Armageddon Heights (a thriller) Read Online Free PDF Page B

under the nose of the sleeping giant like Jack did in Jack and the Beanstalk.
    Emily’s favourite bedtime story.
    ‘Tell it me again,’ she’d say, the puppy-soft skin of her cheek against his melting his resolve.
    ‘Not again, Emily,’ he’d reply. ‘Why not try another fairy story? The Ugly Duckling. Rapunzel. Look, how about The Gingerbread Man? That’s a really good story.’
    She’d stare at him, bewildered. Then her face would cloud over, her lower lip sticking out, and he’d relent and take down the well-thumbed book and begin to read, her face beaming as she snuggled up close to him.
    ‘Once upon a time there was a boy named Jack…’
    Samuel Wade’s jaw tightened and he shoved the memories away to the dark place at the back of his mind where he couldn’t see them anymore. They were too painful to bear. Yet to fling them away was tantamount to flinging aside his daughter, and his mind was torn in two with the conflict.
    More thunder beat the heavens, so loud it appeared to physically thump the roof of the coach. Wade saw a number of people shift agitatedly in their seats, the sudden hum of voices rising like the drone of bees as people talked to reassure themselves. He wondered at the primal fears that lurked just beneath the surface, in spite of all the trappings of the modern world, the vast knowledge we’ve garnered on the workings of the world, of the universe, and yet here we are, frightened by a storm. Dark, unknown fears that creep out to remind us that we’re little more than terrified, superstitious animals.
    His eyes narrowed. He looked back down the aisle. Only ten people were now on board the coach, including himself.
    Had they made a stop? There wasn’t one scheduled for another hour or so. But there could be no other explanation – five people had disembarked somewhere between him falling asleep and now. Why didn’t he wake? He was a light sleeper, when he slept at all.
    He knew he was so exhausted that he could have been out for hours if the thunder hadn’t jolted him to wakefulness. Being a light sleeper had nothing to do with it when the body was so drained.
    Maybe he missed something in his haste to buy his ticket online. There had to be a scheduled stop he simply hadn’t noticed. He’d been so emotionally wound up it was only to be expected. But ten people? How could they make a profit taking ten people on a coach this size all the way to Scotland?
    They could be picking people up from the other stops, he told himself. That was it. Relax. Nothing to worry about. The dream got to you, that’s all. Stay calm, stay focussed, keep to the task ahead.
    A strong wind buffeted the coach’s sides, and he felt the high-sided vehicle give a lurch.
    ‘Christ, this is worse than hitting turbulence on a plane,’ said the man who was travelling to Northampton to see his daughter.
    ‘Don’t be a drama queen, Paul’ his wife said. ‘It’s not like that at all.’
    They were sitting a few seats up from Wade and he could hear them clearly. Perhaps the man was talking extra loud because he was secretly afraid, for all his bluff confidence.
    ‘I still say the train would have been better, Phyllis,’ he responded grumpily.
    ‘Go to sleep if the weather bothers you,’ she advised. ‘That way you won’t hear it.’
    ‘It doesn’t bother me. I just said the train would have been better.’
    ‘So you did,’ she droned tiredly.
    Wade rose up in his seat to adjust the air nozzles above his head, but used the action to scan the remainder of the coach’s occupants.
    Up front, sitting tapping his fingers on the armrest, a business man by the looks of it, wearing what looked like a suit judging from the white shirt and cufflinks decorating a white shirtsleeve poking from the sleeve of a black jacket that rested on the armrest; a young woman beside him staring out the window, blonde hair that looked like it had had taken plenty of time and hair lacquer getting it into shape, both the man