Widow Town by Joe Hart Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t work on them like it did everyone else.”
    “But, sir, I read about FV5 , it was mandatory for the service. They tested a variation of it for thirty years on known serial killers, there was a one hundred percent success rate at nulling the gene before they ever brought it to public awareness.”
    “I know, but if I’ve learned anything from history it’s this: life is not static. It moves, changes, adapts. We think we’re smarter than nature, but we’re not. Every step we take in fighting it is a step in the wrong direction. We come closer to the cliff, Joseph, not farther away.” Gray sighed. “But the most obvious answer is normally the correct one so—”
    “So that leaves us with —”
    “Option one.” Gray leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees before staring into the darkness. “If I’m right, Joseph, the people who killed the Olsons and the Jacobses not only don’t have the Line, they’re the first serial killers America has seen in over forty years.”
     
    ~
     
    The rain woke him a little past two in the morning. It wasn’t a violent crashing of thunder or even a staccato pulse of lightning that brought him up out of a dream where he’d been running from something massive that blotted out the sun. It was the soft tapping of raindrops against the window.
    Gray turned his head toward the sound, the room so dark even the stormy night outside looked bright. He waited, blinking at the clarity of awareness, his breathing, in and out, the softness of cool sheets over his body, the drumming rain. Alone.
    He stood from the bed and crossed to the window, his own formless shadow appearing as a reflection in the glass. A thin wall of clouds moved across the sky, already broken in some places, their mass filtering through to the stars beyond. He watched the rain fall, trying to believe that it would make a difference, that tomorrow’s heat would be lessened, the drying riverbeds quenched.
    He went to the adjoining bathroom and drank straight from the tap, sucking down mouthfuls of water to wash away the stale taste of beer. He paused at the foot of the bed as he walked back into the room, looking at the sheets as if they might wrap around him, constrict his breathing until he struggled no more. Changing directions, he moved into the hall overlooking the rest of the house, feet silent on the wood floor, patters of rain above him. The door appeared to his left and he finally looked at it. Normally he hurried past it in the mornings and looked the opposite way at night when he went to bed, choosing to not see it.
    He stood before it now, taking in the decorative oak panels. His fingers traced the flared grooves of trim and settled on the two screw holes, their edges small but sharp, always catching his skin. Gray reached down and held the doorknob for a moment, waiting for what had moved him here to turn him away again, back to bed to dream of the crushing mountain falling down upon him. He opened the door.
    Cool light filtered in through the one window taking up most of the east wall. The carpet beneath his feet shushed with each step until he stood in the center of the room. His hands found the edge of the crib, the wood so smooth. It creaked a little, it was the only thing he hadn’t made in the room, his work schedule over a year ago too heavy to allow him the time to do one justice. A toy box stood beside the crib, the colorful letters he’d carved and painted were indefinable dark shapes. The little changing table was after that and he found himself standing over it. The smell of baby powder, faint but there, hung above it. The sign with two screws backed out of its front lay on its surface, catching what little light came in through the rain-slicked window.
    Gray traced the name with a finger, ran in the grooves created by his tools, made to hang on the outside of the door proclaiming someone who would never sleep in the room again.
    He pulled his hand back, let it fall to his side