Dark Places by Reavis Z Wortham Read Free Book Online

dirt.
    Frantic to get out of the pit, Freddy jumped onto the trunk and leaped out of the way as the first load fell. He stumbled out of the crater and across the broken ground. John T. steadied his balance. Another load fell onto the hood, and they watched the car disappear.
    â€œI need to puke.”
    Without taking his eyes off the bulldozer, John T. shrugged. “Who’s stopping you?”
    Freddy stepped into the darkness and vomited over and over, until there was nothing left but thin bile. When he returned weak and shaking, the Impala’s resting place was indistinguishable from the surrounding landscape. John T. handed him the bottle and Freddy rinsed his mouth with the harsh whiskey.
    Beyond a nearby dragline, the storm approached with a rumble of thunder.
    When the car was completely buried, Marty pushed a smoking tangle of thick limbs over the freshly turned dirt, repeating the process with a pile of unburned wood. Fifty yards away, debris burned fitfully, coals glowing as the half-green timber smoldered. Marty scooped a load of coals that fanned alive with fresh oxygen. He dumped the fire onto the brush pile and flames licked upward.
    Finished, he backed away, killed the engine, and climbed down to join them beside the truck. “How ’bout that?”
    â€œSmooth as a baby’s butt.” John T. handed him the open pint of whiskey. “Hey, did you see those kids we passed out on the highway?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWasn’t that girl Ned Parker’s granddaughter?”
    â€œYep.” Freddy stopped, afraid of what John T. was thinking, especially after what they’d done. “It could have been thomebody else, though.” He shivered when John T. turned his dead gaze on him.
    Thick smoke boiled as the rising breeze fanned the coals. Freddy shook his head. “Thoth men are justh gone .”
    Marty joined them and beamed, mistaking the statement as praise. As was his nature, he rebounded quickly from any crisis. “You’re right.” He took another long drink of bourbon. “Now we can go on home and nobody’ll ever know what happened. We’re ’bout done with this lake, and by Christmas, it’ll all be underwater.”
    â€œBut it wath murder!”
    â€œYep, that’s a fact, sure as shootin’, and we’re all in it together. So the best thing to do is forget about it. What’s done is done.”
    â€œForget about it?” Freddy was stunned. “How’n hell can I forget about it? They’re dead and their familieth won’t never know what happened.”
    Their argument was interrupted as the coals burst into flame. The wood over the buried car quickly became a small inferno as the increasing breeze fed the fire.
    Freddy wouldn’t leave it alone. “Now we’re going to drive off and thath’s it?”
    â€œIt’s over.” Marty’s patience was wearing thin. “We buried the bodies. We buried this conversation at the same time.”
    â€œSuits me.” John T. paused and brightened, his mood warmed by the bourbon. “Let’s go to Frenchie’s café and get some eggs.”
    They climbed into the truck, with Freddy once again in the middle. He thought about the bundles of hundred-dollar bills he’d found in Harry Clay’s inside coat pocket. Now, stuffed in his waistband, it was enough to get him out of their one-horse town and away from the sudden strangers sitting beside him.
    John T. tossed out the empty bottle. “That was some quick thinking back there, burying the car.”
    â€œWhat makes you think it was the first time?” Marty asked. He liked the way it sounded, tough.
    John T. shook out his last Camel as the truck reached the high ground and pulled onto the dirt road. “Son of a bitch.”
    Down below, wind sparked more than a dozen fires back to life, giving the devastation the eerie appearance of a battlefield, or an atomic