From Within Read Online Free Page B

the distant horizon. Will eventually came up with the idea to be a handy-man around town. It didn’t pay all that well but it helped he and his mother get by. He became a jack-of-all-trades when it came to repairs. He did carpentry, fixed household appliances, plumbing, and whatever anyone asked him to fix. He could usually figure out some make-shift way to fix something.
    Will arrived back at his Jeep. He noticed the splattered bits of mud spreading outwards from his tires. He knew he should wash it but since the Jeep was multiple shades of green, brown and rust he figured it would blend in and go mostly unnoticed by others. Will placed his pack in the back seat. He stood with the driver’s side door open remaining still and quiet, turning his head from side to side listening for any distant noise. It was his ritual prior to starting up the vehicle. He always liked to be sure no one was nearby on the dirt road when he arrived at it, emerging out of the forest. He was satisfied and climbed in. The Jeep rumbled to a start and he began maneuvering back and forth out of his tight parking space and slowly made his way back towards the road. He kept his window down and music off just in case he might hear any vehicles. He paused about fifty feet back and shifted his head back and forth examining both directions of the dirt road. He again was satisfied he was alone and crept forward and slid through the two tall pines.
    As he arrived back onto the highway that led to Oakhurst he noticed his fuel gauge. He had just under half of a tank of gas. He knew he shouldn’t be driving this much. It was only a year ago that gas prices reached record-setting highs. Taxes on oil companies were at a record-setting peak. Every part of the process of making gasoline was taxed in some way. The government stopped allowing the oil companies to drill in new areas and supplies lowered. The government stepped in and set price controls which caused the oil companies to operate at a loss. Some of the CEO’s stopped taking pay and then stockholders stopped taking dividends so employees could be retained and still get paid. Regardless, within six months mass layoffs began. The government began subsidizing the oil companies to keep them afloat. Company presidents could be seen in the news making statements against the government telling them if they stopped trying to run their business, thousands would have been able to keep their jobs. The government fired back that their intervention by subsidizing the companies was the only reason their companies were still in operation. Will had followed the situation in the news and couldn’t understand how the government officials didn’t see that it was all their intervention that caused the mess in the first place. He figured the false lower gas prices couldn’t last forever. He tried to keep his Jeep full as much as he could afford. He also kept a ten-gallon container filled that he stored at home. Will noticed the time and figured he would fill up on gas later that day knowing his mother and other family were over by now waiting for him with lunch ready.
    Will also remembered Lea would be over this Sunday as well. His thoughts lingered on Lea. She was a beautiful young woman that he had grown up going to school and church with. He had never talked to her much while they were younger. It wasn’t until he ended up at her family’s house to work on their furnace the previous winter that they started talking. Lea’s parents, Alejandro and Juana, practically threw her in the basement with him after he began looking at the furnace. They kept trying to initiate a relationship between them ever since that day. Alejandro and Juana even became friends with Will’s mother, which was why they would be at his house today for lunch.
    Will turned on to the long rock and dirt driveway that curved back and forth through a patch of old oaks and pines and continued along the side of their ranch-style home. He could see