The Dead Run Read Free Page B

of the car, leaving the door jacked open.
    â€œAre you kidding me? You have got to be kidding me, you fuckin’ skank ho.”
    Sherry sighed. Apologize? Roll over and play dead? She didn’t have much else in her repertoire. She was so conditioned to dealing with her mother that defending herself no longer came naturally.
    Caroline spread her arms. “Hel- lo ?”
    This girl wouldn’t actually hit Sherry, would she? That seemed to go against the rules, but then what did Sherry know?
    Great. Here came the Jesus nuts. The younger one shuffled quickly down the front steps of a ranch house, brow furrowed with concern, and stepped onto the sidewalk between Sherry and Caroline. The big one came shuffling after, his hat pulled low.
    â€œGirls, girls. This is no way to behave. Jesus loves you both.”
    Caroline turned and treated him to her hands-on-hips routine. The girl behaved as if her every action were being filmed for some awful reality TV show, Sherry thought.
    â€œWhy don’t you mind your fucking business?” Caroline said.
    He smiled, big and closed-lipped, face aglow with perspiration and belief.
    â€œMy business is saving souls.” He looked like he’d said it a million times and couldn’t wait to say it a million more.
    Caroline rolled her eyes at her friends, still watching from the car.
    â€œOh, Jesus Christ.”
    The missionary took a step forward and raised a finger. “Yes. Yes. Exactly.”
    Sherry decided to make use of the distraction while it lasted. She turned and walked, legs pumping double time, afraid to sprint lest she lose her flip-flops. She could still hear the man’s soft, soothing voice behind her as she turned the corner. Keep them occupied, she thought. Just keep them occupied until I can get home .
    This street was empty. She took a deep breath and let it out slow. Wait to cry, she told herself. Five minutes, and then the rest of the day is all yours.
    She heard a car behind her, spun before she could stop herself, saw Eric pulling up beside the girls’ SUV in a mud-spattered Jeep Wrangler.
    For the briefest of instants, their eyes met and Sherry saw the consternation in his gaze. A pang of regret hummed through her, followed by a flash of anger. There was so much the Erics of the world could never understand about a girl like her—so much they only thought they wanted to.
    She sighed again, turned forward, and ran straight into someone.
    It was the older missionary. He clamped an arm around her. It was like steel.
    â€œHello, dear,” he said. “I’m Mr. Buchanan.”
    Sherry opened her mouth to scream. Before she could summon sound, Buchanan pressed something over her mouth, her nose—something that lightened her head, sapped her strength. She was trapped within herself, her body unable to respond to the terror pulsing in her veins. She felt her knees go weak, her head loll back on her neck.
    The last thing Sherry saw before the chloroform took her under was his face, beneath the low brim of the hat: a mottled patchwork of bloodless white and charred black, as if he had been burned, or skinned, or both. His eyes were ice blue, and they stared at Sherry with a calm more terrible than anything she’d ever known.

 
    CHAPTER 3
    S heriff Bob Nichols’s phone rang.
    Spitefully, if such a thing were possible.
    It was an old phone, the color of dried blood. Rotary dial, for Christ’s sake. Nichols stared across his desk, wondering how many rings the goddamn thing had left in it. More than he had hellos left in him, that was for sure.
    He reached forward, sucked down a belt of iced coffee. Meltwater by this hour of the morning, the cup sweating a ring onto the napkin. The air conditioner wasn’t officially broken, but the racket it made was unbearable, worse than the heat. Nichols mostly used a fan he’d brought from home. It kept the flies off balance.
    Take the call, he told himself . It’s