Read Online Scarecrow by Richie Tankersley Cusick - Free Book Online

irresistibly drawn inside. I put my hand to the latch, glancing once over my shoulders. The woods were still and watchful. I pulled on the door and let myself in.
    For a moment there was total darkness, and as I stood there readjusting to the dim light, strange smells overpowered me from all sides. Meat, I guessed at once, and hickory, like our weekend barbecues back home, and something greasy…My eyes squinted against the gloom, swept up to the ceiling, to exposed rafters and lengths of wire and thick, dark shapes swinging there— and those Sundays of grilled hot dogs and Kerry always getting ketchup all over him and Brad painting with one hand, a hamburger held in the other —wire and loops of twine and those dark shapes swinging, and my God, are those animals up there, hanging, swinging, dying from the ceiling—
    “What the hell are you doing in here?’
    I jumped back, choking down a scream, just as Seth ducked through the doorway, blocking out the lopsided square of light.
    “I…I was trying to find Girlie.” My hands went up instinctively, to ward off the dark and all the things I couldn’t see that could see me, and I felt him, felt him coming closer the silence, the strength of him.
    “Well, you won’t find her here. She’s inside playing.
    I moved nearer the door, nearer the light. “She ran off and I followed her. I guess…I got lost somehow.”
    “I guess.”
    I strained my ears, following his footsteps across the din floor, then back again, close to where I stood. Again I stepped back.
    “I didn’t mean to trespass,” I said. “I came out of the woods and wasn’t sure where I was.”
    “You shouldn’t be in here,” Seth said, and he was there without warning, looming over me. His eyes glittered in half-light. “It’s dangerous. The building’s old.”
    “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I lowered my eyes away from his own, my heart quickening, still angry at myself for feeling so uneasy and afraid. “What is this place?”
    “Smokehouse.” He gave me an impatient look, and I nodded.
    “Oh. Of course. All those smells, I should have guessed.”
    Seth didn’t seem to be listening. He vanished again into the shadows and reappeared a second later hoisting a slab of meat onto his shoulders. “We cure meat and hides here.” He jerked his chin indifferently toward the rafters. “Skunks. Coons. Rachel puts her vegetables in here, too. Onions and peppers. Some herbs.”
    I nodded, letting my eyes roam once again across the sagging walls, the wooden beams, the shadows. “It’s…fascinating.”
    “What’s so fascinating about it? You need certain things if you want to survive. And if you need them, you do them yourself. Just that simple.” He stood aside at the door, indicating that I should go out ahead of him. My shoulder accidently brushed his arm as I passed; I felt his muscles tighten.
    It was good to be out in the light again. Seth moved past me onto the path, and I followed slowly, stepping where he stepped, my shoes crunching twigs and leaves as I picked my way behind him. The woods were deep and golden-green, quiet as a church, the air so sharp and clean that it stung my cheeks and took my breath away. I dug my chin into the collar of my shirt and shivered.
    “I’ll have to find you a jacket somewhere.”
    I glanced up, surprised, for he was still walking ahead with his back to me.
    “It’s a little different here than California.”
    There was just something about the way he said it, almost as if he’d been there before.
    “You know California?” I asked carefully.
    He ignored the question. Leaves swirled down and he brushed them from his hair.
    “Well, it is different,” I said hurriedly. “We’d never have fall like this at home.”
    There was a moment of silence, then, “That wouldn’t seem natural to me.”
    “Have you ever been west? Have you ever been anywhere else but here?”
    The silence stretched on for so long, I thought perhaps he hadn’t heard.