have to admit I’m right. We didn’t create a child. We created a
thing. And it was bad. It was evil, Conrad. It–” “I told you to
shut your filthy mouth, you rotten bitch.”
He was shaking with rage. Flecks of foamy spittle dotted his lips.
Ellen cringed. “Are you going to call the police?” “You know a carny
never runs to the cops. Carnies handle their own problems. I know
exactly how to deal with disgusting filth like you.”
He was going to kill her. She was sure of it.
aWait, listen, give me a chance to explain. What kind of life could it
have had anyway?” she argued desperately.
Conrad glared at her. His eyes were filled with cold fury but also
with madness. His wintry gaze pierced her, and she felt almost as if
sl*ers of ice were being driven through her by some slow, silent,
barely perceptible but nonetheless devastating explosion. Those were
not the eyes of a sane man.
She shivered. “It would have been miserable all its life. It would
have been a freak, ridiculed, rejected, despised. It wouldn’t have
been able to enjoy even the most ordinary pleasures. I didn’t do
anything wrong. I only put the poor thing out of its misery. That’s
all I did. I saved it from years and years of loneliness, from–”
Conrad slapped her face. Hard.
She looked frantically left and right, unable to see even the slightest
opportunity for escape.
His sharp, clean features no longer looked aristocratic, his face was
frightening, stark, carved by shadows into a ferocious, wolflike
visage.
He moved in even closer, slapped her again. Then he used his
fists–once, twice, three times, striking her in the stomach and the
ribs.
She was too weak, too exhausted to resist him. She slid inexorably
toward the floor and, she supposed, toward death.
Mary, Mother of God!
Conrad grabbed her, held her up with one hand, and continued to slap
her, cursing her with each blow. Ellen lost count of the number of
times he struck her, and she lost the ability to distinguish each new
pain from the myriad old pains with which she was afflicted, and the
last thing she lost was consciousness.
After an indeterminable period of time, she drifted back from a dark
place where guttural voices were threatening her in strange
languages.
She opened her eyes, and for a moment she didn’t know where she was.
Then she saw the small, ghastly corpse on the floor, only a few feet
away. The gnarled face, frozen for all time in a vicious snarl, was
turned toward her.
Rain drummed hollowly on the rounded roof of the trailer.
Ellen was sprawled on the floor. She sat up. She felt terrible, all
busted up inside.
Conrad was standing by the bed. Her two suitcases were open, and he
was throwing clothes into them.
He hadn’t killed her. Why not? He had intended to beat her to death,
she was certain of that. Why had he changed his mind?
Groaning, she got to her knees. She tasted blood, a couple of her
teeth were loose. With tremendous effort, she stood.
Conrad shut the suitcases, carried them past her, pushed open the
trailer door, and threw the luggage outside. Her purse was on the
kitchen counter, and he threw that out after the bags. He wheeled on
her. “Now you.
Get the hell out and don’t ever come back.”
She couldn’t believe that he was going to let her live. It had to be a
trick.
He raised his voice. “Get out of here, slut! Move. Now!”
Wobbly as a colt taking its first steps, Ellen walked past Conrad. She
was tense, expecting another attack, but he did not raise a hand
against her.
When she reached the door, where windblown rain lashed across the
threshold, Conrad said, “One more thing.”
She turned to him, raising one arm to ward off the blow she knew had to
come sooner or later.
But he wasn’t going to hit her. He was still furious, but now he was
in control of himself. “Some day you’ll marry someone in the straight
world.
You’ll have another child. Maybe two, three.”