Twilight Eyes Read Online Free PDF

within.
    The transparent human glaze was not a glaze anymore but a convincing paint job, beyond which there seemed no mysteries whatsoever.
    On the concourse the Ford eased forward a bit, stopped again, and the guards’ spotlight slid across a few more balusters, then found another gap through which to pry. It probed the floor of the pavilion and touched the heel of one of the dead man’s shoes.
    I held my breath.
    I could see the dust on that portion of his shoe, the pattern of wear along the rubber edge, and a tiny bit of paper stuck to the place where the heel joined the sole. Of course, I was considerably closer than the guard in the Ford, who was probably squinting along the track of his light, but if I could see so much, so clearly, surely he could see a little, enough to damn me.
    Two or three seconds ticked by.
    Two or three more.
    The light glided to another gap. This time it was to my right, several inches beyond the other foot of the corpse.
    A shiver of relief passed through me, and I took a breath——but held it unreleased when the light moved back a few balusters, seeking its previous point of interest.
    Panicked, I slid forward as silently as possible, seized the corpse by the arms, and jerked it toward me, though only a couple of inches, not far enough to cause a lot of noise.
    Again the beam bored through the railing toward the heel of the dead man’s shoe. I had acted quickly enough, however. The heel was now just one safe inch beyond the spotlight’s inquisitive reach.
    My heart ticked far faster than a clock, two beats to every second, for the events of the past quarter of an hour had wound me far too tight. After eight beats, four seconds, the light moved away, and the Ford drove off slowly along the concourse, toward the back end of the lot, and I was safe.
    No, not safe. Safer.
    I still had to dispose of the corpse and clean up the blood before daylight made things more difficult for me and before morning brought the carnies back onto their midway. When I stood up, a pinwheel of pain whirled in each knee, for when I had jumped off the balustrade and over the crawling goblin, I had stumbled and fallen to my hands and knees with little of that grace about which I was boasting earlier. The palms of my hands were mildly abraded as well, but neither that discomfort nor the other—nor the pain in my right wrist where the goblin had squeezed so hard, nor the ache in my neck and throat where I had been punched—could be allowed to hinder me.
    Staring down at the night-clad remains of my enemy, trying to arrive at the easiest plan for moving his heavy corpse, I suddenly remembered my backpack and sleeping bag, which I had left by the Ferris wheel. They were small objects, half in shadow and half in vague pearly moonlight, not likely to be noticed by the patrol. On the other hand, the carnival’s security men had made their circuit of this midway so many times that they knew exactly what they should see at any given place along the route, and it was easy to imagine their eyes floating past the backpack, past the sleeping bag—only to return abruptly, the way the spotlight beam had returned unexpectedly to probe toward the corpse again. If they saw my gear, if they found proof that some drifter had come over the fence during the night and had bedded down on the midway, they would swiftly return to the Dodgem Cars pavilion to double-check it. And find the blood. And the body.
    Jesus.
    I had to get to the Ferris wheel before they did.
    I hurried to the railing, vaulted over it, and ran back through the dark heart of the midway, legs pumping and arms cutting the thick moist air away from me and hair flying wildly, as if there were a demon behind me, which there was, though it was dead.

chapter three
    THE WANDERING DEAD
    Sometimes I feel that all things in this life are subjective, that nothing in the universe can be objectively quantified-qualified-defined, that physicists and carpenters alike are made