Read Online Refuge Book 1 - Night of the Blood Sky by Jeremy Robinson, Jeremy Bishop - Free Book Online

then added, “But I’ll consider it.”
    “Be back in twenty,” he said, and he jogged away.
    “Make sure Radar and Lisa made it home okay,” she shouted after him, and he waved to let her know he had heard her. She nearly asked him why he wasn’t taking his car, but then she remembered she hadn’t seen it. He’d been searching for Avalon on foot, or , she thought, Walter gave him a courtesy call. He must have run the few blocks to the Brick House, intending to drive her little red number back home.
    Loud voices turned her attention back to the church, just as Carol, in a nervous voice said, “Becky...” Winslow was backing away from the small crowd in front of the church. She couldn’t hear the words, but it sounded like he was being scornfully admonished by Pastor Dodge.
    Rule sighed, put on her deadpan face and started for the group. She stepped around Winslow and stopped the flow of humanity as though she were Jupiter and they were her moons, unable to break away. “I don’t know what kind of nonsense is being spoken over here, and I don’t really want to know. What Dr. Herman here told you is the truth. Ain’t no way around it.”
    “But the sky is red ,” someone said, and while it wasn’t said outright, Rule could read between the lines. Red was the color of the Devil, at least as he was portrayed in American pop culture, which also gave angels wings and made Jesus a trim-bearded white man.
    “It looks alive,” a woman said. “I feel watched.”
    The only thing alive was the paranoia eating these people up. Natural phenomena, no matter how strange, could be reduced to science. Although some declared tsunamis, hurricanes and earthquakes were God’s wrath, Rule understood that physics dictated such things, whether you believed God created the world or not.
    She saw the pastor’s mouth open slowly, but didn’t intend to give that motor-mouth a chance to get revved up. “Now we’ve all had a crazy night. Some interesting things have taken place—” She set her eyes on the pastor, letting him know this next bit was for him, “for some more than others.” She glanced at his lady friend who hung back at the fringe of the group. The woman wilted under the attention and the clear message.
    Back to Dodge. “Everyone needs to go home. Go to bed. If you had plans for the fourth, they’re cancelled. If you’re waiting for family or friends from Ashland, chances are they’re going to be delayed on account of the strangeness. So just go to bed, and in the morning, I’ll have answers for all of you. I promise.”
    Dodge frowned, but it lasted just a moment before he pushed it away and replaced his true expression with a smile.
    How many Sunday mornings does he pull that trick , she wondered.
    “You heard the Sheriff,” he said. “Go home. Pray for our missing—”
    Our missing? He’s baiting me , she decided, but she let it slide.
    “—and thank God we’re all safe,” the pastor continued. “We’ll meet back here first thing in the morning. Seven a.m. We’ll have coffee and donuts in the foyer.”
    Coffee and donuts placated a congregation like nothing else on the planet. The group quieted and began dispersing. She wasn’t happy about being told when she’d be addressing the town, but seeing as how she’d likely be awake all night, an early morning meeting would be for the best.
    When he finished saying quick goodbyes, Dodge turned to her and said, “Where do we start?”
    “You can start by going home and taking your...whatever she is, with you. I don’t want anyone not coming home from Ashland driving on the roads and confusing things.”
    They locked eyes for a few seconds. He then walked away, approached the woman from the bar and handed her his keys. He returned with a snarky grin that Rule nearly slapped off of him. “She knows where I live.”
    “I bet she does,” Rule replied. “But you’re still not—”
    “Most of this town trusts me more than you, and far more than