Grave Intentions Read Online Free PDF Page A

outer limits: Bigfoot, Chupacabra, UFOs. Heck, she even believed in Swamp Cabbage Man. “How can you believe that garbage? You’re a scientist, for Pete’s sake!”
    “True, but that doesn’t mean I’m closed to the possibility of paranormal phenomena. It could be real, you know.” Defensiveness brought out the New York in Jackie’s voice. “There’s thousands of acres of forest in the Pacific Northwest that haven’t been explored. It’s possible something might be living out there that hasn’t been discovered.”
    Fox Mulder, eat your heart out.
    Sarah leaned a hip against the desk and folded her arms across her chest. “Oh please. Think about it, Jackie. For a species that large to survive, it would require a huge area and large enough numbers to sustain a genetically viable population. We’re not talking one or two. We’re talking hundreds, if not thousands. Do you honestly think something like that could run around undetected? And what about the lack of physical evidence? Scientists have unearthed the bones of animals that went extinct millions of years ago, but we can’t find one Sasquatch skeleton?”
    Jackie put her hands on her hips and blew Sarah a raspberry, which looked really odd coming from a plus-sized woman in lab gear and goggles. “Killjoy.”
    “Realist and proud of it, thank you very much.” Sarah adjusted the fit of her own goggles before tugging on a pair of clear plastic gloves. “Dig deep enough, and there’s a scientific explanation for everything.”
    “Not everything.”
    “Everything.”
    “You know, one of these days you’re going to come face to face with something you can’t explain through the scientific method.”
    “Aside from the male psyche, I seriously doubt it.”
     
    It took David and Adam over an hour to reach the site for their final reap of the day. By then, the sun was beginning its descent over the horizon and mosquitoes were swarming the outskirts of east Orlando, better known as Bithlo by the locals. Sparsely populated and heavily wooded, it still held the flavor of a slice of Orlando long since forgotten by tourist traps and outlet malls.
    “Christ,” Adam muttered when David’s sedan rolled to a stop along the soft shoulder of a rutted dirt road. “I didn’t realize we were driving out to the middle of fucking nowhere.”
    “Death goes everywhere.” David cut the engine and hit the release on his seat belt. “And so do we.” And sometimes the job took them to shit holes that made this place look like Disney World. “You got the coordinates?”
    Adam patted the front pocket of his shirt. “Right here.”
    “Good. Don’t forget the GPS.” While David could operate through senses alone, it would take Adam weeks, if not months, to achieve a comparable level of skill. Until then, he’d have to rely on maps or GPS to get him where he needed to go, especially in remote locations where street names weren’t the norm.
    Together, they maneuvered through the dense scrub until they reached a modest clearing ringed with overgrown pines. In the center stood a dilapidated mobile home, its roof partially collapsed and the exterior covered with thick layers of dirt, rust, and algae. Dim light shined through the only window not boarded up. Beside the trailer was a homebuilt shed, the unpainted plywood warped and faded. A large pit bull mix was chained to a nearby tree, sleeping, while cars in various states of disrepair littered the remaining area, an iron graveyard of Detroit’s finest.
    “Hey, there’s a road right over there.” Adam pointed to the far end of the clearing. “We could have used that instead of hacking through a quarter mile of brush.”
    “I know,” David said as he slipped behind one of the battered cars for cover. “But then we’d have no way of knowing if we could get back out once we’re finished.” He’d learned that lesson a long time ago, the hard way. His focus stayed on the clearing, sizing up the area with