Lets Drink To The Dead Read Online Free PDF

the main road.
    He lunged at her; she slashed at him with the knife, kicked him in the balls and ran.
    “Bitch!”
    Seconds later she realised she was going the wrong way. She should’ve gone past him, back towards Dunwich Road.
    And then the van’s engine roared into life and the headlights blazed.
    The lane stretched out ahead as far as she could see. To the right were open fields – nowhere to hide there. But to the left was the hillside – thick woodlands she could vanish in. She scrambled off to her left, yelping as her trainers plunged ankle-deep in a ditch full of cold water, then found a narrow desire-line worn into the ground, vanishing up into the trees. She ran up it, grabbing at thin tree-trunks for balance. She stopped for a second to push the knife’s blade in and put it back in her pocket. The engine roared behind her, light flared through the trees. Then she was climbing again. She could barely see. She kept her head down and eyes narrowed against the sharp twigs slashing at her face and her arms feeling out ahead.
    “Bitch!” The van door slammed. “You fucking bitch!”
    Christ, change the record, you div.
    “You’re not fucking getting away that easy! I’ll find you!”
    Dani kept climbing. Below, a splash and the van driver cursed. Despite everything, she had to smile.
    He was thrashing through the undergrowth. Dani climbed faster, stopped. He was big and he was strong. He’d gain on her and then–
    Wait. Try this.
    She stepped off the path, squeezed between trees and trunks, pushed her way through brittle undergrowth, found a thick tree and crouched behind it. A blurred pale shape moved back the way she’d come. “Where are you?” the driver wheezed. “Fucking where?”
    Obviously, Dani wasn’t answering. She took the knife out again, rested her thumb on the button that would release the blade. A couple of the badges on her jacket clicked together and she froze, holding her breath, wondering how well the sound would carry in the cold damp air. After a moment, there was a muffled roar of rage and a heavy thud – a workboot, she guessed, kicking a tree. “Fuck you then,” he shouted. “Stay up here and freeze, you frigid cunt. You’ll fucking wish you’d sucked us off, you little slag. Specially up here. Cow.”
    After a while, she heard his thrashing progress back down the hillside. A long time later – it felt like a long time, anyroad – the van door slammed and the engine roared back into life before receding out of earshot.
    So what now? Her feet were freezing. They ached with cold. She could climb back down, make her way back to Dunwich Road. But what if he’d parked up along the lane, waiting for her to do just that? Didn’t seem too likely; he was on his way to Manchester and he had a load to deliver. Couldn’t wait around all night just because the hitchhiker he’d picked up hadn’t done as he’d wanted.
    But all the same, she didn’t fancy it.
    How far up the hill was she? If she kept climbing she could make it to the top, then down the other side. She’d been to Kempforth, years before; she remembered there were farms all over the hills overlooking the town. She could bed down in a barn. Fuck it, if she had to she’d knock on a farmhouse door and beg.
    None of that, lass, she imagined Dad saying. You don’t beg. Raised you better than that.
    Aye, but she was chattery-teethed, cold and tired. Just a place to bed down, please. Anything. Besides, she could do the whole sob story of what the van driver had tried to do.
    She was starting to shake with cold. That wasn’t good. Oh, Christ. If she had to, she realised, she’d do what the van driver had wanted her to do if it meant a bed for the night. The thought made her sick and it made her feel weak. She’d not been gone from home a full day yet and already she was ready to sell herself. She still hadn’t done it with a lad yet, either. For all the punky look she liked, she was no slag. Or at least she’d never