Read Online The Secret: A Thriller by David Haywood Young - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: David Haywood Young
Tags: General Fiction
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trouble worrying about it. Was whatever had happened to Mr. Morrison—and those kids—happening to me too?
If so I couldn’t do anything about it just then, could I? I stank, though. And the swimming hole was pretty close. I could stop and clean myself up a little before I went on. So I forged on, still barefoot, walking in the creek more often than not, with my pants rolled up to my knees.
The pond water was cool, and its surface significantly less scummy than it could sometimes become, which was nice. I took off my clothes and splashed around a little. This place had always been able to calm me down. An inner voice screamed at me that I needed to get back to my family—but I told myself that was just panic. Free-floating anxiety. Yes, I needed to get back. But I also needed to think, and figure out what to do next, if I could, without a bunch of people talking at once.
I found a seat on some stones next to the pond that had been arranged into a sort of chair, and tried to relax. I supposed generations of bored kids had done the same. Anyway, the chair had been there since before I was born. It was usually a throne in the games we’d played.
Whatever was going on, it had started—here in Henge, at least—at the prison. Somehow it spread to the town, and maybe beyond. What was it? Some sort of virus? The news articles I’d seen summarized seemed to be talking about a gas attack, and whether that was true or not there might be danger from radiation, depending on what caused the EMP and on how the prison had been destroyed.
But…I sat up suddenly.
Fact: Somebody had blown up at least one water tower, which had cut off supply to a bunch of houses. Including Rose’s, and she’d seemed fine. Bruised, heart-sore, but sane.
Fact: There had been a warning at Walmart about algae in Lake Henge. Lakes, I noted, generally had water in them. And the water table had been dropping in our area for decades, so the city’s supply came mostly from the lake these days.
Not much to build a theory on, but…the kids I’d seen playing in hydrant-spray during my run that same day, the day of the storm…were they some of the same kids I’d seen marching today? The city had apparently been decontaminating its water supply by opening up hydrants. Had the kids played in…whatever was causing this?
Or had something traveled from the prison, to the town, via our water lines? Was my family still sane because—of all the ridiculous ways to be saved—we didn’t trust the municipal water, and ran it through two kinds of filter before we drank it?
Thoroughly alarmed, I stared at the pond. But that was surface water. Of course, so was the lake….
Had I just contaminated myself?
Whatever feeling I’d had of safety, or belonging to this place, had fled screaming into the trees. I got dressed, shoes included, and set off toward the old basement at a trot.
* * *
C rash!
I stopped running and ducked, tripping myself and ending up flat on my face in a pile of leaves. A man-sized shape had just burst from a clump of bushes and jumped over my head. From the ground, I twisted and stared up at it—ragged clothes, bestial face.
It grinned at me from a lower limb of an ancient live oak and hooted over its shoulder. I saw scraps of a recent bloody meal dangling from its fangs, and I froze. Another hoot came from off to my left, and a deer leapt from its cover behind a bush not ten feet from me. With more hooting, Fang-Boy and his companion bounded after it.
My God. I’d thought I was safer in the woods?
But they hadn’t attacked me. I’d had the sense they were playing. Whether with me, the deer, or both…wasn’t clear. And the fact that they’d been enjoying themselves didn’t make me less likely to be eaten. If they ate people.
Whatever; they weren’t vegetarians. And one of them had taken Susie.
I was shaking again, but I forced myself to change direction and wander for a while, stopping often to listen as I went.
If so I couldn’t do anything about it just then, could I? I stank, though. And the swimming hole was pretty close. I could stop and clean myself up a little before I went on. So I forged on, still barefoot, walking in the creek more often than not, with my pants rolled up to my knees.
The pond water was cool, and its surface significantly less scummy than it could sometimes become, which was nice. I took off my clothes and splashed around a little. This place had always been able to calm me down. An inner voice screamed at me that I needed to get back to my family—but I told myself that was just panic. Free-floating anxiety. Yes, I needed to get back. But I also needed to think, and figure out what to do next, if I could, without a bunch of people talking at once.
I found a seat on some stones next to the pond that had been arranged into a sort of chair, and tried to relax. I supposed generations of bored kids had done the same. Anyway, the chair had been there since before I was born. It was usually a throne in the games we’d played.
Whatever was going on, it had started—here in Henge, at least—at the prison. Somehow it spread to the town, and maybe beyond. What was it? Some sort of virus? The news articles I’d seen summarized seemed to be talking about a gas attack, and whether that was true or not there might be danger from radiation, depending on what caused the EMP and on how the prison had been destroyed.
But…I sat up suddenly.
Fact: Somebody had blown up at least one water tower, which had cut off supply to a bunch of houses. Including Rose’s, and she’d seemed fine. Bruised, heart-sore, but sane.
Fact: There had been a warning at Walmart about algae in Lake Henge. Lakes, I noted, generally had water in them. And the water table had been dropping in our area for decades, so the city’s supply came mostly from the lake these days.
Not much to build a theory on, but…the kids I’d seen playing in hydrant-spray during my run that same day, the day of the storm…were they some of the same kids I’d seen marching today? The city had apparently been decontaminating its water supply by opening up hydrants. Had the kids played in…whatever was causing this?
Or had something traveled from the prison, to the town, via our water lines? Was my family still sane because—of all the ridiculous ways to be saved—we didn’t trust the municipal water, and ran it through two kinds of filter before we drank it?
Thoroughly alarmed, I stared at the pond. But that was surface water. Of course, so was the lake….
Had I just contaminated myself?
Whatever feeling I’d had of safety, or belonging to this place, had fled screaming into the trees. I got dressed, shoes included, and set off toward the old basement at a trot.
* * *
C rash!
I stopped running and ducked, tripping myself and ending up flat on my face in a pile of leaves. A man-sized shape had just burst from a clump of bushes and jumped over my head. From the ground, I twisted and stared up at it—ragged clothes, bestial face.
It grinned at me from a lower limb of an ancient live oak and hooted over its shoulder. I saw scraps of a recent bloody meal dangling from its fangs, and I froze. Another hoot came from off to my left, and a deer leapt from its cover behind a bush not ten feet from me. With more hooting, Fang-Boy and his companion bounded after it.
My God. I’d thought I was safer in the woods?
But they hadn’t attacked me. I’d had the sense they were playing. Whether with me, the deer, or both…wasn’t clear. And the fact that they’d been enjoying themselves didn’t make me less likely to be eaten. If they ate people.
Whatever; they weren’t vegetarians. And one of them had taken Susie.
I was shaking again, but I forced myself to change direction and wander for a while, stopping often to listen as I went.
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