Death Sight: A Will Castleton Novel

Death Sight: A Will Castleton Novel: Chapter 5

5

The waves on the beach crashed in rhythm with the pounding in Will’s head.

His mouth was filled with sand.

Kurt, who had the face of a rat, had forced his mouth open and stuffed the sand in there.

His head pounded because Hugh had beat his temples in.

Shep shouted orders at them, drill-sergeant style, telling them about where to hit Will next.

“The balls, you fucking boots! Kick him in the balls!”

Zach reared his foot back and kicked Will into a sitting postion in his bed in the rental house.

The dark room was spinning, the dream whirling off into the ether.

The throbbing in Will’s head wasn’t as bad here in the real world - the hangover would be tolerable. He might have eaten the worm, but he’d managed to keep it within reason while impressing the Marines.

Candice was not in bed with him.

“Candice?” he called, but not too loudly, not wanting to wake Sandra and Boomer.

He felt her side of the bed. There was a residual warmth.

He got up. The whole house was dark. She wasn’t in the bathroom.

Phosphorescent moonlight lit the cavernous living room. He left the lights off, finding the moonlight soothing. He opened the fridge and grabbed a plastic gallon of orange juice, guzzling the stuff straight from the container, letting it wash the pasty dryness of his mouth away.

A shadow moved on the deck. It was Candice. She hadn’t noticed him. She’d put on one of his t-shirts and her cut-offs.

He watched her watch the waves.

It was several minutes before he finally went out to her.

She turned as he opened the door.

“Just the guy I was thinking of,” she said.

“Oh?” He embraced her from behind. She was stiff, not easing into his arms as he’d expected. “And just what sort of thoughts were you thinking?”

“Tell you the truth, I was thinking about later this summer, about this fall.”

“We’ve had this conversation before.”

She turned, leaned against the rails. “Have we? I mean, have we really?” His arms remained loosely around her neck. She smelled of bonfire and salt and alcohol. Had she been crying?

“Look, you had even more to drink than me, and I know I’m not feeling completely right. Come back to bed. This isn’t any time to have this out.”

“Easy for you to say. You’ve got  your college degree, Will, you’ve got all this work experience, this glamorous job lined up. I work at a grocery store and and struggle to keep a B in my half-assed two community college classes per semester. You’ll be off around the country. I’ll be stuck in little backwater Green River.”

“So all of this, all these games, it was all just-”

“All what games?”

“Oh, come on. Please. Why are you doing this on our vacation? Why couldn’t all this at least have waited until we got home?”

“What’re you saying, Will? What’re you accusing me of?”

He sighed. His headache was suddenly much worse.

“Enough for now,” he said. “Tomorrow. Let’s do this tomorrow. Sleep, and it won’t seem so bad in the morning. I’ll shut up now. Come on.”

He tried to lead her  inside.

She pulled from his grasp. “Like hell, tomorrow! Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Tomorrow’s what I’m afraid of, Will! All these months without you, and it’ll just be more of the same all my life! I need a man who’s going to be around. I need-”

“You need sleep. And you need to not be waking up everyone on this beach!” He emphasized each syllable: “We will talk to-mor-row!”

“I’ll go in if you sleep on the couch,” she said, arms crossed.

“What?”

“Maybe I’m not in the best condition to be arguing right now. Fine. But you’re not sleeping with me tonight.”

“What did I do?”

“Nothing. I just want to … you can come in after I’m asleep.”

Waves rolled and crashed on the beach.

“Fine,” he said. “Whatever. Fine.”

He went in without looking back at her.

***

New installments of DEATH SIGHT will be posted weekly here on Wattpad until the entire novel is available free. (This holiday weekend there will be at least one new installment daily.) There are 106 chapters in all - some installments will contain more than one chapter. Those who don't want to wait will be able to purchase the book in print and for Kindle, Kobo, Nook and all other major phone and ereader formats by Tuesday, December 4, 2012.