Wrong Time, Wrong Place by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online

danced round the back of him, sensing victory as she struck him in the base of the skull with another big howl.
    This time the knife dropped from his hand and he let out a painful groan as he fell forward.
    Ash was on him like a shot, jumping on his back and forcing him into the dirt. She brought the stone down again and again on his head, using both hands for effect, ignoring the terrible sound of bone crunching and the blood and brain matter oozing out of his skull. She was lost in the absolute thrill of revenge.
    Then, without warning, it was like a switch had been turned off. Ash stopped hitting him, let the stone fall from her hands, and began to sob. He’d stopped moving, and the top of his head was a white-flecked pulp of meat and shattered bone. The man who’d killed her husband was dead, and Ash was the one who’d killed him.
    Filled with a black curiosity, needing to know what a murderer like him looked like, she reached down with a shaking hand and pulled off the goggles.
    He was younger than her, probably no more than late twenties with pale, unlined featuresand plump cheeks with a heavy spray of freckles. His eyes were closed, and it looked like he was asleep. And that was the thing. He looked so bloody normal. There was no menace about him, no sign of the darkness that must have been in his heart. As she stared, a thick line of blood ran down his forehead and pooled in his eye.
    ‘Oh God,’ whispered Ash. ‘What have I done?’
    Which was the moment when she heard an angry bark. She looked up and saw a second black-clad figure on the other side of the stream, running down towards her and pulling a rifle from his shoulder. The dogs, sleek-looking Dobermanns, were on either side of him.
    ‘Get her, boys!’ he roared.
    The baying dogs charged into the stream while the man went down on one knee, taking a firing stance.
    Calling up her last reserves of energy, Ash turned and bolted, hurtling through bushes, keeping low, trying to zigzag so she wouldn’t present him with a decent target. She knew she’d never outrun the dogs, but she had no choice but to try.
    A shot rang out with a loud crack, and a bulletwhistled through the branches so close to Ash that she could almost feel its heat.
    Her legs ached. Her whole body felt like it was seizing up. Fit or not, there was no way she could last much longer.
    Keep going. Your life depends on it. If you stop, you die .
    A branch hit her in the face, cutting the skin just beneath her eye. She almost fell but somehow righted herself, hearing the dogs getting closer once again.
    Then suddenly the ground disappeared in front of her and Ash was forced to make an emergency stop. She only just avoided falling over the edge of a high cliff that dropped down to a river flowing hard a long, long way below. Thirty metres to her left, the waterfall cascaded down to meet it. The water sparkled in the moonlight that flickered through the trees.
    Ash turned as the dogs came bolting out of the trees straight at her, teeth bared, tongues lolling. She’d always been petrified of heights. She refused to travel in cable cars, and didn’t even like going up a stepladder at home. But people can overcome even their worst fears when confronted by two attack dogs, and the prospect of certain death.
    As the first dog leaped for her she turned andjumped out into the unknown, eyes squeezed shut and legs flapping wildly. She was half-expecting the sensation of teeth sinking into her flesh, but nothing came. Instead she simply fell through space for what seemed like hours, her whole life flashing before her – visions of childhood parties, desert islands, romantic nights with Nick.
    She hit the water with a huge crash, and felt herself being taken further and further downstream. Ash fought all the time to keep her head above water and avoid the warm embrace of unconsciousness.
    The last thing she remembered was the current driving her into the shallows where she could feel the ground beneath