Steps by Eric Trant Read Free Book Online Page A

fire-stack, and the sun rose to noon before the fire raged so hot he could stand no nearer than ten feet. He used half a gallon of diesel to start it burning. He sat in the rocking chair and watched it burn, and must have fallen asleep, because the generator kicked on and woke him.
    Amalie appeared through the glass in the hallway, her hand on the generator switch, gazing away from him as if he were too bright to stare into. He stood, stepped to the door, and tugged on it. He knocked for her to unlock it, but she ignored him. She flicked on the television to its blue screen, and stalked into the den.
    Edwin fell into the rocking chair with the shotgun across his lap. The sun rested low over the trees, maybe an hour of daylight left, and the shadows grew long and gray as he napped. He closed his eyes, but the smell and crackle of the fire chased away sleep anytime it approached. Relenting to the uselessness of sleep, he opened his eyes and let them burn with the smoke as it wafted over the cabin.
    The bodies smoldered beneath the fire. They became charred, hideous things, rank and vile as their flesh cooked to black and peeled from the bone. Whatever humanity they possessed burned away until they became things . Edwin forced himself to watch the transformation as his penance for not knowing the right thing to do, if such a choice existed.
    He hung his head, slunk into the forest and dragged more limbs to the fire. He stacked them haphazardly, allowing the fire to form a wide ring of sterilized ash in the driveway’s gravel. Maybe he would burn the underbrush between here and Dale’s truck. Maybe he would burn Dale’s truck.
    He crept to the window and watched his family as they huddled around the television. Amalie flipped through the channels, displaying the same blue-screen message and presidential seal they had been seeing for days. She flicked off the television and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. She made a point of ignoring Edwin as she padded through the hallway toward him and the generator switch. “Amalie,” he said.
    She swiped the generator switch and put her back to him. The generator and Edwin both fell silent. Since he had no food, he walked to the hose behind the cabin and drank from it. The well water tasted earthy with a chewy grit to it. He paced the cabin perimeter searching for footprints, and found a few which were either new or missed. He squatted and touched the print.
    As dusk fell and his bonfire grew hotter, he scanned the driveway, past Dale’s truck and down to the mountain road. Dale’s tracks were drying into hard-edged ruts. Edwin followed the tracks with his eyes down the mountainside, into the trees, around a bend until they disappeared.
    He knelt and touched the ruts. Where Dale’s truck tracks angled into his driveway, a fresh set pressed them flat and kept rolling up the hill. Edwin listened, heard nothing higher up. He hiked a hundred yards following the new tracks, checking for another driveway, but the tread-marks wound ever upward. Someone had made it this far and kept going, probably to another cabin. His own cabin was not visible from the road, but the driveway formed a scar leading right to them.
    Edwin returned to his driveway and wiped away Dale’s tracks. He threw brush and limbs across the entrance and spread leaves and pine needles along the roadside. If he had done this sooner, maybe Dale would have missed the cabin. They would have kept driving up, camped on the road and let become whatever would become of them. Maybe that was the right thing, and he screwed it up.
    Darkness overcame him as he labored, but at the end he stood in the middle of the road and inspected his work. He would need to do more tomorrow.

Chapter 10
    The Lost Boy   
(Coy)
    C oy Lincoln spent the night curled like an animal on the forest floor. When dawn came, he discovered blood on his hands. He touched his cheeks, a sticky and coagulated mess. His fingers came away red with fresh tears