Read Online The Intruders by Michael Marshall - Free Book Online Page B

the turn toward the freeway. Then he slowly finished his beer. He did not hurry, for once. He was feeling almost as if he were just sitting in a bar, rather than hiding there. The people at the counter were talking, laughing. The arguing couple were now chewing face across their table, the woman’s hand hooked meatily around the man’s neck. Oz wished them well.
    When he eventually stepped outside, it was cold and windy, the streets deserted. People with normal lives were home asleep. Oz was going to join them now. Home for the time being was an anonymous motel on the edge of town, but any kind of home is better than none.
    As he walked, he considered the man he’d just met, what he represented. There were countless groups interested in the underbelly, in finding the hidden truths. JFK obsessives who met once a month to pore over autopsy shots. Online 9/11 nuts with their trajectory-modeling software, Priory of Sion wannabes, Holocaust revisionists—circle jerks for everything that might or might not ever have been true. Jones’s people sounded very different, or Oz would not have agreed to make contact in the first place. A tight, focused group of men and women who studied the facts without previous agenda, who met in secret, who weren’t too close to one particular issue to miss a glimpse of the whole. This was what Oz needed. People with rigor. People with dedication.
    Just some fucking people, bottom line.
    Maybe, after his time in the wilderness, things were going to start turning around. Oz picked up the pace a little, idly wondering if his motel had a snack machine.
     
    It did not, and the soda machine didn’t work. After establishing these facts and becoming resigned to them, Oz let himself into his room, first noting that the strip of Scotch tape he’d laid across the bottom of the door had not been disturbed.
    Once inside, he stood irresolute. It was late. He should go to bed. Get on the road early. Keep on the move. But he still felt hopped up from the meeting and knew that if he laid his head down, it would get locked in a long spiral that would leave him exhausted and headachy in the morning.
    He turned instead to the ancient console television next to the room’s shabby desk. The huge screen warmed slowly, to reveal a rerun of a show so old Oz barely remembered it. Perfect. A little background noise, the kind that creeps inside your head and tells you everything’s all right. Comfort sound.

    There was a knock on the door.
    Oz turned fast, heart beating hard.
    The television wasn’t on loud enough to provoke a complaint. It was hard to imagine why else someone should be outside. The bedside clock said it was 2:33 A.M.
    The knock came again, more quietly this time.
    Oz knew that the flickering of the television screen would be visible around the edges of the curtains. He went and stood behind the door. This was the moment he’d feared, the prospect that kept him awake at night, and he realized suddenly that he’d never really come up with a plan for when it came to pass. So much for the Lone Horseman of the Unknown.
    “Mr. Turner? It’s Mr. Jones.”
    The person outside had spoken very quietly. Oz stared at the door for a moment, put his ear closer. “What?”
    “Could you let me in?”
    Oz hesitated, undid the lock. Opened the door a crack, to see Jones standing shivering outside.
    “What the hell do you want?”
    Jones kept well back from the door, didn’t crowd him. “I got a few miles down the road and realized there were a couple things I forgot to say. I turned around, saw you walking through town, followed you back here.”
    Oz let the man into the hotel room, annoyed at how careless he’d been to allow someone to spot him on the street.
    “You scared the fucking life out of me, man,” he said, closing the door and locking it. “Jesus.”
    “I know. I’m sorry, really. It’s just that I came all this way. And, you know, I think meeting up was kind of a big deal for both of us.