Tyrannia Read Online Free PDF

flashlight and they both turned away from the light and kept moving until Patrick couldn’t hear their footsteps anymore.
    Patrick stumbled back the way he came. The light was turning gray in the east. His headlights were dimming, and they would have died if he had stayed down there any longer.

    No one ever asked him any questions about the disappearances. He wanted someone to. He wanted to be put through the ringer, to be placed in a small cell and asked penetrating questions about his role in the disappearance of three people. He wanted to be roughed up a little bit.
    The university held memorial services. The Attorney General spoke at the funeral of the professor. Patrick avoided everything, and then went back to work waxing floors and making windows upon the quad sparkle. He tried to forget about the farmhouse, and the tunnels. Evan, Tristana, and the professor were a little harder to forget, but he was working on it. His dreams were dark spaces, and he liked it that way.
    About two weeks after the funerals, he was watching TV alone on a Sunday night. His mother was out at a bar, and he tried not to think of the fact that she had more of a social life than he did. He was drifting off. The doorbell rang. Startled, it took him a few seconds to register the sound. It rung again, and he muttered to himself as he opened the door.
    Tristana pushed open the door the rest of the way and came into the house, with Evan close behind her. The professor was still draped onto his back.
    “Whew,” Tristana said. “Glad we found you.”
    Their skin was grayer than before, with red scars and welts all over their bodies. Their clothes were tatters, and Tristana was almost naked. The professor’s scalp was almost gone and Patrick could see a nest of black ovals at the base of his neck—beetles.
    “Been looking everywhere for you, my man,” Evan said. Tristana took Patrick’s hand and squeezed it. Her hand felt like a cantelope that had been left in the icebox for months.
    Evan hobbled over to the kitchen table and pulled out a chair, spilling a stack of bills and newspapers that were on the seat. Tristana sank down to the couch, still holding onto Patrick’s hand. “Sit with me,” she said, and Patrick sat next to her. She smelled like the monkey cages in the psychology building that Patrick had to sometimes clean. Evan deposited the professor onto the chair and flexed his shoulder blades. A few beetles dropped from his back onto the floor and scurried away. The professor moaned a little bit, though it might have been Evan throwing his voice. Tristana stroked Patrick’s cheek.
    “We, all of us, are together at last, my little bear,” she said, and then she kissed him. He didn’t want his heart to open up, or his mouth, but they did, and he kissed her back, crushing her tongue against his and licking the salty pulp, feeling her breathe like she was choking, and her neck quiver as if she was in danger. He was getting feverish, and at the same time his skin prickled all over with chills, but he didn’t care. He kissed the giant scar on Tristana’s forehead and then they settled into the couch to watch Evan work.
    Evan slapped the professor’s cheek, which gouged open. Then he took hold of Patrick’s baseball bat, which was propped up against the kitchen table. Evan coughed a few times, and spat magnolias of blood onto the floor.
    “Now,” Evan said to the professor, “for the last time, tell me everything you know!”

Cudgel Springs

    Things aren’t working out too well here, are they? Or is it aren’t they. You’ll find out soon enough. Looks like there’s a train here. Let go of my hand, now. Now! My train of thought leads upstate, to your camp. It’s good you’re going. It’s a good camp. I’ll try to impart some advice in these few minutes we have left together.
    For starters, it helps to dress like everyone else and speak like your friends. Or don’t speak at all if that floats your boat. Which is easier