Sheep's Clothing by Gary Lewis (dark books to read TXT) 📗

Sam rested his hands on the table between them as he nodded his head. "I see." His somber words were a bit short of what she had expected.

A wave of customers began walking past the table to line up at the bar. Though they passed closely, they existed in a world apart from the place where Sarah sipped at her coffee. "It's finally cooler than my stove burner," she said.

"I can get you a couple cubes of ice if you like," Sam said, raising his eyes from his slumped head.

"I'm fine." Sarah put her phone in her pocket and stood to face the lobby door. "Listen, Sam." She turned to her side, looking down to where he still stared into the empty seat before him. "If you see David..." Her pause created a vacuum that finally drew Sam's wrinkled face to meet hers.

"Tell him you're looking for him?" he asked.

"No." She returned her face to the doorway across the lobby. "Don't tell him that you saw me today." As she finished her sentence, she strolled to the large, glass double-doors without even a glance behind.

To her right, Central Avenue was light with traffic. At her left, the raggedy clothed blind beggar stumbled along the concrete walkway toward her. "Who's there?" His voice scratched. Sarah quickly stepped aside from his path as he reached about. "Beware," he started to ramble as she turned to jog toward her car. "The next blood you spill under the light of the moon will spill yours too..." His continuing words faded behind, but still echoed in her head as she started the engine and backed out in a hurry. With a squeal of her tires, she swung around the building, stopping only to wait for an opening onto the highway.

The gaps between the line of cars were few and far between as the seconds turned to minutes. "Come on, already," she said, gripping the wheel tightly, awaiting a chance to escape the parking lot. She reached for a quick peek at her phone before tossing it into the passenger seat with a huff. "Nothing."

###

Heavily leaved branches loomed over the road, casting dim shadows from the noon day sun directly overhead by the time Sarah turned onto Birch Tree Street. Farmlands were the only gaps in the forest where maples and pines crowded on both sides of the narrow street. Eventually, a few houses preceded a couple clusters of mobile homes, surrounded by thick woods. She slowed to a stop at the familiar gravel driveway that stretched up a steep hill to a trailer, now lined with yellow tape. "Nobody at Tony's old place," she said to herself, scanning for any signs of movement. Her eyebrows pressed with an anger that clenched her jaw as she focused beyond the wooded horizon ahead. "Let's try David's."

###

Hours of frustrating trips finally brought Sarah home. But not even her light blue house, hugged by the tall grass that surrounded it, welcomed her anymore. She was now truly apart from the others, estranged from the home she thought she had made, with nobody left to share even a moment's time. And now as the late afternoon sky began to lose its brilliance, the brightness that she had found in Pine Bluff truly became dim. This is how it always went. I should've known this is how it would end. Her eyes dropped slowly to her lap and she killed the engine.

#Janice#

Rusted iron squeaked on the frame of the old swing set as Janice kicked at the ground, swinging herself back and forth at the long-deserted playground on the far end of city park. "Remember when Tony used to push us on this thing?" She smiled as she turned her gaze to David who stood with one hand in his pocket, shielding his face from the sun with the other. Her words didn't break his westward stare at the towering mountain.

He took a long sigh. "You think he could be out there somewhere?" His question wasn't an optimistic one and neither was any answer she might have had.

"Maybe we should hang out at your place for a while," she said. "I'm hungry."

"We really need to leave town for a while, Jan." His eyes glanced toward her. "I'm not kidding." David finally dropped his hand and stepped over to her. He grasped the chain above and slowly slid his hand down to hers.

Janice took a long, hesitant breath and released it with a huff. "I know, David." She raised her eyes to his face. "But what do we tell everyone? Where will we go?"

"Look," David said, lifting his arms out to his sides. "Do you want to die?" He turned to the track that looped around the other side of the park as Janice rose to her feet and strolled past him along the shoeprint trodden path dusted dry with hardened, crumbly clay that led to the freshly paved track.

David's voice followed closely behind. "Remember when we were little and Tony got into it with Brad, right over there?" She didn't have to see where he pointed as she glanced across the grassy field in the center of the track.

"It says a lot about Brad, you know?" Janice said, stopping to wait for his footsteps to halt just behind.

His right hand swept around her side as his palm slid across her belly from where he stood behind her, resting his chin on her left shoulder, caressing her left arm with his other hand. "But it still sucks,” he said. “What happened to him, I mean. Brad didn't deserve to die."

She clasped his hugging arm with her left hand before she spoke. "David, Brad and his dad were dealing drugs to Vance's mom before she killed herself." His chin nudged against her shoulder where she felt him nod a couple times.

"Tony was standing up for some little kid Brad was bullying," David said, his voice drifting into the distant past where his mind still seemed to hang. "Vance just