It wasn’t the colour he would have chosen. Mr. Reinhoudt had picked the colour, even though Dennis told him just looking at the paint samples hurt his eyes. “Is s’pposed to,” Mr. Reinhoudt said, pulling hard on his small white beard. “S’pposed to get yer attention from the highway, and getcha in ...
When the ladder was up, the whole truck sat on huge outriggers that we had lowered on either side, and the only reason we even had the truck was that there was a university residence in the town, called Tower, which was tall enough to need it. Dave Hennessey and I were the only firefighters who h...
But before he was close enough to hear it, he could imagine the sound of the heater fan’s steady whine, the thick red heat that came out through the grill into the room almost like the elements inside were throwing hot liquid into the air. Vincent had been outside in the falling snow, and there w...
Wondered if that would be going too far. He was taking short, shallow breaths, aware that breathing more deeply would rattle the phlegm in his lungs and start another round of coughing. He’d heard somewhere that, once you got old, you could easily cough hard enough to crac...
“No way,” she said, not even looking up from her book. “It’s just a bunch of drunks I don’t know, and all their cigarette smoke and noise. I can’t think of a worse way to spend an evening.” She was in their bedroom, a blanket over her legs, knees drawn up into a small but stubborn mountain range....