REMAKING
a short story by
Blake Crouch
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Blake Crouch on Smashwords
Copyright 2010 by Blake Crouch
Cover art copyright 2010 by Jeroen ten Berge
All rights reserved.
PRAISE FOR BLAKE CROUCH
Crouch quite simply is a marvel. Highest possible recommendation.
BOOKREPORTER
Blake Crouch is the most exciting new thriller writer I've read in years.
DAVID MORRELL
REMAKING is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
"Remaking" originally appeared in Thriller 2, edited by Clive Cussler and published by Mira Books, June 2009.
For more information about the author, please visit www.blakecrouch.com.
For more information about the artist, please visit www.jeroentenberge.com.
Smashwords Edition License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
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REMAKING
Mitchell stared at the page in the notebook, covered in his messy scrawl, but he wasn’t reading. He’d seen them walk into the coffeehouse fifteen minutes prior, the man short, pudgy, and smoothshaven, the boy perhaps five or six and wearing a long-sleeved Oshkoshbgosh—red with blue stripes.
Now they sat two tables away.
The boy said, “I’m hungry.”
“We’ll get something in a little while.”
“How long is a little while?”
“Until I say.”
“When are you gonna—”
“Joel, do you mind?”
The little boy’s head dropped. The man stopped typing and looked up from his laptop.
“I’m sorry. Tell you what. Give me five minutes so I can finish this email, and we’ll go eat breakfast.”
Mitchell sipped his espresso, snow falling beyond the storefront windows into this mountain hamlet of eight hundred souls, Miles Davis squealing through the speakers—one of the low-key numbers off Kind of Blue.
Mitchell trailed them down the frosted sidewalk.
One block up, they crossed the street and disappeared into a diner. Having already eaten in that very establishment two hours ago, he installed himself on a bench where he could see the boy and the man sitting at a table by the front window.
Mitchell fished the cell out of his jacket and opened the phone, scrolling through ancient numbers as the snow collected in his hair.
He pressed talk.
Two rings, then, “Mitch? Oh my God, where are you?”
He made no answer.
“Look, I’m at the office, getting ready for a big meeting. I can’t do this right now, but will you answer if I call you back? Please?”
Mitchell closed the phone and shut his eyes.
They emerged from the diner an hour later.
Mitchell brushed the inch of snow off his pants and stood, shivering. He crossed the street and followed the boy and the man up the sidewalk, passing a candy shop, a grocery, a depressing bar masquerading as an old west saloon.
They left the sidewalk after another block and walked up the driveway to the Antlers Motel, disappeared into 113, the middle in a single-story row of nine rooms. The tarp stretched over the small swimming pool sagged with snow. In an alcove between the rooms and the office, vending machines hummed against the hush of the storm.
Ten minutes of brisk walking returned Mitchell to his motel, the Box Canyon Lodge. He climbed into his burgundy Jetta, cranked the engine.
“Just for tonight?”
“Yes.”
“That’ll be $69.78 with tax.”
Mitchell handed the woman his credit card.
Behind the front desk, a row of Hummels stood in perfect formation atop a black and white television airing “The Price is Right.”
Mitchell signed the receipt. “Could I have 112 or 114?”
The old woman stubbed out her cigarette in a glass ashtray and reached for the key cabinet.
Mitchell pressed his ear to the wood paneling.
A television blared through the thin wall.
His cell phone vibrated—Lisa calling again.
Flipped it open.
“Mitch? You don’t have to say anything. Please just listen—”
He powered off the phone and continued writing in the notebook.
Afternoon unspooled as the snow piled up in the parking lot of the Antlers Motel. Mitchell parted the blinds and stared through the window as the first intimation of dusk began to blue the sky, the noise of the television next door droning through the walls.
He lay down on top of the covers and stared at the ceiling and whispered the Lord’s Prayer.
In the evening, he startled out of sleep to the sound of a door slamming, sat up too fast, the blood rushing to his head in a swarm of black spots. He hadn’t intended to sleep.
Mitchell slid off the bed and walked to the window, split the blinds, heard the diminishing sound of footsteps—a single set—squeaking in the snow.
He saw the boy pass through the illumination of a streetlamp and disappear into the alcove that housed the vending machines.
The snowflakes stung Mitchell’s cheeks as he crossed the parking lot, his sneakers swallowed up in six inches of fresh powder.
The hum of the vending machines intensified, and he picked out the sound of coins dropping through a slot.
He glanced once over his shoulder at the row of rooms, the doors all closed, windows dark save slivers of electric blue from television screens sliding through the blinds.
Too dark to tell if the man was watching.
Mitchell stepped into the alcove as the boy pressed his selection on the drink machine.
The can banged into the open compartment, and the boy reached down and claimed the Sprite.
“Hi, Joel.”
The boy looked up at him, then lowered his head like a scolded dog, as though he’d been caught vandalizing the drink machine.
“No, it’s all right. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
Mitchell squatted down on the concrete.
“Look at me, son. Who’s that man you’re with?”
The voice so soft and high: “Daddy.”
A voice boomed across the parking lot. “Joel? It don’t take this long to buy a can of pop! Make a decision and get back here.”
The door slammed.
“Joel, do you want to come with me?”
“You’re a stranger.”
“No, my name’s Mitch. I’m a police officer actually. Why don’t you come with me.”
“No.”
“I think you probably should.” Mitchell figuring he had maybe thirty seconds before the father stormed out.
