Read Online Dead Level by Sarah Graves - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Sarah Graves
Tags: Mystery
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warm dust slaked with the recent rain, and some kind of pungently aromatic herbal fragrance. It gave him a burst of energy, just inhaling it.
He stepped onto the dirt road with his pack straps weighing pleasantly on his shoulders. A canteen of water, some sandwiches from the diner, and a chocolate brownie were in the pack. He’d bought a compass, too, and an emergency flare from the hardware store in Eastport.
Also, he had a gun, a .22 pistol he’d borrowed from behind the counter of the video store, on his way out. The owner kept it in case of robbery, but there hadn’t been one in all the time Harold worked there. He would return the weapon before the owner even missed it, Harold felt confident; meanwhile, he kept it in his jacket pocket.
A hundred yards in, the dirt road curved sharply again, so that when he turned to look back all he could see were the trees, some evergreen and others bearing reddish or silver-green leaves. He walked on, passing through a swamp where black tree skeletons jutted from black, algae-covered water.
Startled by his footsteps, a huge frog jumped from the road into the water with a plop that made Harold jump, too. Silly. There’s nobody here. No one to be scared of, or mad at, to resent or be repulsed by .
One thing about solitude, it didn’t make you feel as if you were being rejected. Like somehow, everyone else had grabbed a brass ring and you’d missed yours. Here, Harold felt … normal, as if he fit in, just another creature among many.
Like a natural man , he thought, savoring the idea. Ahead, the road’s damp tan surface was a bright ribbon reflecting the sun. It was a lot warmer here than in Eastport, just the exertion of walking with the pack on making him sweat. He stopped to pull off his jacket and sweater, leaving on only his T-shirt.
God, it was beautiful out here. If he’d brought along his cellphone, he could’ve taken pictures with it, but he hadn’t; besides, he had no one to call: no relatives, a few acquaintances but no real friends … a loner even as a child, with his parents now passed away he had even fewer people to miss him.
None, actually, he admitted frankly to himself. When his bus had pulled out of Port Authority, he’d thought forlornly that if he never returned, no one would care. His boss would get a new guy to rent porn. Everything would go on as if he’d never existed. But now …
Suddenly, Harold didn’t feel lonely at all. This world, full of birds and trees, grasses and insects, a blue sky overhead, sun shining and a little breeze blowing so it wasn’t too hot … it was enough. He stopped, feeling his shoulders straighten pleasantly and the tension in his neck vanish.
More than enough. Maybe he wouldn’t even go back. It was just a thought, not a plan or even a real possibility yet. But hey, it was a free country.
A free world, and he was a free—a naturally free—man. Hiking the pack up onto his shoulders again—happily, he realized with a tiny shock of wonder—he looked down the road ahead of him, suddenly seeing something about it that he hadn’t noticed before.
There were marks in the damp tan dirt, not just tire tracks from whatever vehicles were sturdy enough to be driven in here—one set of those, he noted, looked quite recent—but a double line of smaller ones, too. Harold squinted at them, recalling a joke about three not-very-bright country boys out hunting, who’d fallen to arguing about what kind of tracks they were following.
Bear tracks, said one. Moose tracks, said his brother. Deer tracks, insisted the third stubborn hunter. And while they were arguingover what kind of tracks they were, the train came along and hit them.
Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Harold began walking again. The marks went on down the dusty road for a quarter mile or so until they veered off onto an even smaller, grass-covered trail that led into the woods.
Puckerbrush, the taxi man had called the thick undergrowth between the
He stepped onto the dirt road with his pack straps weighing pleasantly on his shoulders. A canteen of water, some sandwiches from the diner, and a chocolate brownie were in the pack. He’d bought a compass, too, and an emergency flare from the hardware store in Eastport.
Also, he had a gun, a .22 pistol he’d borrowed from behind the counter of the video store, on his way out. The owner kept it in case of robbery, but there hadn’t been one in all the time Harold worked there. He would return the weapon before the owner even missed it, Harold felt confident; meanwhile, he kept it in his jacket pocket.
A hundred yards in, the dirt road curved sharply again, so that when he turned to look back all he could see were the trees, some evergreen and others bearing reddish or silver-green leaves. He walked on, passing through a swamp where black tree skeletons jutted from black, algae-covered water.
Startled by his footsteps, a huge frog jumped from the road into the water with a plop that made Harold jump, too. Silly. There’s nobody here. No one to be scared of, or mad at, to resent or be repulsed by .
One thing about solitude, it didn’t make you feel as if you were being rejected. Like somehow, everyone else had grabbed a brass ring and you’d missed yours. Here, Harold felt … normal, as if he fit in, just another creature among many.
Like a natural man , he thought, savoring the idea. Ahead, the road’s damp tan surface was a bright ribbon reflecting the sun. It was a lot warmer here than in Eastport, just the exertion of walking with the pack on making him sweat. He stopped to pull off his jacket and sweater, leaving on only his T-shirt.
God, it was beautiful out here. If he’d brought along his cellphone, he could’ve taken pictures with it, but he hadn’t; besides, he had no one to call: no relatives, a few acquaintances but no real friends … a loner even as a child, with his parents now passed away he had even fewer people to miss him.
None, actually, he admitted frankly to himself. When his bus had pulled out of Port Authority, he’d thought forlornly that if he never returned, no one would care. His boss would get a new guy to rent porn. Everything would go on as if he’d never existed. But now …
Suddenly, Harold didn’t feel lonely at all. This world, full of birds and trees, grasses and insects, a blue sky overhead, sun shining and a little breeze blowing so it wasn’t too hot … it was enough. He stopped, feeling his shoulders straighten pleasantly and the tension in his neck vanish.
More than enough. Maybe he wouldn’t even go back. It was just a thought, not a plan or even a real possibility yet. But hey, it was a free country.
A free world, and he was a free—a naturally free—man. Hiking the pack up onto his shoulders again—happily, he realized with a tiny shock of wonder—he looked down the road ahead of him, suddenly seeing something about it that he hadn’t noticed before.
There were marks in the damp tan dirt, not just tire tracks from whatever vehicles were sturdy enough to be driven in here—one set of those, he noted, looked quite recent—but a double line of smaller ones, too. Harold squinted at them, recalling a joke about three not-very-bright country boys out hunting, who’d fallen to arguing about what kind of tracks they were following.
Bear tracks, said one. Moose tracks, said his brother. Deer tracks, insisted the third stubborn hunter. And while they were arguingover what kind of tracks they were, the train came along and hit them.
Pursing his lips thoughtfully, Harold began walking again. The marks went on down the dusty road for a quarter mile or so until they veered off onto an even smaller, grass-covered trail that led into the woods.
Puckerbrush, the taxi man had called the thick undergrowth between the
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