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

"It's demonic, whatever it is," Terry said. "So, I'm against it." He rubbed his chin for a moment, staring at her dashboard. "It's kind of tough because sometimes the killings seem specifically targeted and sometimes they're just a sporadic spree of random terror. It could be that we're just making connections that aren't there. Or it could be that some of the attacks had a personal motive, but the others had a different kind of motivation."

Sarah glanced across at him as she drove. "It does seem to be targeting people in our circle of friends most of the time, right?" she asked. "And destroyed the cameras, knew things that we've only discussed together. It can't be a coincidence."

Terry leaned a turn in her direction before scooting his glasses up. "What does your heart tell you?" His inquisitive stare remained unbroken. "Who, Sarah?"

The light ahead on Central Avenue and First Street turned red and Sarah gradually slowed to a stop before staring through the line of passing cars in front of her. My heart? She forcefully squeezed her eyes shut and a wave of regretful pain boiled from her chest into her throat, watering her eyelashes. It wouldn't be any different than David calling out Vance right now. Sarah opened her saturated eyes and looked at him. "We can't rely on that. Our feelings against and for one another are its perfect cover."

Terry nodded in agreement as the light turned green. "I understand." He looked out the window to the side and then the front. "But if you did go with it, who would you say?"

"Look," Sarah said. "Tony knew everyone better than they knew themselves. He was an expert at how people feel about each other."

Terry tilted his head to the side as his eyebrows tensed. "But that wasn't the first name that occurred to you was it?"

Sarah sighed as she noticed the large yellow sign above the Sunset Diner and began to slow down. "I can't go with what my heart says right now."

"My brother and I were with Tony the night he died." Terry slowly rocked his head back and forth. "I suspected him, before. But I’ve had time to think about it. He was too concerned about you and David."

Sarah shook her head. "I'm not trying to pin it on him. It's just that this thing hides among us. It uses our weakness against us for cover."

"If having human compassion and trust is a weakness,” Terry said. “Then I volunteer to be the first one to go."

Sarah pulled into the parking lot at the Sunset Diner. It was still a couple hours before lunch rush would begin and a vacant row of parking spaces welcomed her from the burden of her journey where she had steered through her feelings for longer than she could remember.

"Back to the motive," Terry said. "So many things have happened to and between all of you, it's hard to draw a connection." He began extending fingers to count, one after another. "The fire at the old rec, David's mom and step dad divorcing, you and David, Vance and his dad, his mother... How did she even die?"

"It was drug related." Sarah said. "He doesn't really talk about it much."

"I guess that's understandable, but I keep getting the feeling that all of this ties together a lot deeper and I'm only seeing the surface." Terry rubbed his head. "Where do you fit into all this, Sarah?"

There was a time, I thought I would never fit into anything... never belong. She huffed a sigh of frustration that brushed against the skin of her hands where they still rested on the steering wheel of her parked car. I really wish that I didn't fit into this. 

"Sarah?" Terry's voice became a glowing exit door from the weight on her shoulders that she knew she could never escape from. She looked at him for a moment, trying to discern the boundary between what she could say and what must remain hidden for all time.

#David#

Having dropped off Janice just before her mother returned home, David found himself back at his house. Hours passed as he continuously got up from his bed to pace in deep thought. His room became the collateral damage of the rollercoaster that life had spun him into. The computer was left on, home to an abandoned video channel that he hadn't updated in quite some time. Blurry digital images of the werewolf were still opened on his desktop and empty coke cans stood on top of opened notebooks piled upon one another on his desk. It all rested beside a bed that hadn't been made in weeks.

"Damn," he said, sliding through a mountain of missed calls and unread messages. "What's your deal, Sarah?"

One read, "Well I'm glad you're okay. Thanks a lot for letting me know you were leaving and not, you know, spread in pieces all over the woods." Above it were a few messages about what time they were going to show up at the fire tower. Further back, an entire paragraph about how she's happy he's out with Janice and that they make a great couple. But as he scrolled further up, another read, “You can forget about ever mowing my lawn!” David felt his blood pressure rise, so he just deleted the entire conversation.

"Everything good baby?" he sent to Janice before rushing to his voicemail to replay Tony's recording about the cliffs gathering. It's the only thing I have left to hold onto. Just then, a reply popped up, reminding him that it wasn't.

"Yes. Want to come over later?" from Janice.

"Let me take a shower first," he sent back, followed by a quick "I love you."

He rushed to the bathroom, clothes in hand, to see his mom relaxing on the living room recliner, watching reruns of decades old sitcoms. She lifted the remote and the television muted. "You really need to eat something, dear. Where have you been all the time?"

"I'm heading over