The Last Town (Book 2): Preparing For The Dead by Stephen Knight Read Free Book Online Page A

joining forces with Corbett to try and save Single Tree from a threat he still couldn’t completely believe in, Norton found he was one worked up guy. For years, his existence had been a mostly peaceful one. Sure, there had been times of great stress—Hollywood was a shark tank, after all, not to mention going through not one but two disastrous marriages. But in the end, Norton had risen to a level where he was finally above most of it. Secure in his career, he had made big, big bank, so much so that he could maintain a lavish lifestyle for the rest of his days without having to worry about anything, even if he lived to be a hundred twenty years old. He would have been content to spend his days putting together a show or two while loafing around his coastal home and building up some hours flying around the country. It had been a solitary life, but Norton found he preferred it that way. And while he was never lacking for companionship when he desired it, Norton preferred making movies, driving fast cars, shooting guns, and piloting boats and airplanes to dalliances with women. He shook his head at the thought. Remaining untangled with women had removed a huge amount of complexity from his life. He wondered if he would ever be able to reclaim his old life, now that things had taken a dramatic change for the worse. Norton almost wished Walid hadn’t called and jarred him out of his otherwise serene existence.
    But then, I’d be zombie chow eventually, wouldn’t I? Despite everything, Norton realized he wouldn’t have stood a chance of getting out of Los Angeles if Walid hadn’t given him a call, and there was some irony there. He, a resident of the freest nation in the world, had to be told the truth by a man who lived in one of the most restrictive societies on the planet. It was an interesting turn of events.
    After getting the Jeep washed, he drove back to his home on Bush Street. His house was on a corner lot, and he had bought the neighboring lot from a resident who had moved back east. Combining them, he had built a modern but understated craftsman bungalow style residence, complete with a swimming pool and two-car garage that was heated in the winter. Solar panels graced part of the roof, generating enough charge to heat the water and keep the pool pump running, but not much else. The house was big for the area, almost two thousand five hundred square feet, but not so huge that it overshadowed the rest of the neighborhood’s ranch-style homes. Originally, he had wanted to make it two stories, but the town zoning board wouldn’t hear of it, so he had settled on a single-floor residence. In the end, he didn’t mind. Twenty-five hundred square feet was more than enough for one man, especially when he only lived there for less than two months a year.
    After dumping his luggage inside and taking the time to ensure the firearms were locked up in the master bedroom’s gun safe, he stepped back out into the hot day. His original home was next door, and he could see two cars in the driveway, which meant his parents were both at home. He sauntered across the grass, still green and lush thanks to the automatic sprinkler system he’d put in, and let himself inside the house after knocking once on the front door.
    “Hey, guys, it’s Gary,” he said as he stepped inside.
    His father waved at him from the couch in the living room, which was just off the entry hall. Arthur Norton was a thin man in his late seventies who wore wire-rimmed bifocal glasses perched on the tip of his nose. His steel gray hair was neatly combed, and there was nary a whisker on his chin that Norton could see. His father was the type of man who shaved every day, whereas Norton had no problem going a week without shaving if it suited him. The older man had a bandage across the top of his right ear, and Norton frowned a bit when he saw that. He closed the door behind him as he walked into the living room. From deeper in the house, he heard his mother