Earthbound : A gripping crime thriller full of twists and supernatural suspense by Fynn Perry (popular romance novels TXT) 📗

John looked at his father’s so-called best friend again. Eyes dilated and vacant, gaping-mouthed and with his head flung back, he was clearly on a high. He would probably shoot up again and again. John worried if he might overdose, and for a second, considered if that mightn’t be a bad thing. He chided himself for the thought, but the truth was that he didn’t want to help Donovan, who had squandered his father’s help and betrayed his trust. He decided to leave, concluding that Donovan was more likely to eventually come down alive and well. ‘God favors the stupid,’ as his grandmother used to say.

Five

Leaving Donovan at the pub, John headed toward the person he most wanted to discuss all this new information with. She also happened to be the only living person who could see and hear him, and her father, David Miller, seemed to have a direct line to the detective on his case. Remembering that there was a bus stop a short walk from O’Donnell’s, he took himself there and caught the first bus heading in the general direction of Brooklyn, unsure where he would have to get off or what further buses he’d need to get to Jennifer’s house.

A route plan inside the bus gave him a set of directions and was a welcome distraction from the stare of a belligerent-looking male spirit close to his own age. He could hear the words of the old man from the hospital storeroom in his head: “The bad‘uns can still harm us,” and John wondered what exactly one spirit could do to hurt another.

Still in Queens, he got off in the Parkside neighborhood to change buses. He looked at a plan of the area and a schedule that was posted at the stop. According to the map, he needed to cross the freeway in front of him. On the other side would be a street taking him to another bus stop with buses that would take him close to Jennifer’s street

As he headed toward the freeway, he noticed a pedestrian underpass. John had usually tried to avoid underpasses in his mortal life. He considered it common sense, like walking away from a fight when you can. It just didn’t seem smart to enter a concrete tube, thereby narrowing down your escape route options to two exits, should a mugger appear with an accomplice stationed at one end of the tunnel.

Approaching the underpass, he noticed several faint orange glows appear and disappear from the mouth of the opening. As he got closer, the spirits he could see now hanging around the mouth of the tunnel were, like their mortal counterparts in real life situations, on the lookout for trouble. He remembered from his own experience that solid earth was impenetrable to spirits so if the spirits were to confront him inside, it would be the wall of earth not the concrete lining of the tunnel that would, just like in real life, limit his choices of escape to reaching either end of the tunnel. Crossing the freeway was definitely the better bet.

He ascended the grassy bank and stood curbside. Traffic thundered past him on a four-lane highway, transporting both mortals and spirits. Most spirits sat as passengers, but there were also a number, like the ones he’d seen earlier on the way to the police precinct, who were surfing on the roofs of the cars. A group of them approached him, and he could see that they were a different breed to those he had seen before. There was a great deal of shouting between them, and they were very lively, sporadically jumping from car to car.

As one approached in the middle lane on top of a speeding black Mercedes sedan, John noticed it was the spirit of a solidly built, bare-chested man, tattooed and dreadlocked. As he shot past, the spirit noticed John staring at him. His eyes were flaming, his face was heavily scarred, and his expression cruel. There was a distinct evil about him that would have made John’s skin—if he’d had any skin to crawl.

Three more surfers approached close behind, standing on the flatbed of a large pickup. They stopped pushing each other around as soon as one of them pointed John out. They all locked onto him with same intense and penetrating stares as the truck hurtled past.

The traffic was still heavy, but the roads now looked clear of surfers. John decided to cross. He wove his way between the cars in the first two lanes. Crossing the second lane, he caught a glimpse of the spirit of a middle-aged woman through the window of a car that sped past. She shook her head at him in concern, her eyes wide open. What was she trying to tell him?

He reached the island in the center of the freeway. Traffic approaching from the other direction looked free of surfers. He moved out into a gap and was between lanes, waiting for another gap to appear, when he saw a silver pickup, about half a mile off, coming toward him in the near lane. Three glowing figures who must have been lying flat on the truck bed stood up. A feeling of dread spread through him from the pit of his stomach as he recognized them; it was the group of three that had glared at him just minutes before. They must have switched to a truck going in the opposite direction, back toward him. John could hear that they were chanting something and, as the truck drew closer, he could hear perfectly.

“Roadkill! Roadkill!”

Roadkill? John was starting to panic. The truth is, the bad ‘uns can still harm us. The words of the spirit of the old man now monopolized his thoughts. He felt his heartbeat pound as he tried to weigh up his options: the cars speeding past had spirits in them. What if he collided with another spirit while trying to cross? Instinct told him: nothing good. If