Liar's Harvest (The Emergent Earth) Read Free

to me it would have been too dark to see before I had the final immersion in Piotr’s blood pit a few weeks ago, a gory baptism that Piotr claimed had completed my conversion into the avatar of the godlike being called the Devourer. Now the darkest it ever got for me was a dusky gloom.
    Leon picked up the foot. “Well, that was a waste of time. I’m going to throw it in the pile with the rest of the pet cemetery collection out back.”
    Henry smiled. “I may not be able to tell you who that foot belonged to, or how it ended up on my porch, but I hardly think this was a waste of time.”
    I loved playing the straight man for Henry. “Why not?”
    “Because I know where the rest of the body is.”

4

    “You’re not leaving me here like I’m some helpless invalid!” Able to walk or not, there was nothing wrong with Leon’s lungs.
    “It has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the fact that we have to go into the woods.” I didn’t realize that I was using my let’s-be-reasonable voice until it was too late.
    “Fuck you, Abe. You don’t even know where the place is. I grew up in these woods, so without me, you can just sit your ass right here. And for your information, the trail is almost wide enough to bring the damn truck down.”
    He yanked the passenger door of Henry’s truck open and hauled himself up with one hand on the armrest inside the door and the other on the passenger grip attached to the dash. His forearms and biceps bulged as he lifted his body into the truck. Once on the seat, he used his hands to swing his legs the rest of the way inside, and then slammed the door.
    I folded his wheelchair and put it in the bed of the truck without comment. Naturally, Leon had attached a pistol holster to the side and a shotgun sleeve to the back.
    I got behind the wheel while Anne and Chuck squeezed into the jump seats behind us.
    Henry leaned in through the open driver’s side window. “I doubt there’s any cell reception out there, so be back before dark. Don’t make me drag my saggy behind out there to look for you.”
    Leon said, “It’s daylight, we’re all armed to the teeth, and the only activity that boneyard has seen in a hundred years has been stoned teenagers having sex thirty seconds at a time. We’ll be fine.”
    “Don’t be cocky, boy. Remember what happened the last time you were sure that things were going to go easy.” I could see in Henry’s face that he regretted saying that as soon as the words came out of his mouth.
    Leon’s eyes went hard and he turned away to look out the window. There was nothing to say after that, so I started the truck. We lurched away down the gravel drive, leaving Henry by himself, staring after us.
    We drove for a good half-hour, alone on the beautiful single-lane roads that twisted through the heavily forested region. Trees crowded close to the road on either side of us, pine and maple and birch, creating patchwork walls of green and red and yellow.
    A carpet of dropped leaves obscured the edges of the road, leaving us to follow a narrow black strip of asphalt down the center. We eventually turned off on a dirt track that was popular with hunters, as it led to a wide field where you could park or set up a camp before heading out into the woods lugging deer stands and ice chests full of beer.
    I shut off the engine and we all piled out, glad to get out of the truck and away from the awkward silence of the drive. A few minutes later, Leon was in his chair with pistol and shotgun holstered, leading us down a footpath into the woods. His breathing was loud but steady as he manhandled the chair over the endless sticks and ruts buried under the thick carpet of leaves that covered the trail.
    Anne looked up at the trees as she walked. “This place is beautiful, Leon. I feel like we’re the only people in the world.”
    “Wait a few weeks and you’ll see plenty of orange vests out in these woods. Me and Uncle Henry used to hunt every year