The Revenant Road Read Free Page B

kicked up sharply. A cold draft raised the hackles on the back of Kowalski’s neck.
    “You think what we do matters?” Grudge said.
    Kowalski shrugged.
    “Dunno,” he said. “Freezin’ my ass off though.”
    Grudge remained silent.
    “Say,” Kowalski snapped. “What the Hell crawled up your skink-hole?”
    “Choices,” Grudge said. “I’m just not sure they were the right ones.”
    Kowalski scowled. “Somethin’ you ain’t tellin’ me?”
    Grudge didn’t answer. He stared at the dead girl lying in the grass. Then he swore and punched Kowalski in the shoulder.
    “I guess I’m just getting too old for this sh—”
    The howl from beyond the treeline cut him off.
    “What the hell was that?” Kowalski said.
    Grudge pulled a silver-plated H&K .38 automatic. Kowalski’s Sig Sauer appeared in his right fist as if by sleight of hand. The two men stood back-to-back.
    The howl repeated, closer this time.
    “Christ,” Kowalski snarled. “What is that?”
    “Goddamit, I don’t know.” 
    “Bullshit,” Kowalski said. “You holdin’ silver?”
    “It’s not a Wolf,” Grudge hissed. “Look, over there.”
    Kowalski looked toward the edge of the clearing.
    Something was watching them. A dark shape, partially hidden, high up in the trees. The thing glared at them, a sick amber light flickering in its eyes.  
    “Holy Mary Mother of God,” Grudge hissed.
    The hunters lifted their guns, too late, as the shadow thing screamed and leapt at them.
    It was Marcus Grudge’s sixty-fourth birthday.
    May 19 th . 

     

 
     
     
     
    5
    Skirmish
     
    Television sucks.
    And let’s face it, dear reader, before you get the idea that I’m one of those idiots who try to convince everyone that film is the last, great, modern art form, movies suck too: How many Nicholas Cage pictures can civilization take?
    Television and movies, however, are the best things to happen to writers like me since the printing press.
    “We’re back in one minute, Connie.”
    Two months after the Montgomery murders, I was sitting in a television studio with Connie Sawyer, literary critic and host of The Eighth Hour , the hottest primetime arts and culture magazine in the public television universe.
    The blonde, tall, icily attractive Sawyer ratcheted her black leather chair up just enough to allow her to look down on me. I didn’t mind: The sales from The River’s Edge would shore up my ego.
    “You’re much better looking than that God-awful photo your publicist sent,” she said. “Too bad you write such crap.”
    “You’re not so bad yourself,” I replied. “For a sour old hooker doomed to belittle those more talented than herself.”
    Sawyer’s smile vanished. She’d likened my first book to “…a vile descent into a world too banal to be horrified by its own senseless violence,” and “…a relentless dry hump.” It was a testament to the persuasive powers of my publicist that I had agreed to appear on Sawyer’s show. The last thing I wanted to do was help her: I wanted to drop kick her down an abandoned well.
    The assistant director stepped in and waved his fingers in my direction. “Five seconds,” he said. Sawyer glared at me, her perfect teeth clenched.
    “Smile, asshole,” she snarled. “This sour old hooker’s about to make you a lot of money.”
    “Four. Three. Two. One...”
    Red lights ignited and Sawyer smiled for the cameras.
    “We’re back with author Obadiah Grudge, whose new book, The River’s Edge, has graced the New York Times Best-Seller list for four weeks in a row.”
    “Five, Connie,” I injected.
    Sawyer’s smile cracked. Not a mortal rupture (She was far too frigid for that), merely a minor stress fracture, but it made my night.
    “Obadiah, your books have been called “dark,” “menacing” and “ominous,” she continued smoothly. “What is it about the shadowy element of society that attracts your focus as an aspiring writer?”
    Bitch
    “I don’t think of my characters