Lies: A Gone Novel Read Online Free PDF Page B

she was covered in dirt from head to toe. Sam was almost as dirty, and panting from the effort.
    He pulled the tape from her face. It wasn’t easily done. Someone had wound it around and around. The little girl cried when he pulled the tape from her hair.
    â€œWho are you?” Sam asked.
    He noticed something strange. He raised the level of light. Someone had written in magic marker on the girl’s forehead.
    The word was “Freak.”
    Sam’s palm went dark. Slowly, careful not to scare her, he put his arm around the girl’s heaving shoulders.
    â€œIt will be okay,” he lied.
    â€œThey…they said…why…” She couldn’t finish. She collapsed against him, weeping onto his shirt.
    â€œYou’re Jill. Sorry, I didn’t recognize you at first.”
    â€œJill,” she said, and nodded and cried some more. “They don’t want me to sing.”
    Job one, Sam told himself: take care of Zil. Enough. Whether Astrid and the council liked it or not, it was time to take care of Zil.
    Or not.
    Sam stared at the hole from which he’d pulled Jill, really seeing it for the first time. A hole in the ground where none should be. Something about it…something terribly wrong.
    Sam gasped, sucked air sharply. A chill ran up his spine.
    The horror here was not that a little girl had fallen into a hole. The horror was the hole itself.

FIVE
62 HOURS, 6 MINUTES
    SAM TOOK JILL to Mary Terrafino at the day care. Then he found Edilio, woke him up, and walked him to the town plaza. To the hole in the ground.
    Edilio stared at it.
    â€œSo the girl fell in, walking around in the night,” Edilio said. He rubbed sleep out of his eyes and shook his head vigorously.
    â€œYeah,” Sam said. “She didn’t make the hole. She just fell in.”
    â€œSo what made the hole?” Edilio asked.
    â€œYou tell me.”
    Edilio peered more closely at the hole. From the first need, Edilio had taken on the grim duty of digging the graves. He knew each one, knew who was where.
    â€œ Madre de Dios ,” Edilio whispered. He made the sign of the cross on his chest. His eyes were wide as he turned to Sam. “You know what this looks like, right?”
    â€œWhat do you think it looks like?”
    â€œIt’s too deep for being so narrow. No way someone did this with a shovel. Man, this hole wasn’t dug down . It was dug up .”
    Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
    â€œYou’re pretty calm,” Edilio said shakily.
    â€œNot really,” Sam said. “It’s been a strange night. What…who…was buried here?”
    â€œBrittney,” Edilio said.
    â€œSo we buried her when she was still alive?”
    â€œYou’re not thinking straight, man. It’s been more than a month. Nothing stays alive that’s in the dirt for that long.”
    The two of them stood side by side, staring down into the hole. The too-narrow, too-deep hole.
    â€œShe had that thing on her,” Edilio said. “We couldn’t get it off her. We figured she’s dead, so what’s it matter, right?”
    â€œThat thing,” Sam said dully. “We never figured out what it was.”
    â€œSam, we both know what it was.”
    Sam hung his head. “We have to keep this quiet, Edilio. If we put this out there, the whole town will go nuts. People have enough to deal with.”
    Edilio looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Sam, this isn’t the old days. We have a town council now. They’re supposed to know whatever’s going on.”
    â€œIf they know, everyone will know,” Sam said.
    Edilio said nothing. He knew it was true.
    â€œYou know that girl Orsay?” Sam asked.
    â€œOf course I know her,” Edilio said. “We almost got killed together.”
    â€œDo me a favor and kind of keep an eye on her.”
    â€œWhat’s up with Orsay?”
    Sam shrugged. “She thinks she’s some kind of