Gone South by Robert R. McCammon Read Free Book Online Page B

and clutched his throat.
    He cried, silently.
    He had always tried to live right. To be fair. To obey orders and be a good soldier no matter what slid out of this world full of snake holes.
    As he drove to his apartment, fighting the awful urge to sink his foot to the floorboard, he realized what one stupid, senseless second had wrought.
    I’ve gone south, he thought. He wiped his eyes with his snake-clad forearm, the metallic smell of blood sickening him in the hellish August heat. Gone South, after all this time.
    And he knew, as well, that he’d just taken the first step of a journey from which there could be no return.

3
Mark of Cain
    H URRY! D AN TOLD HIMSELF as he pulled clothes from a dresser drawer and jammed them into a duffel bag. Movin’ too slow hurry they’ll be here soon any minute now …
    The sound of a distant siren shocked his heart. He stood still, listening, as his pulse rioted. A precious few seconds passed before he realized the sound was coming through the wall from Mr. Wycoff’s apartment. The television set. Mr. Wycoff, a retired steelworker, always watched the Starsky and Hutch reruns that came on every day at three-thirty. Dan turned his mind away from the sound and kept packing, pain like an iron spike throbbing in his skull.
    He had torn off the bloody shirt, hastily scrubbed his hands in the bathroom’s sink, and struggled into a clean white T-shirt. He didn’t have time to change his pants or his shoes; his nerves were shredding with each lost second. He pushed a pair of blue jeans into the duffel bag, then picked up his dark blue baseball cap from the dresser’s top and put it on. A framed photograph of his son, Chad, taken ten years ago when the boy was seven, caught his attention and it too went into the bag. Dan went to the closet, reached up to the top shelf, and brought down the shoebox that held thirty-eight dollars, all his money in the world. As he was shoving the money into his pocket, the telephone rang.
    The answering machine — a Radio Shack special — clicked on after three rings. Dan heard his own voice asking the caller to leave a message.
    “I’m callin’ about your ad in the paper,” a man said. “I need my backyard fenced in, and I was wonderin’ —”
    Dan might have laughed if he didn’t feel the rage of the law bearing down on him.
    “— if you could do the job and what you’d charge. If you’d call me back sometime today I’d appreciate it. My number’s …”
    Too late. Much, much too late.
    He zipped the bag shut, picked it up, and got out.
    There were no sounds yet of sirens in the air. Dan threw the bag into the back of his truck, next to the toolbox, and he got behind the wheel and tore out of the parking lot. He crossed the railroad tracks, drove six blocks east, and saw the signs for Interstate 49 ahead. He swung the pickup onto the ramp that had a sign saying I -49 SOUTHBOUND. Then he steadily gave the truck more gas, and he merged with the afternoon traffic, leaving the industrial haze of Shreveport at their backs.
    Killer, he thought. The image of blood spurting from Blanchard’s throat and the man’s waxen face was in his brain, unshakable as gospel. It had all happened so fast, he felt still in a strange, dreamlike trance. They would lock him away forever for this crime; he would die behind prison walls.
    But first they had to catch him, because he sure as hell wasn’t giving himself up.
    He switched on his radio and turned the dial, searching Shreveport’s stations for the news. There was country music, rock ‘n’ roll, rap, and advertisements but no bulletin yet about a shooting at the First Commercial Bank. But he knew it wouldn’t take long; soon his description and the description of his truck would be all over the airwaves. Not many men bore the tattoo of a snake on their right forearms. He realized that what he’d worn as a badge of pride and courage in ’Nam now was akin to the mark of Cain.
    Tears were scorching his