Read Online Fade to Grey (Book 2): Darkness Ascending by Brian Stewart - Free Book Online

a
moment before replying in a tired voice, “ I know, I’ll see what we can do.
Mule out .”
     
    With another slow shake of his head, Walter changed
the radio frequency back to the main channel, hooked it on his belt and looked
up at Amy. “You got any suggestions?”
     
    “I could give you about a hundred reasons—physiologically,
psychologically, and emotionally—why they’re acting that way, but it won’t
change anything right now.” Amy gently reached out a hand and set it on
Walter’s shoulder. “Remember, everybody here has experienced a radical shift in
their reality. Everybody here has experienced violence, tragedy, and loss.”
With a sympathetic nudge of Walter’s shoulder, she re-emphasized, “Everybody.”
     
    Walter frowned, “I know . . . and I ain’t saying that
anybody has got off Scot free, but it sure feels like the sheep are greatly
outnumberin’ the wolves we have available, and my gut is telling me that very
soon we’re going to need a lot of wolves.”
     
    “I’m not saying that you’re wrong, Walter, and I can
certainly understand, given the mantle of responsibility that’s been placed on
you, but maybe it’s not wolves that we need.”
     
    “What do you mean?”
     
    “Maybe . . . instead of wolves, we need sheepdogs.”
     
    Michelle stood silent as Walter paused, considering
Amy’s words. Finally, with a shake of his head and the straightening of his
shoulders, Walter said, “I wouldn’t mind having a few sheep dogs either . . .
but I’ve got a bad feeling that if we don’t find some more wolves, we’re not
going to have any sheep left.”
     
    With a quick glance at the luminous numbers on his
watch, Walter cleared his throat and said, “We need to get moving.” He turned
and walked toward the back side of the propane storage building. Michelle and
Amy followed.
     
    Stopping at a sliding metal door, Walter reached into
his pocket and withdrew a diminutive flashlight, clamped it between his teeth
and illuminated a large ring of keys. Shifting through the jingling mass with
rapid-fire familiarity, he finally chose a burnished bronze key that fit the
disk lock on the door.
     
    “What is this ‘surprise’ that you want me to see?”
Michelle asked to his back.
     
    A few soft, metallic clangs sounded as the lock was
removed and the door slid to the left. Walter clicked a button on the small
flashlight several times, and the illumination doubled, and then tripled.
Handing the light to Michelle, he indicated for her to step inside the
building, accompanying her with three cryptic words.
     
    “You tell me.”

Chapter 5
     
    The bluish-white beam from the tiny flashlight cut a
wide-angled swath through the darkness inside. Immediately obvious to Michelle
was the large tank of propane that occupied the front half of the building.
Various hoses and adapters were hanging on the wall next to the tank, and some
type of electrical pump system was mounted on an elevated shelf above the
adapters. Spaced evenly at ground level, a series of basketball-sized vent holes
had been cut through the wall, each of them covered with a metal lattice rodent
barrier. Shifting the light upwards, Michelle noted an identical series near
the roofline. Moving the flashlight down again brought the cement floor into
focus. An indeterminable hodgepodge of boot tracks carpeted every available
square inch, giving Michelle the impression that a muddy, midnight square dance
had recently been held in the building. The tracks, however, sheltered from the
weather as they were, could have been here for years. It was not the serrated,
lug-soled prints that kept her attention though, it was the flattened swell of
the bright blue tarp that crinkled ever so slightly with the breeze coming
through the vents. 
     
    “What is it? What’s under the tarp?”
     
    Walter stepped inside the building and slid toward the
wall on the right, making room for Amy to squeeze through behind him. Leaning
in the