Empty Streets Read Free

his head once and said, "You can hit me later."
    He put an arm around her waist, pulled her close to his side and dragged her to the ground with him. Her shirt snagged on the concrete face of the building, scratching her back against the wall. He pushed his side against hers, slouching as low as he could against the building while keeping his legs hidden in the grass. She could hear a growling sound, almost directly in front of them.
    As she watched through stray pieces of tall grass, an old, beat-up truck idled by. Its engine gurgled unnaturally. She held her breath, leaning as far back towards the building and porch as she could. Faint silhouettes were visible through the deeply tinted windows. A block down, the truck pulled over.
    "Shit," the boy whispered.
    "Who are they?" she asked, curiosity trumping her fear.
    "Street cleaners." His body tensed next to hers as several men got out of the truck. Looming figures stood in the near distance, their voices catching on the wind.
    "Someone saw him, they called it in," a bald, tall man said. His words were stunted, slurred and clipped. He walked along the periphery of the porch nearest to him, poking at the weeds. His tight white t-shirt muted the dark tattoos that covered his torso. A tattoo escaped the back of his shirt and ran its way up his neck to the back of his head.
    "Shit, they probably saw another truck. Ain't no one out here," a younger man answered. He crossed the street, examining collapsing entryways. The spikes of his black hair were exclamation points against his expressionless face.
    "We will look around." A third man emerged in a cloud of smoke from the car. He leaned causally against the truck, reading messages on his wireless device. The wrinkles in his grey suit fell away in the heat as the other two men spread out silently.
    Eri glanced at the boy. The tension in his face fascinated her, his intense eyes hyper-focused on the distance, his chin tilted up slightly as he looked over the low-lying grass. He watched the men as they moved away from Eri's town-house. Eri watched him.
    "C'mon," she whispered, grabbing his arm and rolling onto her porch without climbing the stairs. She pulled him into her house and shut the door.
    "Don't release the doorknob," he hissed.
    Eri squatted, with the boy next to her, on the inside of the door. She held the doorknob, preventing it from clicking back into place. He squatted next to her, leaning against the door, his knees lightly touching hers. They breathed heavily and stared at each other.
    "Did you go through this door when you went out?" he asked.
    She nodded. He studied her with the same intensity he had studied the street cleaners. The tilt of his chin and the probe of his eyes made her uncomfortable, but she couldn't pull her eyes from his. His eyes were a sea of colors, brown and green, with flecks of gold light radiating from the iris. Eyes like the sun, colors indistinguishable and loud.
    "I need to go so you can release that latch," he said softly.
    "Why?" Her terror blurred with the constant gnaw of curiosity.
    "There are timers. They know when a door opens and closes. They will call. You have to latch that door soon enough that you can say you were just getting the food crate. Make sure your parents know they are calling. Have your parents say they told you to get it. It is very, very important that you do not say you were curious. Got it?"
    She'd been staring at his mouth as he talked, intrigued by the movement of his lips and the shape of his teeth. They were even and neat, but shaped slightly different from one another. She wanted to look closer, to touch his nose and ears and hands, these things she had never really seen outside of her family. She nodded instead.
    "Why would I have hit you?" she whispered.
    He smiled. "I don't know, for throwing you to the ground?"
    She did not return his smile. "Did you just save my life?"
    "I don't know. But I think you saved mine." A muffled bang rang outside, signaling