Read Online Body of Immorality by Brandon Berntson - Free Book Online Page A

share it with, and this was only the beginning. Explorers dared to dream, hoped to find such miracles. Maybe chains weren’t so bad.
    Henry’s pal looked at him and smiled; the shadow’s cheeks rose and swelled. The phantom put a hand on Henry’s knee and nodded, enforcing how perfect everything was. Destiny had brought them together. As long as they had each other, things would be perfect, a life filled with joy.
    Plentiful joy. Always destruction.
    The lights of the cars grew closer, brighter. With a face similar to the phantom’s own, Henry bent over the wheel, tongue clenched between his teeth. He looked to the side for confirmation. His counterpart nodded, urging him on.
    “ Yessir! Titty-bop-booby!” it shrieked.
    The phantom snarled, a twisting, maniacal grin. It hopped up and down in the seat, excited. The phantom slapped Henry on the back.
    Friends always know what’s best for you, Henry thought.
    He leaned farther over the wheel, wanting to be closer to the road, a part of Baby in a way he’d never thought possible.
    Giving the semi everything he had, Henry braced himself for the first, initial impact.
    Round and round, he thought. Like saving Lois Lane.
    When it came, it was everything he imagined and more, the loud, shrill of grinding, exploding metal, the sound of screams…
    Henry Rohrey felt…like Superman.

    They Closer They Got

    “Below with love! Below with love!” Tommy Folleter lounged on deck of Preservation .
    A bit drunk, Tallard thought.
    “Up with the comet! Up with the comet!” Art Langly answered from the galley.
    Carl Tallard laughed. These sayings never made sense. They weren’t supposed to, Tallard knew. He’d given up trying to understand his friends’ patois, but he enjoyed their company nonetheless. ’Loved having them here because paradise was on the Pacific, and the bright blue ocean and friends, Tallard thought, were among the finer things in the known universe. Dreams coming true was a rare thing. At forty-two, he’d heard his share of rags to riches stories. The stories, to Tallard, seemed lifetimes, worlds away where only God and movie stars existed. Sure, you saw them on the big screen every day, but where did they actually live?
    Carl Tallard wasn’t a movie star or a professional baseball player. He was Captain of Preservation, the sixty-foot houseboat, that was, in all aspects, his American Dream. Preservation was his personal Hollywood. For forty-two years, luck had patted him on the back. He was in good health; he controlled his drinking. He had a deep, bronzed tan. He played the stock market, something his father (God rest his soul) taught Tallard when he was just a pup. Thanks to the tips he’d received from Sea Monsters Inc. (coincidence he could not resist) he’d invested his savings, and the dividends had proved lucrative. Carl was a man made by intuition. He listened, gambled, and nine times out of ten, the odds shifted in his favor. Because of dad and Carl’s intuition (his love for the Pacific blue waters), Preservation had been born, purchased, and docked at the marina at Santa Cruz. Here, Tallard could explore—at leisure—the deep, mysterious wonderland, the Ocean.
    Since Marion fled to New York, seeking a life in publishing with her secret lover, Carl Tallard discovered love—at least for him—was not a languid female, a hand tightly gripped in his own, or a curl of raven-black hair. Love was the feeling he had when he was alone on Preservation, and the only thing of worldly importance was the pounding July sun, the pristine blue sky, and the endless universe of water lapping gently against the sides of the houseboat. Love was the smile on his face when he knew destiny had brought him to the Pacific. He could entertain his thoughts with reading, writing in The Captain’s Journal— as he called it—or fishing for sea bass. Love, was knowing luck had given him the opportunity to own Preservation, and Carl Tallard, man of forty-two, grabbed it