Hush Hush by Erik Carter (best short novels of all time .TXT) 📗

from the IV in his arm, and it took a surprisingly long time for his face to turn toward the door.

Morphine, he assumed.

Jonah entered the room, and Gavin found his eyes, nodded.

Jonah moved Gavin’s satchel from the chair beside the bed and sat.

“Thank you,” Gavin said and tried to smile.

“No sweat. How ya feeling?”

“Drugged-up. Aside from that, I feel like I have a hole in my shoulder.” Gavin grinned and pointed to the satchel, which was now on the linoleum, leaning against the chair. “Hand me that.”

Jonah complied, grabbing the bag and placing it gently at the side of the bed, within Gavin’s reach. Jonah pulled back the top flap for him, then returned to the chair.

Gavin reached inside the bag, grabbed the VHS tape, handed it to Jonah. “Watch it.”

Jonah looked down at the tape, which he now held in both hands. He looked back up. Began to protest.

Gavin cut him off. “Do it.”

Jonah glanced down again. And then he stood. He looked at Gavin for a moment. “Thanks.”

He left.

Gavin reached into the bag again and rummaged through textbooks and notepads until he found what he was looking for.

The Secret of Summerford Point.

He held the book with the same reverence that Jonah had just held the videotape.

Then he opened it.

And he read.

Chapter Forty-Six

Carlton clenched the briefcase as he slowly approached the injured man on the ground.

The briefcase had some heft to it, tugging the handle into his fingers. Two liters of the good stuff were stored inside.

Carlton had been right when he’d thought that Kim Hurley and the big man might be only minutes behind him, that somehow, between them, they would have figured out where he was going. That was why he’d waited in the parking lot for them. Just in case.

It had been a good gamble.

Although he’d left what had seemed like an impossible situation behind at the house—Kim hanging from a homemade noose, which had been tied securely both to her neck and to the handrail—Carlton also had strong suspicions that the big man was The Shadow. And the only thing that would confirm those suspicions would be if the man had freed her and chased him down within minutes.

Which he had.

The man lying before him in the parking lot was The Shadow.

But since Carlton had taken the extra precaution, taken the gamble, waited for them, just in case, The Shadow was now incapacitated.

The man’s pistol was several inches away from his outstretched hand, and as the man’s pained eyes looked up to find Carlton, his fingers dumbly reached for it.

Carlton stepped up beside him, put his toe against the gun, casually brushed it away, then looked down upon the man. “Shadow man, you’ve ruined a way of life that good people spent decades building. Years of hard work, scratching and crawling, destroyed in one night!”

He kicked the man hard in the ribs.

The man yelled out in pain, and when he did, the voice was raspy and horrible, almost mechanical yet also earthly, the sort of sound that Carlton was used to hearing from his demolition equipment.

Just the type of voice that The Shadow was rumored to have—deep and growly, unnatural.

Further confirmation.

“You destroyed something that’s taken care of families.”

He gave another kick.

“Loved ones.”

Another kick.

“Medical bills, college tuitions.”

Another kick.

The Shadow writhed in agony.

“And you come in here on some sort of self-righteous vendetta, just like my little bitch of a crippled daughter. Well, you may have ruined things, but you won’t ruin me. I’m in the demolition business, sir. Typically, we work with manual construction demolition—excavators, wrecking balls, things like that. But more and more, I’ve been getting into bigger projects that require implosion. You know, controlled demolition. That gives me access to some really interesting materials.”

He held up the briefcase.

“Even a small amount of nitroglycerin can make one hell of a boom. And I only need a little. Just enough to destroy the record room in that building.” He pointed behind him. “We’ve done a good job covering our tracks, but there are certain government records we just can’t alter. Only an act of God or, say, some sort of explosion will wipe those records.” He reached into his pocket, removed the remote detonator, and gave it a little shake. “Drop off the briefcase, go back to my car, push this button, then all your heroics here will have been for nothing.”

He kicked the Quiet Men again. Harder.

He lined up for another kick…

And felt a jolt of agonizing pain. From his back.

He screamed.

Then lurched forward, looked behind him.

A knife stuck out of his shoulder, wooden handle, its blade half buried.

No. Not a knife.

A skew chisel.

His skew chisel.

Kim Hurley was behind him. She tried to pull the tool from his back. Another rush of pain. The chisel held.

Carlton backhanded her, and she spun around, flopping onto the blacktop a few feet away from The Shadow.

Carlton grimaced as he grabbed the handle. And he screamed again as he yanked the chisel from his shoulder.

Blood streaked off its tip, dripping onto the ground.

He looked down at Kim. Conscious. Barely.

He scoffed and tossed the tool into the darkness of the parking lot. It clattered somewhere in the distance.

Another look at the two piles of waste before him, then he felt the reassuring weight of the briefcase.

It would all be over in a few minutes.

He turned and headed for the building.

Chapter Forty-Seven

The apartment looked menacing as Jonah unlocked the door and swung it open. Dark. Eerie. Full of specters.

And it wasn’t just the visuals—none of the lights were on, the only illumination coming in through the closed blinds and the little lights on the stove and the microwave—but the feel of the place.

Something about the sensation was familiar to Jonah, and it took him only a moment to recognize what it was. The feeling of returning to a deceased person’s living space. He’d experienced it only once before, three years ago when his grandfather passed. Stepping into the house for the first time after, to help his grandmother move