The Scrubs by Simon Janus Read Free Book Online

no north, south, east or west here, but Keeler knew one thing.   He was heading farther away from the Rift.
    Before Keeler reached the top of the rise, fatigue got the better of him.   The thick air clogged his lungs and the waist-high meadow grass eroded his strength, forcing him to his knees.   The dry, coarse blades of grass grazed against his face, nicking his flesh.   He clambered to his feet to avoid the cuts, but couldn’t remain upright.   He bent over, resting his hands on his knees while he sucked in lungs full of syrupy air that clung to his throat on the way down.   He turned back towards the tree-shrouded pond.   He’d covered a pitiful distance.   If he called it two miles, he’d be rounding up and he seemed no closer to the lost child.   The boy’s cries still carried lightly on the air, seemingly tens of miles distant.   He wanted to lie down and sleep, but he feared if he did, by the time he awoke, the crying would have stopped and the boy would be lost forever.  
    “You’re gonna have to wait a little while longer, kid,” Keeler panted waiting for his strength to return.   “I need to rest.”
    Suddenly, the wind gusted with an intensity that flattened the grass and shoved him back, threatening to toss him on his arse.   A scream led the charge on the angry air and Keeler couldn’t deny what he’d heard.
    “Save me!    Don’t let him hurt me.”
    The pain in the boy’s plea refueled Keeler.   He wouldn’t let Jeter hurt this child.   He broke into a sprint.  
    “I’m coming,” he shouted, but thick air in his tired lungs forced his words to spill from his mouth as a hoarse whisper.
    Pounding across the meadow, his legs looked for any excuse to buckle, but the frightened boy spurred him on.   He wouldn’t let him suffer.   He hated Jeter at that moment with an intensity that ignited within him, fueling his tired limbs.   Saving the boy wasn’t his job, but to hell with it.   Lefford and Allard deserved nothing.   They weren’t worth saving, but the boy was innocent.   If one person deserved something, it was the boy and if O’Keefe didn’t like it, well, fuck him.
    When he crested the rise, another field stretched ahead of him, except this one sloped gently towards an immense forest that stretched beyond the horizon to his left and right.   Navigating his way around could take years.   Not that he had to.   The child’s cries slipped from between the trees directly ahead of him.  
    Not another damn field , he thought.   It had taken him at least thirty minutes to make it this far and he was looking at the same distance again, but this time, he’d be running on tired legs.   The boy cried out again.
    “I’m coming,” he repeated, more to himself than to the boy.   He repeated his promise over and over until it became a mantra that drove him forward.
    Finally, when Keeler reached the edge of forest, his legs gave out and he crashed to the ground.   He struggled to all fours.   Blood trickled down his forearms from multiple grass cuts.   The meadow grass had been sharp enough to cut his trousers.   Sweat found every laceration, igniting his wounds and leaving them to smolder.   He crawled from the meadow into the cool of the shaded forest.
    “Please,” the boy whined.   The single word stretched into a sentence.
    Keeler clawed his way up a redwood to get to his feet.   He went to take a step but hesitated.   A curious thought crossed his mind.     Had Rebecca lied to him?   After all, she was a talking corpse, nothing more than a puppet for Jeter’s amusement.   So who was pulling her strings?   Jeter.   The hypothesis carried more than a little weight.   This world was his invention populated by the people he’d slaughtered.   Wouldn’t it be just up Jeter’s dark, twisted alley to manipulate him into a trap?   Was there even a boy in here to find?   Keeler shook his head in disgust.  
    As if Jeter could read Keeler’s mind, the