Take the Long Way Home Read Online Free PDF Page B

comfort in the presence of others? Or would they all go to church or temple instead? Personally, I’d always thought that there wasn’t much difference between a tavern and a place of worship.
    Frank watched the flames spread in the quarry. A second building caught fire.
    “Where are the authorities?” he asked. “Why aren’t they doing something? That whole place is gonna be toast. And it looks like they’ve got injured.”
    Charlie took off his shoe and shook a stone out. “Busy elsewhere, I guess.”
    “They can’t all be elsewhere,” Frank said. “Some of them should have responded to the fire by now. At least an ambulance.”
    “Maybe they can’t get through,” I said.
    Charlie frowned. “Like we said earlier, maybe they’re shorthanded. Or some of them might have disappeared, too.”
    I considered this. There was no rhyme or reason to the missing people, nothing to indicate why they’d been taken. From what we’d seen, it affected all races, genders and age groups. The only thing I’d noticed was that we hadn’t seen a single infant. Just lots of empty car seats. Were all of the babies missing? I wondered if this could be the glorious Rapture that Terri and her parents had talked about, but decided against it. I’d seen several priests, nuns and preachers among the survivors, and a dozen occupied vehicles with Jesus bumper stickers and license plates. Plenty of Christians were left behind. And Craig was a Christian too, and hadn’t necessarily believed in the Rapture, yet he was missing along with the rest. The only common denominator was that everybody had vanished at the same time, immediately after that bizarre blast—except for the black guy, Gabriel. He’d vanished later, after helping me. He’d told me something, just before he disappeared. I tried to remember what it was but the words wouldn’t come. Trying to figure it out made my head hurt, so I stopped.
    “Maybe it really was a terrorist attack,” Charlie said. “Maybe they got their hands on some kind of black ops weapon.”
    “It isn’t that,” Frank replied.
    “How do you know?”
    Frank shrugged. “I don’t. I’d just rather not think about the possibility, is all.”
    “So what is it then?”
    “It just is what it is.”
    A disheveled man wandered towards us. He reeked, the stench reminding me of a litter box. The crotch of his trousers had a wet splotch where he’d pissed himself. There was a long, bloody gash on his forehead.
    “Excuse me.” His eyes looked dazed. “Do you guys have the time?”
    I checked my cell phone. “Almost six.”
    “Thanks. How about a cigarette? Got one of those?”
    All three of us shook our heads.
    The man lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Need a smoke. I keep thinking that maybe I should find an unguarded gas station and steal some cigarettes. But I’ve never done anything like that before.”
    “I wouldn’t try it,” Charlie said. “The police are probably out by now, patrolling for that kind of thing. I’m sure things will be back to normal by tomorrow.”
    “Normal?” The man blinked at him. “I guess you guys haven’t heard.”
    I looked up, holding my breath to avoid breathing in his stink.
    “Heard what?”
    “Alien abduction,” he gasped. “Everybody’s talking about it. All these folks that are missing? They were abducted by aliens. You know—the Grays, like you see on TV? The ones they talk about late at night on the radio? We’re under attack!”
    “Get the fuck outta here.” Frank spat on the pavement. “Little gray men, my ass.”
    “I’m serious,” the man insisted. “This is happening all over the world, not just here. New York, Washington, London, Moscow, Budapest, Jerusalem—you name it. I heard they even got the President and some of his cabinet. Disappeared right out of the White House. That’s why he hasn’t addressed the nation. Famous people, too. You guys know that rapper, Prosper Johnson?”
    Frank shook his head.