Crawlers Read Online Free PDF

going to take hours—”
    “
Nothing cool,
he says!” Waylon blurted. “Deputy, a
black helicopter
just landed and some spooky guys just got out. I mean, they’re probably military intelligence—so like, what?”
    Deputy Sprague chuckled and shook his head. “Son—” “Waylon’s sort of excitable about stuff like that,” Adair said, and instantly regretted it when Waylon shot her a look.
    “What I think is interesting,” Gunderston said, “is that they must’ve been tracking this thing, but there was nothing about it on TV, the Internet—nothing. When that other satellite fell in the ocean near Australia, the whole world was watching.”
    “
Exactly,
dude!” Waylon said. “And those guys in the black chopper—they’re like secret operatives and shit—”
    “I got it on the radio, son,” Deputy Sprague said, chuckling. “They’re Air Force guys who’ve been tracking this thing, is all. That’s not a black chopper, that’s dark green. And it probably wasn’t on TV because it caught them by surprise, too. It fell with no damn warning.” He went into more of a cop mode, his body language changing to emanate authority as he raised his hands palms outward. “Now, ya’ll move on out—they’re not even letting the Channel Five people down here. Everybody got to go—that’s all of you folks!”
    Adair looked closer at the helicopter, its rotors still whirling. “Okay, it’s dark green.”
    Waylon whispered to her, “We should try to get around the cops, get closer—”
    But then it hit her. Salvage!
    “Deputy Sprague, my dad does commercial diving and salvage— and he’s only a mile from here!”
    “If he gets his rig out here . . . I mean, hon, I can’t guarantee—”
    “Mason! We gotta go! Now! I gotta tell my dad!”
    “Whatever,” Mason said agreeably.
    “Okay,” Waylon said, as they trotted back to the van, “but I’m going to get out at the top of the road and circle back through the brush up there. I’m gonna watch this thing.”
    “Whoa,” Mason said. “You are insane in the fucking membrane, cuz, ya kna’mean?”
    Dad was in his pajamas, in his open bathrobe, in his slippers, and in a funk of depression—he’d probably gone off his meds again—leaving his personal imprint on the living room sofa. He was hunched, scowling, over an old, scratched-up acoustic guitar. “I can’t remember the chords anymore,” he muttered as Adair came in.
    Dad’s long face and long nose seemed longer when he was depressed, because his head was ducked. His dark eyes seemed more like a lost bloodhound’s.
    She wondered for a moment if he was going to have another breakdown. There’d been only that one time; he’d just sort of frozen up, like a computer running too many programs, and wouldn’t speak for two days, shook his head. He’d hung around in his pajamas a lot before that, too.
    But she remembered, then, going to work on the boat with him when she was little: how proud she’d been seeing him in his diving gear, grinning at her, giving her a thumbs-up as he went over the side.
    More than once he’d saved lives. People stuck belowdecks in boats run aground, the hold slowly filling.
    It was hard to remember that guy, looking at him now.
    “Dad, there’s a salvage job! Right this minute!”
    He struck a sour chord and shook his head mournfully. “Now? They have to contract with me—”
    “Nick?”
    Mom came from the kitchen, a sponge in her hand, shaking her head with that practiced expression of disgusted amazement she had. “You need
work
? Hel-
lo
? Sometimes you have to
go where the
work is
?” She looked at Adair. Her sharp features, those forever-down-turned lips, seemed skeptical, disbelieving anytime she looked at Adair. “Where’s the job, Adair? And why are you jumping up and down, like there’s ants in your drawers?”
    “I’m trying to tell you that—that there was
a crash
!” She didn’t want to say that it was a satellite. Explaining would just