The Last Martin Read Online Free PDF Page B

the spaces between the drone of four-wheeler engines. Both Dad and his brother sound like kids. Big kids on sugar highs.
    “Use some speed, Jenny.” It’s Landis again. “Give my son a real ride!”
    Aunt Jenny squeals. Lani shrieks. She hadn’t looked too healthy mounting the back of Jenny’s Polaris.
    I close my eyes and picture the scene. A muddy race on a bumpy track around a bunch of dead spectators. Uncle Landis in first, Dad a close second, and the team of pregnant woman, tummy boy, and whiny girl pulling up the rear.
    The four-wheelers’ engines snarl and rev, faster and faster.
    Down in the valley, I sigh, relieved we aren’t moving fast.
    Of course, going Mom-slow might be worse.
    “Hold tight to the disaster pack, Martin.” Mom accelerates to three miles per hour. “A fall could mean an instant and gruesome end.”
    “Instant
and
gruesome?”
    “Are you obsessing about death again? You must let that go and enjoy your childhood.”
    “But you brought up —”
    “Watch out!”
    I reach around her backpack and get a vice grip on Mom’s waist. She slaps my hands.
    “Let me breathe or I’ll lose control completely.”
    Already happened.
    I loosen my grasp and follow Mom’s gaze, all the way down to the washed-out trail that leads straight up cemetery hill. A squirrel leaps playfully around our ATV.
    Mom peeks over her shoulder. “See what I mean? In the wilderness, even gentle creatures attack with reckless abandon.”
    The animal seems harmless. “We’re being attacked?”
    “Predators typically toy with their prey before they plunge their teeth into unsuspecting flesh.” She nods. “Do not be fooled. There is white on the face. Foam, no doubt. You know what that means. R-A-B-I-E-S.”
    Some words are simply too horrible for her to say. She squeezes the brake. “Do not move,” she whispers.
    We sit motionless. A mosquito buzzes my ear, lands on my neck, and begins to drink. I want to whack it, but Mom’s being vigilant and I don’t dare move. The bug finishes her transfusion, pumps me full of itch juice, and flies away. I wince and glare at our stalker.
    “I think that foam is a whitish A-C-O-R-N.”
    “Drop the attitude, Martin, and marvel at the cleverness of this creature. It used a decoy in the attack.”
    Yes, they are very clever, and I hold my breath. The sneaky beast bounds off, I scratch my neck with gusto, and Mom inches our ATV forward. Minutes pass, and I check the speedometer.
    I cup my hand around Mom’s ear. “Are you sure we’re moving?”
    “Yes.” She straightens and gives the accelerator a flutter. We crunch ahead. “The others may have reached the cemetery first, but we will reach it alive — mud!”
    I jerk back and peek around Mom. Our front wheels lodge in a muddy pool and our tires spin, sludge-caked and helpless.
    “Maybe if we used more speed?” I say.
    “Twice stuck,” Mom mutters. “Twice stuck, raw meat, jeopardizing the children.”
    Venting has begun. We will be here for a while. I stare around. Oak and elm lock knobby arms and form a green ceiling that presses down on me. All around, the woods poke gnarled fingers toward my head. They creak and rustle and want to grab me. I’m quickly claustrophobic.
    “I’m going to walk the rest of the way, is that okay with you?”
    “Abnormally large rodents beneath the outhouse, toilet paper on loaded guns …”
    Mom’s a lister, and right now she can’t hear me. She’s only listed five horrors and I know she won’t run out of problems until she hits thirty, so I slip off the back of the ATV and watch my sneakers disappear in the mud. I lift a foot. No shoe.
    “Mud ate my Adidas!”
    I close my eyes, reach my hand into the muck, and feel leather. I strain and tug and slowly the ground releases my shoe with a slurp. I step off the trail, scrape out the mud, and jam in my foot. And walk.
    “They’re only trees. They’re only ugly trees. They’re only, boy-hating ugly trees. They’re only