The God Project Read Online Free PDF

disappeared.
    They came back, flashing across the trees, then disappearing again.
    He stopped short, knowing at last what it was. He was at the edge of the forest, near a road. But which one? He had no idea.
    He stayed where he was for a while, wondering what to do next He really wanted to go home, but he wasn’t sure which way home was. He tried to remember what roads went by the woods, but couldn’t Finally, as the night grew colder, he decided he had to do something. He stepped out of the forest and started walking along the road, the flashlight clutched in his right hand.
    A car pulled up beside him. An Eastbury police car.
    “Goin’ somewhere, son?” the policeman asked him.
    “H-home,” Randy stammered.
    “Eastbury?” the cop asked.
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Well, you’re goin’ the wrong way.” The policeman leaned over and opened the door. “Hop in.”
    Terrified, visions of jail cells dancing in his head, Randy did as he was told. “Are you arresting me?” he asked, his voice even smaller than he felt.
    The policeman glanced over at him, a tiny smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “You a big-time crook?”
    “Me?” Randy’s eyes opened wide. He shook his head. “I—I was going to visit my father.”
    “Thought you said you were going home.”
    Randy squirmed in the seat “Well—my dad’s house is home. Isn’t it?”
    “Not if you live with your mother. You running away?”
    Randy stared glumly out the window, sure that he was going to jail “I—I guess so.”
    “Things that bad?”
    Randy looked up at the cop, who was smiling at him. Could it be possible the cop wasn’t mad at him? He nodded shyly.
    The cop scowled at him then, but Randy was suddenly no longer scared, and when the man spoke, his worries vanished completely. “I’m Sergeant Bronski,” the policeman told him. “Want to have a Coke and talk things over?”
    “Where?” Randy countered.
    “There’s a little place I know.” Bronski turned the patrol car around and started back toward Eastbury. “You want me to call your mother?”
    “No!”
    “How about your dad?”
    “Could you call him?”
    “Sure.” Bronski pulled into an all-night diner, and took Randy inside. He ordered a Coke for Randy and a cup of coffee for himself. Slowly, the story came out, ending with the fight the Corlisses had had on the phone. When Randy was through talking, the policeman looked him squarely in the eye.
    “I think we better call your mother, Randy,” he said.
    “Why?”
    “Because that’s who you live with. If we call your father, hell have to call your mother, and she might think he planned all this. Then she might not let you see him at all. Understand?”
    “I—I guess so,” Randy said uncertainly. The call had been made, and then Sergeant Bronski had taken him home and turned him over to his mother.
    His mother had been furious with him, telling him she had enough to worry about just trying to raise him, without having to worry about him running away too. Finally she had sent him back to bed, and Randy had lain awake all night, wondering what to do next.
    Ever since that night, he had been wondering what to do. He had begged his father to take him away, and hisfather, never really saying no but never quite saying yes, had told him to wait, that things would get better.
    But months had gone by and not much had changed.
    He’d finally met Jason, but his mother still had no time for him. And every time he approached his father, his father told him to wait, told him that he was “working on it.” Now spring was here, and soon it would be summer. Would it be another summer to spend by himself, wandering in the woods and prowling around town, looking for something to do? It probably would. If something had happened to Jason’s sister, Jasen probably wouldn’t be allowed to play with him anymore. Once again, he would be all alone.
    A horn honked, pulling Randy out of his reverie, and he realized he was alone on the