THE LAST BOY Read Online Free Page B

cluttering the sticky floor.
    Pellegrino kicked aside some pots, opened a cabinet and checked it with his light. “Okay, but I gotta do it, too. Follow procedures,” he explained as he moved from cabinet to cabinet. Down on his knees, he shined his light behind the fridge. Then he was back into the hallway.
    “Are they really out looking for Danny?”
    “Yeah. Of course.” He climbed over the tangle of brooms and mops and overturned buckets as he waded into the storage closet. “We take missing kids very seriously.” He moved past her as if remembering something and went back into the kitchen and stared up at the ceiling. With a grunt he heaved himself up on one of the counters, pulling up one leg at a time until he was standing, his head touching the ceiling. He played the beam across the top of the cabinets. “Hey, anybody check up in here?” he asked, poking the trap door near his head.
    Molly shook her head. He pushed open the portal and hoisted himself into the attic. Molly could hear his radio crackling as he rummaged around overhead, moving and sliding what sounded like boxes.
    When he came down, the dark blue of his uniform was littered with tufts of dust and strands of pink insulation. Coughing, he haphazardly brushed himself off and went systematically again from room to room. “Hey, what's this door?” he asked finding the basement.“Anybody check down here?”
    As he emerged from the cellar, Molly was waiting at the top of the stairs.“Okay,” she inquired, hands on her hips.“Now what?”
    Pellegrino was sweating. He took off his hat and wiped his forehead. His gray hair was clipped in a brush cut, like Molly's father used to have. She thought about her father, a man she could only remember as unsmiling, depressed, eyes vacant except when he was drunk and angry—which was often; her mother who had died without ever seeing Danny. Danny, oh God! The evocation of his name caused something to seize up in her breast.
    “I just called in,” said Pellegrino, seeing the look on her face. “We got three units out there now just searching for your boy.”
    “I’m calling the other parents,” said Molly.
    “Yeah, yeah, good idea,” said Pellegrino.
    “Let me call them,” said Mrs. Oltz, trying to take charge.“I don’t want to start getting people all riled up.”
    “Give me the fucking numbers,” demanded Molly, holding out her hand.
    Mrs. Oltz meekly handed over the school directory.
     
    The route up South Hill past the old Morse Chain factory is steep, an unrelenting incline as the narrowness of Aurora Street spreads into the four-lane highway that is Route 96B. It's a demanding climb for the little boy whose face has been whipped red by the cold wind sweeping off the lake. The sun, obscured at times by billowing clouds, hovers low above the horizon; the air is damp and smells pungently of vegetative decay and vehicle exhaust.
    The afternoon shift at Therm, where they machine the bladesfor aircraft turbines, has just let out and the highway is jammed with the cars of workers anxious to get home. Delivery vans and tanker trucks headed through town are interspersed with the Sport Utes of Ithaca College kids on their way down to the Commons or out to the mall.
    The boy stops momentarily as if attempting to gain his bearings. He turns to gaze down at the rooftops of the city nestled in the valley below. Shivering with cold, he wrinkles his brow in thought, then pushes on up the highway. Vehicles continue to whisk past, whipping up clouds of blinding dust and sand.
    Further on, the boy cuts diagonally across the highway, prompting the sleepy driver of a large tractor trailer to slam on his air brakes. The line of traffic behind him jerks to a reflexive halt. No one seems to notice the boy, except as an obstacle to be avoided. No one gets out to confront him or question him. It is as if he were invisible.
    Once across the highway, the boy slides down the embankment and pushes through the