Instinct by Jason Hough (ebook reader web TXT) 📗

There’s only the moonlit river, the dark trees. An owl glides silently from the branches of one. It vanishes into a patch of tall grass, then emerges a second later, wings flapping soundlessly. Though a few hundred feet away, and in darkness, I can see a rat or squirrel dangling from its beak.

“That’s an omen I didn’t need,” I mutter.

Retracing my steps from earlier, I start up the rocky bank. The switchback trail is grueling going uphill. Several minutes later I find the dirt trail Tweaker rode on his ATV, the tracks still visible.

A low noise begins to grow, like a deep humming, briefly reminding me of the sound of Kyle’s ringtone. I hit the dirt, unsure what I’m really hearing, my eyes scanning the darkness around me, ears pricked. It’s distant, I realize. A car engine? Yes, but not one. It’s a pair of big V-8s, and they’re on this side of the river valley. Ahead, well up the slope, I can see their headlights catching the trees. The two vehicles making their way up the mountain toward Silvertown, driving fast.

I’d be tempted to race the last stretch of this trail and try to flag them down, but chances are good that I’ll be greeted by a red Ferrari and a black sports car with a badly scratched door. So I wait. Five minutes for them to go on past, heading toward town. The glow of their headlights is lost to me before the sound of their engines is. Finally I can’t hear them at all and decide it’s safe to continue.

But then comes the sound of a third vehicle. Slower, less powerful, but going the same direction. Unsure who it might be, I decide to let it go by as well, if for no other reason than to fully catch my breath.

Finally I set off again. My wet boots feel like they weigh a hundred pounds. The water, so blissfully cool on my feet just minutes before, has made my toes numb and set my teeth chattering. Add to that the comedown off an adrenaline high like I’ve never known before, and exhaustion starts to get the better of me. I stumble, skinning my knee on a rock. Warm blood trickles down my leg from the scrape.

I’ve no idea how long it takes, or when I stopped following Tweaker’s ATV trail, but suddenly there’s asphalt under my feet, the road half-hidden by red and yellow leaves. No lights in either direction. I look for a mile marker, but there are none to be seen.

A choice needs to be made, even though all I really want to do is sleep. I shake my head vigorously and try to focus on the two choices. Head east, up the mountain toward Silvertown? Or west, toward Granston?

“Neither,” I mutter. The real goal, I realize, should be to return to my cruiser, which I left in front of that gate on Meridian Lane. I might not have its keys, but at this point I’m okay with putting a rock through the window in order to get at all the gear stowed inside. So for the moment I choose neither direction, instead turning around to study the valley behind me. Partly to look for any sign I’ve been followed, but mostly to look for the senator’s mansion. If I can spot that, I might get a better idea of where I am, and which way my car is from here.

There’s a glow in the trees on the other side of the river valley, which I think is probably the house, but knowing this doesn’t help. It’s too far away to help me triangulate. I’m about to turn away when a new light catches my eye. A blinking red beacon in the trees. As I watch it begins to rise.

The helicopter.

Instinctively I move closer to the nearest tree, even though the chopper is a mile off. It’s going to head right for me, I think, with a searchlight scanning the road and those gangster bodyguards leaning out the doors with high-power rifles.

This doesn’t turn out to be the case. The helicopter instead makes a direct line for Silvertown. I know I should move, get up there, do my job, but I’m transfixed by the blinking light and the distant thumping pulse of the rotor blades.

The helicopter slows and starts to lower, and I know the place instantly. It’s landing in the parking lot of the graveyard, where Greg and I attended Johnny Rogers’s funeral. Just west of town, and a full two miles from me at least. Now that I have a landmark, I know my car is to the west, and not far. Worried about the town, and Kyle and Clara in particular, I set off again, urgent now. I’m limping a little, thanks to my throbbing knee, and gritting my teeth at the pain and the fresh feel of warm blood snaking down into my ice-cold boot.

I see the wavering yellow glow before the cruiser itself.

Fire engulfs its aluminum frame. Even a hundred feet away I can feel the heat on my face.

I sink to my knees, not caring about the flare of agony that erupts from my wound.

Only the skeleton of the Dodge Charger is recognizable. Fire roils over its innards. The gear and computers and radios inside have long since melted away. A plume of thick black smoke spouts upward from the carnage, shooting up toward the treetops, where it seems to simply merge with the sky. On this clear night there’s no clouds to catch the orange flicker of fire. No way anyone would have seen this and called it in. No fire trucks will come to help. Not from our volunteer force, or the professionals from County.

There’s a pop as some internal component fails and its fluids ignite, sending a spray of flaming shrapnel out from the vehicle. A tire goes next, making the car list for a second before the other three all fail nearly simultaneously. The