Black Read Online Free PDF

been over two years ago. With any luck the beast was gone for good.
    More to the point, it didn’t sound like there were any gunmen in her apartment, holding her hostage.
    â€œI have to run,” he said. “You need anything, you call, okay?”
    â€œSure, Tommy. Thanks for calling.”
    He dropped the receiver in its cradle and steadied himself on the counter. He was really in a pickle this time, wasn’t he? And no quick solutions were coming to mind.
    He had to get off his feet.
    Tom grabbed the machete and hurried to his bathroom, head swimming. He stood in front of the mirror and ran his fingers along his head wound again. No more bleeding, that was good. But his whole head throbbed. For all he knew, he had a concussion.
    It took him less than five minutes to clean up, change his clothes, and don a baseball cap. He walked back out to the living room and collapsed on the couch. Kara could dress the cut properly when she got home.
    He lay back and thought about calling her at work but decided an explanation over the phone would be too difficult. The room began to spin, so he closed his eyes.
    He had an hour to think of something. Anything.
    But nothing came.
    Except sleep.

4
    T om wasn’t sure if it was the heat or the buzzing that woke him, but he woke with a start, snapped his eyes open, and squinted.
    Impressions registered in his mind like falling dominoes. The blue sky. The sun. The black trees. A lone bat perched high above him, like a deformed vulture. Thomas held perfectly still and stared up through slits, determined to make sense of what was happening.
    He’d just had another incredibly lifelike dream of a place called Denver.
    For a fleeting moment he felt relieved that his dream was only that, a dream. That he really hadn’t been shot in the head and that his life really wasn’t in danger.
    But then he remembered that he really was in danger. He had banged his head on a rock and cut his foot on the shale and passed out under the red gaze of a hungry bat. He wasn’t sure what he should fear more, the horrors in his dream or the horrors here.
    Bill.
    Tom opened his eyes wide and ran them in circles to view as much as he could without having to move. He couldn’t see where the buzzing came from. Stark, square branches jutted from the leafless trees. Lifeless, charred trees.
    Tom concentrated, grasping for memories. None that preceded his fall came to mind. The amnesia had locked them out. His surroundings looked oddly familiar, as if he’d been here before, but he felt disconnected from the scene.
    His head ached.
    His right foot throbbed.
    The bat didn’t look as threatening as it had last night.
    Tom slowly pushed himself up to his elbow and glanced around the black forest. To his left, a large black field of ash lay between him and a small pond. Fruit that he hadn’t seen last night hung on the trees in a stunning variety of colors. Red and blue and yellow, all hanging in an impossible contrast to the stark black trees. Something seemed very wrong here. More than the strange surroundings, more than the fact that Bill had disappeared. Tom couldn’t put his finger on it.
    Except for the one high above, the bats were gone. He knew about the bats, didn’t he? Somewhere back in his lost memories, he was completely familiar with bats. He knew that they were dangerous and evil and had very sharp teeth, but he couldn’t remember other details, like how to avoid them. Or how to wring their necks.
    A blanket of black rose from the field. The buzzing swelled.
    Tom scrambled to his feet. What he’d thought was black soot on the field was actually a blanket of flies. They buzzed a few feet off the ground and then settled again. As far as the clearing extended, the squirming, black-winged insects crawled over one another, forming a thick, living carpet.
    He backed up, fighting a sudden panic. He had to get out of here. He had to find someone who could