Colony East by Scott Cramer Read Free Book Online

“Ready?”
    “I’m not afraid,” Timmy cried.
    “I am.” He winked and grabbed Timmy’s hand. Clearing away spider webs with his free hand, Jordan led the way. He found the webs comforting. Their presence meant that nobody else had been down the stairs, at least not recently.
    When they were halfway down the steps, the last of the light from above dimmed and disappeared, and they continued downward, one slow, careful step at a time. The familiar smell of mold and mildew stirred his imagination, and he trembled. “So what else do you eat besides grasshoppers?”
    “Pigeons.” Timmy’s voice was rock steady.
    “For real?”
    “Yeah, they’re easy to catch.”
    “Castine Island doesn’t have any pigeons, but there are lots of seagulls.”
    “Do you eat ’em?”
    Jordan planted his right foot on the concrete floor. “We eat fish. Careful.” They stood next to each other in the darkness. Jordan took a step and kicked something. He tried another direction and bumped into something else. He moved Timmy’s hand to the back of his shirt. “Hold on to me.”
    Jordan kept both hands in front of him for protection as he explored slowly. He bumped into a bicycle. He wondered if he could ride the bike to the Charlestown Yacht Club and avoid going with Mandy on her motorcycle. His hand followed the handlebar stem to the tire, which was flat. So was the back tire. Stuck with Mandy, he thought. After he took several more steps, his fingertips skittered over the smooth cover of a magazine. A pile of magazines rose to his waist. They were National Geographics, his landmark. Buried treasure was nearby.
    “Can you smell the chocolate?” he asked Timmy.
    “Nope. Can you?”
    “I can taste it.” Jordan smacked his lips loudly.
    Taking sidesteps to the right and towing Timmy through the dark, he patted his hands on three more magazine piles and then reached behind the fourth pile. His heart sped up when he felt the top of the shoebox.
    “Got it!” Jordan picked up the box. His stomach dropped. Something was wrong. It weighed hardly anything.
    He removed the cover. The confetti of candy wrappers inside crinkled as he swished his hand back and forth. He felt the rough cardboard edges of the hole gnawed at one end. Mice had eaten everything. He brought the box to his nose. Even the odor of chocolate had disappeared.

CHAPTER NINE
    Wading through tall grass, Abby cut across the O’Brien and Pydah backyards and then onto the Sherock property. Every step sent a spray of grasshoppers exploding upward like shrapnel from a land mine.
    She’d convinced Mandy this route was safer. “We won’t run into Brad’s gang,” she’d said. That was true, but she mostly wanted to avoid seeing the kids on Pearl Street, an endless parade of faces, empty of hope.
    Poking through the clouds, the sun lit up yellow dandelions in the tall grass. The scents of cherry and dogwood blossoms mingled with the fading smoke from the airport inferno.
    Abby pointed to a stucco house ahead. “You know what those people kept in their bathtub? A boa constrictor. The rumor was that Mr. and Mrs. Sherock owned a traveling zoo.”
    Eyes forward, Mandy continued her ice queen impersonation, and vaulted over a waist-high, chain-link fence.
    “They had a lion, too,” Abby lied, hoping for some reaction. Getting none, she hopped the fence. “How much further?”
    Mandy gestured. “The green house.”
    Abby nodded to herself. Three words. It was a start. As she was trying to remember who used to live in the green house, she stumbled and pitched forward. She broke her fall in the tall grass with her hands. The ground smelled sweet, and she was tempted to stay in this other world a while longer. She rolled onto her side to get up and screamed when a withered hand pressed against her cheek.
    Mandy reached for her knife and assumed a crouched position.
    Abby saw the rest of the corpse. It was well hidden in the forest of grass. “No, no,” she croaked.