Transcontinental Read Online Free Page B

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    The faint glow escaping the train yard’s bounds aided Leroy as he perused the perimeter with an eye out for golf carts. The coast looked clear as the night sky to him, but he needed to be sure. He peered hard into the darkness and examined the scene. Shadows carved shapes out of the night sky, but none of them moved. He only had to travel the parking lot between himself and the fence successfully and he’d be in.
    Sending more sand into his shoes, Leroy stood from his kneeling position and crept around the edge of the parking lot, now thankful for the dark clothes he had cursed in the harsh sunlight. His gaze darted in all directions. Still nothing, no one.
    Crouching at the edge of a row of bushes, he looked to his left and nearly fell back in shock. A tower, right there on the edge of the yard. The trees around it had obscured it from sight until he’d gotten near. The thought of turning back and regrouping crossed his mind; he didn’t really have a plan B. He couldn’t have one. It would be an easy way out, and the temptation wasn’t worth it. But squatting and thinking wasn’t going to help anything. It was time to act or go home, and he didn’t have a home.
    Leroy peeked at the tower. It was set back about fifteen feet, right on the edge of the forest. He needed to sneak past it and over the fence without putting himself in its sight, and the only way to do that was to go under it.
    He determined it was best to approach the tower from the woods behind it, using the trees for cover. From the tree line, it was about five feet to the base of the tower, and another five or so to the fence, but hopefully he could shinny over and find somewhere to hide before anyone noticed.
    Like Batman in a cartoon he’d seen he dashed around the fringe of the broad bushes and into the forest, nothing more than an inky blur.
    He’d thought it was dark on that lonesome desert road earlier, but any light from the evening sky was blotted out entirely in the thicket of trees surrounding him. He recalled the trick he’d used at home on the rare nights his mother wasn’t blackout drunk and he craved a snack from the fridge, on the off chance there was one. He shut his eyes, then counted to ten.
    Without anything to look at, he felt scratchiness around his ankles. Bad time to be wearing shorts, but traipsing through the woods was another thing he hadn’t planned for. Normally the thought of the creatures creeping and squirming about his bare legs would drive him right out of there, but he subverted the urge to run.
    At the count of ten, he opened his eyes and saw little more than before. Columns of black and grey striped his vision. He lurched forward with arms outstretched like an urban Frankenstein’s monster, counting his steps as he went. A few paces in, his hands became entangled in as thick a spider web as he’d ever felt. Unable to see, he scraped, shook, and slapped his hands, trying to get it off. He rubbed his hands on his pants desperately until he felt comfortable that nothing could’ve survived the thrashing, then took a deep breath and collected himself. Better his hands than his face, he supposed.
    A loud crack to his left caught his attention. He whipped his head around, though his sense of sight was still proving useless. Listening hard, he could hear about as much as he could see. Then, a hushed rustling. It stopped after a moment, replaced by a soft sniffing, too close for his liking. He sprinted, arms first. He was desperate to change his life, but forced to choose between being caught and being eaten, he’d happily take the former.
    His shoulder collided with a tree as he emerged from the woods and saw the tower ahead of him. He practically dove toward it, coming to a soft thud against the base. Once more, he listened intently, catching his breath. Hearing nothing but the wind, Leroy crawled around to the other side of the tower facing the fence. Halfway there he’d be fully visible to the tower