Wayward Pines: The Widow Lindley (Kindle Worlds Novella) by F. Paul Wilson Read Free Book Online Page B

five oozing holes. Ethan
could imagine what its flip side looked like—what was left of it. Five Magnum
rounds going through the chest like that would blow the heart, most of the
lungs and a good chunk of the thoracic spine out the back, leaving a gaping
cavity.
    Okay: one down, one to go.
    It must have been hiding in the tree. He didn’t know what
tipped Karla off, but she’d gone into a modified Weaver stance on one knee and
blown the thing to hell.
    He looked at the tight grouping. Under pressure, with a
monster the likes of which she had never seen dropping from the sky, she put
five shots into the center of its chest before it reached him.
    Pardon me, but holy fucking shit.
    Somebody had trained her really well.
    And it dawned on him then why he was cuffed to this tree.
    Bait.
    Karla wasn’t just cool, she was cold. Maybe not so different
from Pam. Hardly a comforting thought.
    How long had he been out? How long had she been dangling him
here?
    He struggled with the manacles, but they were locked tight
around his wrists. He gave up and looked around for her. She had to be hiding
somewhere. What good was bait if you weren’t around to act when your prey
pounced on it?
    Pounced…
    Shit!
    “Karla, please! I know you’re grieving…” Insane with
grief? Was that it? Had Joanna’s death pushed her over some emotional cliff? “But
there’s got to be another way. You can’t really—”
    He cut off, realizing that calling out in a distressed voice
probably wasn’t the best way to avoid being pounced upon.
    He struggled to his feet. The pine forest shifted around him
and he thought for a second he was going to hurl. Concussion symptoms. And his
back and shoulders were killing him where the abby had landed.
    When his stomach and vision had settled themselves into some
semblance of normalcy, he shuffled around the trunk in a slow circle. No sign
of anyone or anything. Above, the sun seemed to have reached noon height. Great.
Lunch time. And Karla had put him on the menu.
    How long was she going to leave him out here? Until night? Into the night? Christ, he’d freeze.
    He started to call out again, but bit it back. He could have
sworn he saw movement in a clump of pine needles to his right. As he stared, it
moved again.
    “Karla?”
    The thing that burst from the pile of needles was not Karla,
but a smaller version of the dead abby on the ground behind him. Mouth open,
black talons extended, it accelerated toward him at a furious rate.
    “Karlaaaaa!”
    A shot cracked from his left and the rushing abby screamed
and twisted in the air. It slid to a thrashing halt not ten feet from Ethan. With
a howl of rage it rose to its knees, bleeding from its abdomen, but a second
shot took it down before it could regain its feet.
    As it writhed in agony, clutching its belly, Karla appeared
from behind a particularly thick trunk and ambled over. The Smith & Wesson
dangled from her hand. She stopped and stared at the abby for a heartbeat or
two.
    “I figured she wouldn’t be far away, but hiding right there
all along.” She shook her head. “How about that?”
    “You bitch!” Ethan said. “You—”
    “Oh, calm down.” She tucked the pistol into her belt and
pulled a key from her pocket as she stepped behind him. “I wasn’t going to let
her get to you.”
    “You might have missed! That ever occur to you?”
    “As a matter of fact…no.”
    Behind him, the cuff dropped from his right wrist. Karla
stepped back around to his side and held out the key. “Think you can handle the
left one?”
    He couldn’t help it. He lost control and took a swing at
her.
    Next thing he knew he was airborne, then he landed on his
back. Hard.
    She stood over him while he got his wind back. “Okay. Fair
enough. I had that coming. But you get only one. Try it again and I hurt you. Okay?”
    When Ethan nodded, she held out her hand and helped him up.
    “How did you know it was up there?” he said as he brushed
himself off.
    “The