn’t get his breath. Bobby watched him, that same grin twisting his face. Frankie struggled up to his hands and knees.
“Decker!” he tried to shout, but the word came out a strangled squeak. It’s that imagination of mine, he told himself. Get a grip. Don’t let that imagination run away with you. He pushed himself up to his trembling knees.
Don’t let him get to you. He’s just trying to scare you. I’m too big to be scared like a little kid, I’m too big…
“DECKER!” The crash of his shout seemed to still the wind. He knelt an instant in shocked silence, then Decker replied.
With a scream.
A raw, jagged, throat-ripping shriek stabbed Frankie’s head like a knifeblade through his eardrums. And before he knew it he was stumbling toward the building’s door. He didn’t want to go in there, Christ he didn’t, Christ Jesus he knew he shouldn’t see what was inside. Run! he told his body, Please run away but his legs carried him staggering across the parking lot and through the door, over the tile and into the bathroom.
