Thirst Read Online Free Page A

street, passing by their yard on the opposite sidewalk, and didn’t turn his head to look at them.
    At the dead stoplight, he went right, back onto Route 29. It was called Colesville Road here, and Eddie crossed over to walk on the grassy median, which had been mown close to the ground. The road was empty, but up ahead was the intersection with University Avenue, and he could see where cars had come in on the eastbound lanes and were stopped.
    There were restaurants ahead: a burrito place and a Peruvian chicken shack. A gourmet pastry shop. He’d bought Laura’s birthday cake there last winter. People stood in front of the chicken shack speaking Spanish. Peruvian chicken, but all the Spanish speakers here were from El Salvador. The Post had done a piece on how terrible the gang violence was down there. If you had a certain kind of tattoo, you could never go back.
    He jogged left at the intersection for University. Cars were parked three lanes across going toward the ramp for the Beltway and as far back as he could see down the eastbound lanes. In the other direction—the direction Laura would be coming home—the lanes were empty. The other accidents, wherever they were, must have cut off the exits leaving the Beltway.
    The median ended and there was no sidewalk. He could have moved much more easily up the deserted westbound lanes, but their emptiness was like a prohibition keeping him away.
    He jogged between the cars. Though he knew that none of them could have been Laura’s, and that it would only make him crazy to look inside their windows, he looked inside them anyway. Seats had been reclined all the way back, and people were sleeping or at least closing their eyes. Others came out from the woods and opened their doors, illuminating interiors. Farther up, people were sitting on their hoods and whispering like stargazers.
    There was a woman standing up ahead, leaning against her side mirror. She wore a white dress. Maybe that’s why he ran to her—glowing in the dark the way she was.
    “What are you doing?” he asked.
    “Stretching my legs.”
    Eddie was shocked by her voice—that she’d responded to him at all, that she wasn’t an illusion.
    “What can we do?” she said as Eddie stared at her. “Unless you got news, you can go back to your friends.” She jutted her chin to a car somewhere behind him.
    “I’m not here with my friends,” Eddie said. “I’m new.”
    “ New ? I swear to God, this is the worst emergency I’ve ever been in.”
    “I mean, I just got here.”
    “Yeah? Well, I’ve been here all night.” When she looked at him, her face softened, as if she felt she’d been unfair. “A lady up there has sodas in her trunk,” she said, “but they’re probably gone by now.”
    “What’s happening?”
    “Beltway’s jammed. This is all jammed. I haven’t seen one cop the whole time. I heard sirens about three hours ago, but that’s all.”
    “People are just sleeping in their cars?”
    “What are they gonna do? Walk home? We got trees right here. You don’t have toilet paper, do you? If you got toilet paper, you’ll be a hero.”
    “No,” Eddie said.
    “A few of these idiots were playing their radios before. Probably drained the batteries.”
    “How will you get home?”
    “Same way as you. Wait it out. You think they’re gonna fire everyone who doesn’t make it to work in the morning? I’d like to see them try.”
    Eddie walked ahead. A few boys were kicking a soccer ball in the pull-off. They were good players, juggling it on their feet before passing. Someone’s headlights were lighting them up and dust swirled in a dramatic way.
    The on-ramp was only one exit away, and when he came to it, cars had filled it up two across. A truck had run into the wall at an angle, and in the space between the wall and the truck’s tailgate, the nose of an Audi had shoved in between. Eddieturned sideways and had to brush against the grit on the door to get past. No one was inside