Read Online The Last Child by John Hart - Free Book Online

on the road, the big engine gunned. Tires barked in reverse. Johnny felt the vibration when the car rolled back onto the bridge.
    The injured man’s jaw worked. “He’s coming back.”
    “It’s okay,” Johnny said. “We’ll help you.” He knelt in the dirt. The man held out his hand and Johnny took it. “It’s going to be okay.”
    But the man ignored Johnny’s words. With a surprising strength, he pulled the boy closer. “I found her.”
    Johnny focused on the man’s lips. “You found who?”
    “The girl that was taken.”
    Johnny felt cold shock. The man’s body seized, and blood shot from his mouth onto Johnny’s shirt. Johnny barely noticed. “Who?” he said again, then louder. “Who?”
    “I found her…”
    Above them, the big engine idled. The injured man rolled his eyes up, his fear obvious. He pulled Johnny so close that he smelled blood and crushed organs. The man’s eyes crinkled at the edges, and Johnny heard a single word. A whisper.
    “Run…”
    “What?”
    The man’s grip tightened. Johnny heard how the big engine rumbled and spat, then something like steel on concrete. The man’s hand clenched so hard that nails cut Johnny’s skin.
    “For God’s sake—”
    The body seized again, spine locked tight, broken arm twisting.
    “Run…”
    Johnny looked down, saw a boot heel push dirt, and something clicked in his mind.
    This was not an accident.
    Johnny looked at the bridge and saw a hump of movement: a head and a shoulder, a man moving around the front of the car. It was a shadow man, a cutout. Johnny felt the blood on his hands, sticky wet and going cold.
    Not an accident.
    The man’s body seized, head slamming dirt, boot heel drumming. Johnny tried to pull his hand free, had to jerk with all he had. Noise on the bridge. Movement. Fear was a knife that went in low and touched some deep place in him. Johnny had never been so scared in all of his life, not the day he woke up to find his father gone, not the times his mom winked out and Ken got that gleam in his eye.
    Johnny was terrified.
    Frozen.
    Then he turned and ran, along the river, down the trail. He ran until his throat closed, until his heart tried to claw free from his chest. He ran fast and he ran afraid. He ran until the giant black monster stepped from the shadows and grabbed him up.
    Then Johnny screamed.
     
     
     

CHAPTER FIVE
     
     
    Levi Freemantle carried a precious thing on his shoulder. It was a heavy box, wrapped twice in black plastic and closed up with silver tape. Few men could carry it as far as Levi had, but Levi was not like other men. He ignored the hurt of it, the sense of it. He kept his feet on the path and moved his lips when words rose up in his mind. He listened to God’s voice in his head and followed the river like his momma taught him when he was a boy. The river was the river, never-changing, and Levi had walked the river trail a hundred times, maybe. Not that he counted that good.
    But a hundred was a lot.
    He’d walked it a lot.
    Levi saw the white boy before he heard him. He was coming straight at him, tearing down the trail like the devil was at his heels and hungry for white boys. His head rode low on skinny shoulders, face gone purple red, feet skipping over rocks and holes as branches snapped at his face and missed. The boy never looked back, not once, and it was like watching a hunted animal run.
    Levi wanted to let the boy pass, but there was no way to hide. There was river and there was trees, but Levi stood six foot five and weighed three hundred pounds. People with guns were looking for him. Cops with bright metal on their belts, guards with clubs and nasty smiles. So Levi asked God what to do, and God told him to grab the boy up. Don’t hurt him, God said. Just pick him up.
    “Truly?” Levi whispered, but God did not answer; so Levi shrugged, then stepped from behind the tree and grabbed the boy up with one thick arm. The boy screamed, but Levi held him, gentle as he could.