The Ghosts of Sleath Read Online Free PDF Page B

bumped the roof as he was thrown upwards at the crest. He fell back, controlling the car as best he could, his stomach still riding high in his chest.
    He was over and the verges were broader on this side, leading down to the small river he had just crossed.
    But a figure was standing in the middle of the lane.
    Ash cried out as he swung the wheel again.
     
    Oh, God, I’m going to hit him!
    The thought screamed inside his head as the car slewed across the hard surface of the lane, its rear end swinging round, tyres squealing in concert with the screaming inside his mind. The world outside the windscreen - the trees, the foliage, the figure itself - spun to the right as the Ford mounted the grass with a violent lurch that nearly wrenched the steering wheel from his grip.
    His body was rocked as the wheels hit bumps and ruts, but his foot remained pressed hard against the brake pedal as the ignored all expert advice on how to control a skid. His back pushed into the seat for added leverage, and his wrists locked rigid.
    Time-expanded moments went by as trees in front grew threateningly and rapidly large. The vehicle rocked to a halt and Ash was thrown forward, then jerked back into the seat by the seatbelt.
    He remained motionless while he struggled to subdue hisjangling nerves and fast-beating heart. But then the image of the figure standing in the centre of the lane - frozen there, not even trying to escape, mesmerized like a rabbit under the gaze of a fox - burst through the shock. With a speed that had much to do with coursing adrenaline, he released the seatbelt, pushed open the door, and was stumbling across the grass to the road-way, his eyes frantically searching for a fallen body. Rain pattered against his head and shoulders, and once he slipped, but regained his balance without going down. He was sure the car had hit him - he must have, he was standing right in his path - yet he couldn’t remember hearing or feeling a blow. He stopped when he reached the lane’s hard surface, and he whirled around, searching for the body, running to the other side and back again, his head turning this way and that.
    There was no one in the road.
    He hurriedly scanned the verges, but no one lay prone in the grass, no figure stood, or was slumped, by the trees. Perhaps he had staggered away somewhere, traumatized by the accident, whether he had been struck or not. Perhaps he had crawled down the riverbank.
    Ash ran to the edge of the bridge and peered into the water. The river was really a fast-flowing stream, so clear and shallow he could see the rocks and sand of its bed. Dense bunches of willow moss clung to the larger stones and blue forget-me-nots sprung from shadier spots along its edges; but there was no one floating down there. Relieved but perplexed, he hurried to the other side, the idea that a body might be swept downstream never a serious consideration - the water wasn’t deep enough - but reason telling him the person he’d hit or almost hit had to be somewhere close by. His breaths coming in short gasps, he looked along the riverbank. Leafy branches hung over its length, creating a shadowed tunnel, and here and there undergrowith crept down to the very edge of the water. Nevertheless, the stream ran fairly straight, affording him a good view for some distance. Still he could find nothing that remotely resembled a body.
    He looked around again, forcing himself to take his time, studying the terrain with panic-suppressed care, scrutinizing the foliage and between the trees for a glimpse of material or an outstretched limb, anything that would indicate an injured person. And still he found nothing.
    Mystified, his dread growing rather than diminishing, he ran to the brow of the short, humped bridge. He stood there, staring back down the empty lane he had just driven along; in the distance he could hear the faint clatter of the tractor he had followed.
    He was taking longer and deeper breaths by now, but a sudden notion