At the Stroke of Madness Read Online Free PDF Page A

that acted as the only opening. Otherwise, this overgrown pasture was completely boxed in by a stripped mountain, bled of its precious brownstone on one side and thick with woods on the other three sides.
    He recognized Calvin Vargus at the monster machine’s controls inside the open-air cab. He could see Calvin’s bloated forearms shove and grab and pull at the levers, making the machine’s bucket scoop up rock like a giant mouth. Another lever shoved forward and the huge yellow body twisted to one side and spit out the rock with a slam and thump.
    Calvin’s head bobbed, the orange baseball cap shielding his eyes from the morning sun, but he still caught a glimpse of Luc and waved. Luc waved back and took it as an invitation for a closer inspection. The machine drummed in his ears. He could feel its vibration all the way from his toes to his teeth. It fascinated Luc. It scared the dickens out of Scrapple. What a wuss. Stealing bones from coyotes and yet here he was scared by a little noise, following close behind Luc, bumping his nose into the back of Luc’s leg
    The machine’s giant yellow mouth took another bite of rock and debris—debris that looked to be part crushed rock, part brush and garbage. This time a discarded rusted barrel broke free and came rolling down the pile of boulders. It crashed against the sharp rock edges, splitting open and sending the lid flying like a Frisbee.
    Luc watched the lid, amazed by its speed and distance, so that he only saw the spilled contents out of the corner of his eye. At first he thought it was old clothes, a bunch of rags. Then he saw an arm and thought maybe a mannequin. It was a garbage dump, after all.
    Then he noticed the smell.
    It wasn’t what ordinary garbage smelled like. No, it smelled different. It smelled like…it smelled like something dead. It didn’t really scare him until Scrapple began to howl, an uncontrollable, high-pitched howl that broke through the noise of the equipment and sent a chill up Luc’s spine.
    Calvin stopped the bucket in midair. He cut the engine. And suddenly, Scrapple’s howl came to an abrupt stop, too, leaving an unsettling silence. Luc could see Calvin push back his cap. He glanced up at the big man who now sat paralyzed in the cab. Luc stood still.
    The vibrations from earlier seemed to be replaced by throbbing in his ears. Only now did Luc realize the throbbing wasn’t the aftereffects of the equipment. The throbbing was his own heart pounding, hammering so hard he could barely hear the geese overhead. There were dozens of them, a flood of squawking as they made their daily pilgrimage to or from the McKenzie Reservoir. In the distance he could hear the hum of rush-hour traffic on I-91. All the routine sounds of an ordinary day.
    An ordinary day, Luc thought as he watched the morning sun peek through the trees and highlight the bluish-white flesh that had spilled from the fifty-five-gallon barrel. Luc caught Calvin’s eyes. He expected to see his own panic mirrored on Calvin’s face. And there may have been a little panic, maybe even a little disgust at the sight. But what struck Luc Racine as odd was what he didn’t see. What Luc didn’t see on Calvin Vargus’s face was surprise.

CHAPTER 2
    Monday, September 15
Wallingford, Connecticut
    L uc Racine pretended it was a game. That was how it had started a couple of months ago. A silly guessing game that he played with himself. Except now, standing in his stocking feet at the end of his driveway, he stared at the plastic-encased newspaper on the ground as if it were a pipe bomb left just to trick him. What if today was the day? What if he got it wrong today? What the hell would it mean?
    He turned around, full circle, to see if his neighbors were watching. Not an easy task for any of them. From atop his lane, Luc could barely see their houses, let alone their windows, well hidden by thick foliage. The sun, which had just broken free over the mountain ridge, couldn’t