The Fields of Lemuria by Sam Sisavath Read Free Book Online

still out there somewhere.
    Keo smiled. Sometimes he didn’t give Norris enough credit. Of course, reuniting with the ex-cop might be a problem. But that was for another day.
    He glanced upward. The woods were thick and the tree crowns were dense, but he could make out the sun. It was still high up, but it wasn’t going to stay that way for very long.
    His watch confirmed it: 5:24  p.m.
    The man on the radio was right. Time was running out, a thought that made him walk with more urgency without even realizing it.
    There were possible shelters all around him in the form of the other houses. All he needed was one of them. The problem with that was Pollard’s people could easily deduce that would be his goal (it wasn’t rocket science, after all), which meant they could use their overwhelming force to check every house in the vicinity. If he picked the wrong one, they would start this little gunfight all over again, and this time he would be alone. He didn’t like his chances of surviving that at all.
    As he trudged on, keeping his ears open and still trying to blink out whatever the hell he had gotten in his eyes, Keo thought about what else Fiona had said about Pollard. She all but confirmed that she followed the ex-Army officer out of basic necessity. He didn’t blame her one bit. He had spent most of his life looking out for himself, but these days you needed someone to watch your back. He’d been lucky all these months with Norris.
    Not anymore.
    He kept moving, and with each step, he expected to hear hints that Norris was still out there somewhere.
    A gunshot. A scream. Voices. Anything .
    The utter peace and tranquility of the park, for some reason, depressed and filled him with pessimistic thoughts.

CHAPTER 5
    So this is what it’s like to be a squirrel.
    The thought flashed across his mind as he leaned back against the massive tree trunk and tried to balance himself on the large branch. It was the widest thing he had been able to find after thirty minutes of searching, keeping one eye on the dwindling sunlight around him at the same time.
    Sunlight, sunlight, don’t go away…
    The coming darkness had always felt like a tightening noose even when he was with Gillian and the others at Earl’s house. But now, running for his life through the woods, it was even more pronounced, the rope thicker and more unyielding. The overwhelming need to constantly look for shelter, even when it was still morning, had dominated every waking hour since he and Norris began fleeing Pollard’s people.
    Pollard’s people.
    It was a curious sensation to finally have a name to go with the black assault vests and painted faces. He used to just refer to them as assaulters in his head, but now he had a name and a history, even a voice if not a face. But that was coming. Keo didn’t have any delusions that Pollard was going to give up the search now. Not when he was so close. The man had to know there were no places for Keo to go except north out of the park.
    That was the point of pushing him and Norris down here in the first place. They had been herded like cattle all this time; they just hadn’t known it.
    Maybe I can build a boat. Or a canoe. Like on Gilligan’s Island . Where’s the Professor when you need him? Hell, right now I’d settle for Mary Ann. Maybe use her as bait…
    His watch ticked to 7:22  p.m.
    Not that he needed the confirmation. He was up high enough that he could see past most of the canopy and at the darkening skies beyond. He would have called it cloudy, except there hadn’t been any rain in four to five days.
    He tightened his grip on the MP5SD resting in his lap and watched the squirrel staring back at him from a much thinner branch across the open space. The animal looked intrigued by Keo’s presence, perhaps wondering what a human was doing all the way up here in its domain. It sure didn’t look scared of him. Then again, after what it had probably seen racing around down below, a regular ol’ man