Characters in Cain Rose Up

There was a knock at the door. Garrish put the rifle under his bed. “Come in.” It was Bailey, standing there in his skivvies. There was a puff of lint in his bellybutton. There was no future for Bailey.

No problem. The second shot took Quinn in the neck and he flew maybe twenty feet. “Curt Garrish is killing himself!” Bailey was screaming. “Rollins! Rollins! Come quick!” His footsteps faded down the hall. Now they were starting to run.

It took his eyes a moment to adjust, and at first Harry the Beaver was just a bodiless voice from the shadows. “It was a bitch, wasn’t it?” the Beaver asked. “Wasn’t that one a really truly bitch?”

“Curt! Hey, Curt!” Rollins, the asinine floor-counselor who had sent Jimmy Brody up to visit the Dean of Men for a drinking offense, was coming down the hall and waving at him. He was tall, well-built, crewcut, symmetrical.

Garrish climbed to five and walked down the hall to his room. Pig Pen had left two days ago. Four finals in three days, wham-bam and thank-ya-ma’am. Pig Pen knew how to arrange things.

Same old stairs. His room was on the fifth floor. Quinn and that other idiot from three, the one with the hairy legs, piled by him, tossing a softball back and forth.

Garrish put his key in the lock and turned it. “Curt! Hey, Curt!” Rollins, the asinine floor-counselor who had sent Jimmy Brody up to visit the Dean of Men for a drinking offense, was coming down the hall and waving at him.

He slapped Garrish’s shoulder and then walked back down the hall, pausing once to tell Ron Frane to turn down his stereo. Garrish could see Rollins lying dead in a ditch with maggots in his eyes. Rollins wouldn’t care.