Read Online The Secret: A Thriller by David Haywood Young - Free Book Online

grabbing her forcibly…but I couldn’t make myself do it. “Fine,” I told her. “I’ll leave the truck with you.” I raised a hand when she tried to object. “I need the truck to get online and I don’t want to use my gas for anything but internet access anyway.” Actually I was sure I could siphon as much as I needed from abandoned vehicles, and any 12-volt battery would work as well as the one in the truck. But Rose wouldn’t know that. “If something else happens…in an emergency, you know where we are. Get in the truck, drive like a bat out of hell, and don’t worry about the paint job when you get into the woods.”
    She was shaking her head. “Ash. I’m not—”
    “Please. Promise you’ll come, if you need to.”
     

Chapter Six
     
    W alking down the street, I was pretty sure something had died nearby. I was hoping it was a deer. Or even a dog. The stench was awful.
    I put a hand over my face, and then heard…singing?…up ahead, and looked for a place to hide. It sounded like some sort of parade. But who…?
    “Jacob!” I heard from my left. “Come inside! Immediately!”
    Leo Morrison, who’d taught all my History classes in high school, had opened his front door and poked his head out. His uncharacteristically spiky comb-over waved at me. He also flapped one hand frantically. “Come, Jacob! Quickly!”
    I’d been walking back toward the scrub wood from Rose’s house—I figured I could cut across and save at least a mile of street walking—and so far I hadn’t seen too many people. Morrison looked a little off, but it had been a tough couple of days and he’d always struck me as a level-headed guy. I trotted across his yard. “Hi, Mr. Morrison. Do you have any idea what—”
    “Inside, damnit!” He grabbed my arm and pulled. The guy was barely five feet tall…but I let him pull me inside.
    “Okay! Okay. What’s going on?” I asked.
    He glared at me through his monocle—the only one I’d ever seen in person—and closed the door. “The children, Jacob. They don’t…they don’t always recognize the people who belong.”
    “The people who what?”
    “Shh!” He motioned to the window. “See for yourself! But be still, Jacob. Please. Don’t draw their attention.”
    I moved to the window with him, and we watched the street. For a while, all was silence. I opened my mouth to ask again what was happening, but Mr. Morrison shushed me angrily. I decided to humor him…and then I heard it again: the older, long-disallowed version of the Henge High Barbarians fight song, as always delivered by teenage-or-younger voices. Bemused, I grinned a little…and wondered what was up.
    Just as it was ending (“…SWIRLS OF BLUE! EYES OF FIRE! STANDING TALL, WE LIGHT YOUR PYRE! GO…BARBS!”) I saw the first kids come into sight. And my grin went away.
    Some of them seemed barely upright, as if they might fall over any second. Some looked full of energy. Most wore clothing ripped to rags, or were barely dressed at all. I looked closer…one girl, maybe ten years old, was entirely naked. Many of them sported blue paint on their clothes and bodies. Each and every one, regardless of how their bodies swayed or twitched, stepped along precisely in time. Spasmodic jerking, graceful dancing, a couple were spinning as they went and one of them might have been comatose or dead but was being walked along, feet kicked back and forth in perfect rhythm. I wanted to throw up but didn’t dare move.
    Then came the next wave. These were slightly older kids—Robbie’s age, or Rachel’s. Or Felicia’s. I swallowed, hard. And swayed on my feet.
    At the end of the procession came Chief Eisler’s cruiser. But he wasn’t driving it. More kids were pushing it, pulling it, moving it along. The steering wheel had drifted to the left but they didn’t seem to care. It was as if they’d forgotten what it was for. Somehow they just shoved the car back into line, and marched on.
    As they moved out of sight