The Legend of Annie Murphy by Frank Peretti Read Free Book Online Page A

buildings. They were running over rocks and around bushes that would exist in the present. At the same time, they were also dodging ghostly buildings and people that existed a century earlier. It was all too strange.
    Dr. Cooper and Mac had been sitting on the ground with their hands up until they thought their arms would fall off. They tried to reason with this gun-toting kook who thought he was a sheriff from the Old West.
    â€œListen,” said Dr. Cooper, “let me try to explain this one more time—and can I put my hands down?”
    But the sheriff wasn’t listening. He was staring wide-eyed, looking every direction, as if seeing a vision.
    â€œSheriff?”
    â€œIt’s . . . it’s Bodine!” he said. “It’s Bodine, right here! Like a mirage! I can see right through it!”
    Dr. Cooper and Mac were momentarily puzzled. They could see right through the sheriff as well.
    Then they realized the sheriff was off guard, looking the other way. Dr. Cooper and Mac took full advantage of that and pounced on him.
    They passed right through him, landing in the road on the other side. They scrambled to their feet again.
    The sheriff spotted them on the other side of him and spun around, startled. He tried to aim his gun but fumbled it. It dropped from his hand.
    Mac tried to catch it. His fist closed completely, grabbing nothing, and the gun fell to the ground, sinking until only part of the barrel was exposed.
    Dr. Cooper tried a judo move to bring the sheriff down, but his arms passed through the sheriff’s body as if the man were made of smoke. The sheriff swung at Dr. Cooper, but his fist and arm passed right through Dr. Cooper’s body.
    That was enough to make them both pause. They stood there, staring at each other.
    â€œYou’re a ghost!” the sheriff exclaimed, looking Dr. Cooper up and down.
    â€œSo are you,” said Dr. Cooper, observing the transparent man standing before him.
    â€œI can see right through you!”
    Dr. Cooper nodded. “Same here.”
    After several slippery attempts, Mac finally managed to pull the gun free from the ground. “Jake, check this out.” In a way, Mac was juggling as he brought the gun over: The gun, like the sheriff, was transparent. It sank through Mac’s left hand and fell into his right, then sank through his right hand and fell into his left.
    â€œWhat in the world . . . ?”
    â€œMass occupying space, but misplaced in the time dimension,” Mac mused. “Neither here nor there, but somewhere in between.”
    Suddenly the gun fell into Mac’s hand and stopped. It was solid again.
    So was the sheriff. He looked around, aghast. “The town! It’s gone!”
    â€œAnd now . . . fully in the present!” Mac looked very closely at the sheriff, then, with a quiet, “May I?” touched him. “Yes. Spatially in the present . . . dimensionally in the past . . .”
    â€œWhat are you saying, Mac?” Dr. Cooper asked.
    Mac hesitated to answer. He asked, “Sheriff, I’m sorry for the confusion we’re all experiencing here, but with your cooperation I think we can resolve it.”
    The sheriff looked down at his gun in Mac’s hand. “I guess I’m listening, professor.”
    â€œCan you show us where you were when . . . when it got dark?”
    The sheriff pointed. “Back there in those cliffs. There’s a gap in there. I was chasing Annie Murphy.”
    â€œCan you show us, please?”
    The sheriff led them through the ruins of Bodine and up to the base of the cliff where he pointed out a narrow opening in the rock.
    Dr. Cooper spotted the footprints of his children right away. “Jay and Lila came this way.”
    â€œWho?” asked the sheriff.
    â€œMy children, a boy and a girl, fourteen and thirteen.”
    The sheriff shook his head. “I haven’t seen any kids, just Annie Murphy.”
    â€œThe footprints go