John Gone Read Online Free PDF Page B

some guy thought I was trying to have my way with his blind
wife.”
    “Wait, what?” she exclaimed. “Is Virgil
alright?”
    “No, Mom, for the last time, Virgil is dead.
He has stopped breathing, seeing, tasting, hearing, touching, and
smelling. He’s no longer alive. Dead. Okay? The man is
deceased.”
    “Oh, my God,” she answered. “Are you
okay?”
    “No!” he yelled back. “I’m in
Tallahassee!”
    “How did you even get up there? Tallahassee
is at least five hours away by car, and you’re on a scooter!”
    “I’m not on the scooter. I just sort of woke
up here.”
    “John, you’re making me seriously
worried.”
    John heard a quiet beep invading his
conversation again, but this time when he looked at the screen, he
saw that it came from his dying battery, not Molly calling to
make-up with him as he’d hoped.
    “Mom, my battery is dying. I’ll explain
everything when we meet up. I don’t know where I am in the city, so
I’m just going to find a bus or something heading back toward
Longboard. I’m going to call you when I get there and you can pick
me up from the station and drive me back to the island, okay?”
Nothing. “Okay?” he repeated. Soon he heard soft sniffling. “Mom,
don’t cry, I’m fine, okay? I’ll call you when I get there. I have
to save my remaining battery life and get off the phone now.”
    “Okay,” she replied slowly. “Be safe. Call me
the second you get back.”
    “I will. I love you. And don’t worry,
everything is fine. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
    “Alright,” she answered. “I love you,
too.”
    “Make some tea or something. Try not to
worry.”
    “Yeah,” she answered.
    They hung up their phones.
     
     
     
     

CHAPTER 3
     
    John looked out the window to his left and
saw an illuminated bank sign poled high above the street. Its
sharp, flashing red LED lights begged for attention as they burned
against the night’s darkness: 87 degrees Fahrenheit, 3:08 a.m.
Get $50.00 free when you open a new checking account at Commerce
Bank!
    He shivered against the torn plastic of his
seatback and struggled to fit underneath his messenger bag. He’d
been trying to use it as a blanket against the cold now welling
inside him. Normally, he’d think the bank’s signboard was wrong
about the temperature--a typo from the controller, or a faulty
thermometer--but for this time of year in Florida, it had to be
right. So why, then, was he shivering? It had been like winter for
him since the warming adrenaline of his encounter with Adam had
worn off earlier that day.
    John considered the time displayed on the
sign, and the truth of it saddened him. His underdeveloped plan of
finding a bus home hadn’t been half as simple as he’d hoped. Once
he’d been given directions to the station, there’d still been the
long walk through an unknown city to get there. By the time he’d
finally arrived, it was already midnight, and the next bus hadn’t
been leaving for another hour still. Making matters even more
stressful, his phone had died just minutes after the phone call
with his mother. She’d probably called and called him in a panic
since then, but John had no way of knowing nor answering if she
had.
    He tightened his body into a ball on top of
the seat and put his hands beneath his armpits for warmth. He could
see his mother at their home on the beach; she was sitting
wide-eyed on the couch, torn between waiting by the phone like
they’d agreed and jumping into her car to gun for Tallahassee. He
hated what he was putting her through.
    John removed his hands from under his arms
and looked at the watch still attached to his wrist. He punched it
with his left hand.
    “It’s all your fault,” he said, unsure if he
was speaking to the watch or to himself. His mind fell back to
Virgil’s horrified face, unwittingly frozen in time with the rest
of his body on the cold, hard floor of that plain and dreary old
office where he’d left him. He saw the arc of