The Dead Boy Read Online Free PDF Page B

blue lights on thick smoke. The long heels on her sandals stuck in the
dirt, but there was no way she was going on barefoot. She imagined all the
discarded things littering the embankment. Broken bottles, twisted cans and
twisted pieces of wreckage. She strained to see, but it was pointless. She had
no choice but to cover the distance blind.
                She
shook, even though it was hot. Life never seemed to matter until you saw real
horror. Shoes, clothes, things - they seemed important. But all of those
could be replaced. Being able to buy whatever she wanted wasn't the point.
                The
woman was cut in half...like a carriage, decoupled. Choo.
                She
thought this as she put her foot down and landed on something softer than the
grass. The softer thing cried out, but the cry was little more than rushing
air.
                Francis
yelped. Already panicked, she kicked out and was rewarded by another muffled
shout.
                Right
then, on the border of the kind of terror that made people hurtle headlong
until they ran out of breath, she figured fuck the dark and fuck the mud and
fuck the fire; stumbling over person hiding in the trees below the embankment
was incentive enough to get her running again.
                Her
gym-trained muscles bunched and tightened, ready to hit the incline, when she
heard the person call out. The voice was weak, but the words were unmistakable.
                'Help?
Help me?'
                Whoever
it was, they didn't sound mad enough to shit on old women who tried to bite
people with their stinking yellow dentures.
                He
sounded plain old scared.
                You
sure, Francis? How sure are you that the insane aren't cunning?
                Then,
another thought, and one she was more accustomed to thinking.
                Just
leave them. Get safe. Send someone back.
                That
sounded like something her husband would suggest, and advice she'd been more
than happy to follow.
                Her
friends? Her family?
                ' Fuck
'em, Francis,' he would have said. 'You don't need 'em.'
                That
went both ways, though, didn't it? She'd taken his advice long enough to stop
caring about him, too.
                Didn't
see that coming, did you? Prick.
                'Help
me,' said the man in the darkness again. Not just frightened, but in pain.
                Of
course he's hurt. I just stepped on him and kicked him in the mouth.
                Maybe
he was a survivor from the wreck, though. Maybe he was dying.
                With
fire ahead and madness behind and her and this man in between both, Francis
made her choice, and met Ben North.
     
    *
                 

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    III.
    Wayland Redman
     
    Wayland
Redman stayed on the motorway for just five minutes. He was aware of the cars
that piled up in his wake, if not the extent of the wreck. He was aware, too,
that a wider game was being played...if he could not see the whole picture,
know the rules, or even recognise the game, though, it was because O'Dell
willed it to be so.
                Wayland
thought perhaps his luck finally ran out, meeting a road block as he left the
main road for quieter streets. It looked like a random thing, set up by the
police - the kind they often lay on when they're bored, or really looking for
something else other than drunks and bad car owners.
                His
sweat had yet to dry from the days' heat, and though the night was cooler, the
van was not. Ahead, everyone else was stopped by a simple wave of the hand. Policemen
half-heartedly spoke to drivers and made a show of checking tread on tyres.
                Wayland
glanced down, but the kid was out cold in the foot well beneath the