The Losers by David Eddings Read Free Book Online Page B

steering wheels, of course.”
    “Oh, that’s cute, Hood,” Raphael said sarcastically. It sounded silly even to him, but he didn’t care.
    “Don’t be nasty, dear.” Isabel’s tone was motherly. “It doesn’t become you.”
    It was that note in her voice more than anything—that tolerant, amused, superior tone that finally infuriated him. “Don’t patronize me, ‘Bel,” he told her, getting up clumsily. “I won’t take that—not from you.”
    “I don’t think I Eke your tone, Raphael.”
    “Good. At least I managed to insult you. I wasn’t really sure I could.”
    “I’ve had about enough of this.”
    “I had enough a long time ago.” He picked up his jacket. “Where are you going?”
    “Someplace where the air’s a little cleaner.” “Don’t be stupid. You’re drunk.” “What if I am?” He started to lurch toward the door. “Stop him, Junior.”
    Raphael stopped and turned toward Flood, his jaw thrust forward pugnaciously.
    “Not me,” Flood said, raising both hands, palms out. “If you want to go, go ahead.” His eyes, however, were savage.
    “That’s exactly what I’m going to do.” Raphael turned and stumbled out the door into the rain.
    “Raphael!” Isabel called to him from the porch as he fumbled with his car keys. “Don’t be ridiculous. Come back into the house.”
    “No thanks, ‘Bel,” he replied. “You cost too much for me. I can’t afford you anymore.” He got the door open and climbed into the car.
    “Raphael,” she called again.
    He started the car and spun away, the rear end fishtailing and wet gravel spraying out behind him.
    Because he knew that Flood might try to follow him, he avoided the freeway, sticking instead to the narrow, two-lane country roads that paralleled it. He was still angry and more than a little drunk. He drove too fast on the unfamiliar roads and skidded often—heart-stopping little drifts as he rounded curves, and wrenching, side-to-side slides as he fought to bring the car back under control.
    It had all been stupid, of course—overdramatic and even childish. Despite his anger he knew that his outburst had been obviously contrived. Inwardly he almost writhed with embarrassment. It was all too pat and far too easy to attach the worst motives to. Quite bluntly, he had found someone else and had deliberately dumped Isabel. He had been bad-mannered, ungrateful, and even a little bit contemptible. He knew he should go back, but he continued to roar down the wet, winding road, stubbornly resisting even his own best impulses.
    He rounded a sharp right-hand curve, and the car went almost completely out of control. In a single, lucid flash he saw directly ahead of him the large white wooden “X” on a pole at the side of the road and the glaring light bearing down on him. As he drove his foot down on the brake, he heard the roaring noise. His tires howled as the car spun and skidded broadside toward the intersection.
    The locomotive klaxon bellowed at him as he skidded, tail-first now, onto the tracks in front of the train.
    The world was suddenly filled with noise and light and a great stunning shock. He was thrown helplessly around inside the car as it began to tumble, disintegrating, in front of the grinding mass of the locomotive.
    He was hurled against a door, felt it give, and he was partially thrown out. Then the remains of the car rolled over on top of him, and he lost consciousness.
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    At first there was only shattering, mind-destroying pain. Though he feared the unconsciousness as a kind of death, his mind, whimpering, crept back into it gratefully each time he awoke to find the pain still there.
    Later—how much later he would never know—there were drugs that stunned him into insensibility. Vacant-eyed and uncaring, he would watch the slow progression of light outside the window of the room. It grew light, and it stayed light for a while, and then it grew dark again. And always, hiding somewhere below the smooth