Widow Town by Joe Hart Read Free Book Online

sounds, it’s a necessity, or an inevitability, not sure there’s a difference. War is a forest fire. When the woods become too cluttered to grow new trees, a fire starts, cleanses the ground along with much of the mature forest, but it’s essential. When it’s over, things begin anew. The ash from life breeds new growth, a fresh start. As ugly as it is, that’s the truth. Every end is harsh before a beginning.” Gray looked down at his lap and spun an empty bottle in place. “So my father thought there was no way I wouldn’t be involved in the next war, I’d have been just the right age, so he named me what he did. I suppose he thought it would give me confidence or be a talisman against getting killed, I’m not sure. Instead of war we got innovation.” Gray motioned to the sky. “The cleaners up above burning some crystal ore mined from Mars, belching out pure oxygen into the atmosphere. We have cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and diabetes. We got plants that stay green without water and can stand gallons of pesticides but are doing God knows what to our insides, and we have a nice assurance that goes even further back that no psychopaths will be stalking our streets at night.”
    Ruthers swallowed a mouthful of beer and stared at the sheriff. “You mean FV5?”
    Gray nodded. “Your parents I’m sure weren’t able to dodge the mandatory jabs for their kids, just like mine, right.” Gray pulled up the sleeve of his T-shirt to expose the orange line of five dots running straight down his shoulder, each no larger than a pencil eraser. Ruthers slid his sleeve up, exposing the exact same formation. Gray let his hand drop back to the table. “Anyway, why should they be afraid of something that’s guaranteed to keep their son or daughter from becoming a crazed murderer?”
    “ Are you against the jabs, sir?”
    “No, I can’t say that I am since there hasn’t been a recorded serial killer in the last forty years. All those potential victims are safe, lived out their lives without ever imagining that they could’ve been the target of something monstrous. Just by turning off one tiny gene inside each person born, you assure everyone that they couldn’t possibly be a sociopath or progress into a psychopath.” Gray drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “What bothers me is that gene is there with every birth. The possibility of becoming something evil,” Gray tapped his chest once, “is right here inside all of us.”
    The yard was quiet except for the trickle of the choking stream. The birds were silent, gone back to their roosts to wait for the rain that Gray co uld smell coming from the west.
    “So you think the Olson murders and the Jacobses were—”
    “I’m not saying anything yet, Joseph, and I’m well aware that plain old murder still happens every day, I saw enough of it in the cities to last a lifetime.” Gray finished his beer and looked his deputy in the eyes. “But, something doesn’t match up here, something is off. A month ago the Olsons burn up in a fire started by someone else. No suspects or arrests, not that I’d expect any from Mitchel and his county. Last night the Jacobses are slaughtered, and then their killers try to set the house on fire.”
    “To cover their tracks.” The deputy’s eyes were wide in the faint glow of the porch lights.
    “ Maybe.”
    “But that would mean someone would’ve had to hidden their kids away from the start, had them at home, never brought them into town, no one could see they didn’t have the Line on their shoulders, otherwise they’d be persecuted, run out of town.”
    “And then,” Gray continued, sitting forward, “The chances of them being a full blown psychopath would be infinitesimal.”
    “Exactly, so…”
    “So that leaves us with one of two options, Joseph. One, someone did just that, kept their children hidden from the system, kept them from getting the jabs and those kids just by chance became monsters or, two, the shot