Eve of Redemption Read Free Page A

him, all of its secrets peeled away to expose the very truth of all existence. Then the feeling was gone, leaving him awed yet somehow empty. He stared at the receding little girl in wonder.
    As he watched her speed away, Burke took in his surroundings. He was sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, the door beside him open. He was certain it had been locked. How had the girl opened it without waking him? He ran a hand across his tired face and looked out the open door. Presidio Park stretched before him. In no mood to go home, he had driven to the park after leaving the pawnshop and fallen asleep. Pale light in the overcast sky told him he had slept through the night. Burke reached into his jacket where the girl’s hand had been. He had nothing to steal, nothing valuable. His heart jumped, and his hand probed deeper. He unzipped the jacket and searched all of his pockets, but the picture of his family was gone.
    Burke pulled himself out of the car. The ground and bushes around him were wet from the morning drizzle.
    “Hey, get back here,” he yelled into the empty park.
    He took two steps, and sharp pain shot up his bad right hip. The tiny car was no place to sleep, and he was stiff from the hours spent there.
    A giggle to his right pulled him in that direction. His stiff muscles loosened up as he moved, and in a few moments he felt almost normal. He remembered days long ago when he and Laura had brought Sara here to play. The park had still been maintained then. Cactus, aloe, and desert weeds now dominated the once-pristine landscape. The headless statue of some forgotten soldier stood sentinel over the area. Beside the statue, a wall that had once boasted a mural of a Mormon battalion now shouted FOR A GOOD TIME CALL EVE in bright blue and red graffiti.
    Burke caught a flash of red beyond the weed-choked memorial and saw the little girl sprinting across the open, her bare feet flying much faster than he would have thought possible. Dwarfed pine trees dotted the area that used to be the kids’ playground. The swings and other park amusements had long ago been removed due to the high cost of insurance.
    He kept his eye on the girl until she disappeared beyond another dip in the park. As he neared the place where he had lost sight of her, the roof of the old restrooms came into view. The city had put some effort into keeping these. After all, if the homeless who gathered in the park had somewhere to relieve themselves, they would not do so in the surrounding neighborhoods, which were still somewhat affluent. Burke let momentum carry him down the hill to where a cracked asphalt path picked up near the restrooms. This relic of what used to be a popular walkway had long been ignored in favor of the dirt paths that led down into the overgrown canyon in the park’s center. Burke followed the one the girl had taken, slowing his downhill pace to avoid tumbling headfirst down the steep trail.
    A covey of quail exploded up in front of him, their flapping wings crashing through the silence that had a moment ago been filled with only his rasping breath. Burke’s feet nearly went out from under him as he slid to a halt on a carpet of pine needles. He stood there for a moment and squinted into the shadows that half hid the canyon floor. Cold air oozed up from within, carrying with it the stench of sewage and who knew what else.
    He was on the verge of turning back the way he had come, when he heard a familiar giggle to his left. Another trail, nearly hidden in dense scrub, led off the path he had been following. The moment he turned his attention from the depths of the canyon and back to the little girl, the day seemed to brighten and grow warmer. He limped to the newly discovered trail and followed it as it led up to the rim of the canyon.
    Burke’s breathing came in ragged gasps as he climbed the last few steps into the hazy sunlight at the top of the trail. He found himself in a flat area that held two faded green concrete