Sheep's Clothing by Gary Lewis (free ebook reader for pc txt) 📕

"Yeah," he said with an arrogant tone. "I know about David."

"I don't know what the hell you're talking about, Vance. I told you I need some space."

"Not even why I’m here,” he said as he waved his heavily muscled arm aside. “Do what you want. See if I care."

"Of course you don't," she shouted out the half open door. "If it's not about you, why would you?"

"Look. I’m just trying to find out where Tony is at," Vance said. "See, my friend Jake told me Tony took off in the storm with Terry and his brother in the direction of the cliffs. You and Sarah were on the way, so I'm checking if they dropped by."

"Everyone knows how bad that road gets when it rains," Janice said. "And with that thing out there, why would they go to the cliffs?"

Vance shook his head and looked away before returning his eyes to her. "That's probably why."

"How long ago?” Janice asked. “Did you try Sarah's?"

"Yeah,” he said. “Her car is there but nobody answered the door and all the lights are out."

"Well, power is still out here,” Janice said, reminding herself that she was still mad at him. “Maybe she just slept through it."

"I don't think so. You saw David's group message last night, right?" Vance asked. "Suppose they tried to go play detective and got stuck up there."

"I don’t know," Janice said. "I haven't heard a word from anyone today."

"Then I guess we're going to head up there and see."

"Jake is with you?" she asked.

"Yeah. We'll be fine," he said, beginning to turn back toward his truck. "But if your friend gets my best quarterback killed, he might not be."

As he left, the sound of his pickup faded down her small road. Janice strolled slowly across the dark kitchen toward the windowed backdoor to stare into the darkness outside. Beyond the open fields, the occasional flicker of lightning casted across the black outline of Bluff Mountain.

#Vance#

The rain subsided to a steady drizzle as Vance drove down the flooded streets, navigating the aftermath of the storm through town.

"Check out that moon," Jake said, leaning down to look up through the windshield. Vance watched the clouds passing to reveal the bright orange circle in the sky.

"That what they call a blood moon?" Vance asked.

"Nah,” Jake said. “I think that's just when it's completely full."

"Place is fucked," Vance said, swerving to narrowly dodge a tattered trampoline that laid bent across the fast lane. Tree limbs and garbage littered the shiny streets, no longer lit by anything aside from his headlights and that of the reddening moon that shown high above.

As they approached the dirt road that led up Bluff Mountain, Vance hit the high beams and slowed down.

"Over there, man." Jake pointed at large tire tracks in the mud and Vance carefully followed. He noticed every place they had spun out or slid just a short time ago. It wasn't long before Vance's headlights caught a red reflection just ahead. They were the taillights of a black pickup truck that sat in the darkness. As they approached closer, several downed trees came into view.

"That's definitely old man Sam's pickup," Jake said.

The darkness of the wet forest enshrouded them as Vance pulled up beside the truck and turned off his lights. When he killed the engine to listen, the tapping sounds of water dripping from the trees was constant from every direction. "Might be hard to hear anyone approach out here," Vance said. Their boots splashed into the thick puddles that surrounded his truck when they hopped out into the soggy surroundings.

"Heads up." Vance threw a heavy flashlight to Jake and pulled a crowbar from the truck bed. "We'll follow their trail," he said as they walked alongside the multiple shoe prints that smooshed their way up into the dark hills that surrounded them. It would be a long walk to the top and Vance had no idea how far things might go.

After a half hour of hiking through the rocky mud, Vance and Jake stopped. "See that?” Vance extended his arm to aim the crowbar toward the shoe prints. "This is where they split." He aimed the crowbar down the steep hill to his right. "My guess, Blane and Terry went down into the woods on the right and Tony kept on up the road."

"Why the hell would they do that?" Jake asked.

"There's a trail up at the cliffs that curves around through these woods," Vance said before pausing to contemplate as he slowly rested the crowbar over his shoulder.

"Yeah. I know it," Jake said.

"What you might not know," Vance said, using the crowbar to point up the road. "It can also be used as a shortcut back to the bottom if you're on foot. The trail runs close to the road." Vance attempted to explain while Jake shined the flashlight through the eerie opening in the bushes leading down into the forest. Treetops and leaves blocked visibility any more than a few yards.

"Sure looks steep," Jake said with a shaky uncertainty that rattled its way into the jittery beam of light.

"I'm not real familiar with it all myself, but David and Tony know it." He paused for a moment to look up at the tree limbs above. "They used to take that way to the fire tower."

"Fire tower?" Jake asked.

"It's nothing," Vance said, lowering his stare back into the dark cluster of shrubbery below. "If my hunch is right and Tony came to look for David, it makes sense they would check the trail too." Vance propped the crowbar back onto his broad shoulder.

"Maybe the brothers decided to head back," Jake said.

"Okay. Here's the deal," Vance said, lowering the metal bar with a swing in the direction of the steep drop into the woods. "I'm going to check the forest for the trail. You wait five minutes. I'll come back up if I don't find it. If I don't return, head up the road and find Tony. I'll find the brothers."

"Alright. Here, take this." Jake handed the flashlight back