Read Online Jack, the giant-killer by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online

Jacky had gone the other way.
    As the sound of the Harley grew louder, Jacky cut across a lawn, scrambled over a fence to run alongside the house and through its back yard. At the foot of the yard, she squeezed through a hedge and paused to get her bearings.
    At least he won’t be able to follow me through all that, she thought, looking back the way she’d come. She was in between Fentiman and Belmont now. Still too far from her apartment on Ossington. Go to a safe place, Finn had told her—oh, don’t let the giant have caught him! But what was a safe place? Some place with people. A restaurant or bar.
    Oh, think! she told herself.
    She could hear the biker on Belmont now. The nearest restaurants were on Bank Street, but that was too far for her to go right now. There were too many streets to cross—open spaces where the biker could spot her. Then she thought of Kate. Kate lived just up on Sunnyside. Was she back from her mother’s yet?
    Would going there put Kate in danger, too?
    The Harley was idling on the street in front of the house now, making it too hard to think. She could imagine the rider putting his machine on its kickstand, coming around back of the house to get her…
    She bolted towards Fentiman, tore the leg of her jeans going over a low fence, and sprawled across the lawn, but was up and racing for the open street as fast as her legs could carry her. She heard the Harley roar on Belmont behind her. The dryness had returned to her throat and her pulse drummed. Crossing the street, she plunged down the first laneway she came to. The biker came around the corner at the same time, his headlight like a searching eye. Had he seen her?
    Another back yard, another fence, and then she was on Brighton, just one block away from Kate’s street. Again the Harley appeared around the corner, this time well before she was out of sight. The biker started down the street, catching her in his headlight as she dashed for the next driveway.
    The sound of the bike was like growling thunder in her ears. She panted for breath as she ran. Adrenaline and Finn’s stitcheries got her to the end of the lane before the biker reached it. She dodged around the garage, through another yard. Now she could see Sunnyside through the gaps in the houses in front of her. Again she had to pause to get her bearings. Kate’s apartment was a ground floor—on this side of the street, thank God!—and it was—
    She picked her direction and started off through the back yards, heedless of flowerbeds and small vegetable patches, hauling herself over fences. One back yard, another. A third. The roar of the Harley was a constant drone in her ears. It made her teeth shake. The bike was on Sunnyside now, pacing her. Any moment she expected it to roar down a driveway and cut her off. But then Kate’s back door was in front of her and she was up the stairs and hammering on it. Please be home, oh, please be home. The Harley was idling on the street in front of the house. The slower rev of its engine was somehow more frightening to her than the sound of it coming down the street after her. She pressed her cheek against the door, still knocking on it. A light went on over the door, half-blinding her. When the door itself opened inwards, she lost her balance.
    “Who the hell—” Kate began.
    Jacky caught her balance and leaned against the doorjamb. She looked into her friend’s angry face, saw the anger drawing away to be replaced by shock.
    “It… it’s just me,” she said. “Jacky.” But then she realized what she must look like, with the redcap on her head and her cornstubble hair sticking out from underneath it like a scarecrow’s straw, with her clothes torn and her face and hands smudged with dirt.
    “My God,” Kate said. “Jacky, what’s happened?”
    Her friend’s voice was suddenly loud in Jacky’s ears—very loud—and then she realized that she couldn’t hear the roar of the biker’s Harley anymore. He must have killed the