Wolf Flow Read Online Free Page A

up. "With my goddamn tire tracks rolling right by there-"
        "Well, just dump him anywhere, then." Harley gestured off to the distance, to the dirt road behind the truck. "Some place out of sight. Find some flat rock to stick him under." He rubbed the dust from his hands onto his trousers, already filthy. "And then get your ass back here. We got plenty ready to load up." He turned away and walked toward the metal shack.
        The trucker stared after him. Harley's buddy was already plopped down in the little bit of shade, working on a beer he'd taken from the cooler inside. He handed it up to Harley, who guzzled it nearly empty, his red-creased throat beating with each swallow.
        Fuck these guys. For the hundredth time, the trucker wondered why he'd let himself get hooked up with them. Fuckin' yardbirds. He turned on his heel and headed for the Peterbilt.
        
***
        
        Now it was dark outside as well: he could tell even without opening his eyes. The sun must have set. Under the edge of his eyelids he could just make out the green, spectral glow of the truck's dashboard lights, making the driver's hands into skeletonlike forms clutching the wheel. He squeezed his eyes closed tight, the corner of his forehead against the cold, vibrating glass of the side window. Black inside…
        He came to again when he felt the truck come to a stop. Or it had been still for a while; he had no way of knowing. Except that the driver was gone from behind the wheel, leaving him alone in the dim, green-lit space.
        The pain had gotten worse. Every breath brought a stab of fire around his chest. The one arm, his right, was useless; he couldn't move it from where the weight of his body pinned it against the door. That had been the first place he'd gotten hit, when he'd raised up his forearm to ward off the blow swinging down on him. A metal pipe, just under three feet long, with one end wrapped in electrician's tape for a better grip; he'd seen it before, propped up in a corner by the front door of Aitch's apartment, and had suspected what it was for. Now he knew.
        The double vision had let up for a moment. He could see outside the truck, through the window his cheek rested against. Some big shape blotted out the bottom part of the night sky, closer than the low hills and made up of straight lines. The truck's headlights weren't aimed toward it, but enough of their glow leaked to the side that he could make out the size of the building, a big one, with a double row of windows. A couple of the windows on the top story were broken out, leaving jagged teeth glinting with the moon's cold blue light.
        He saw the truck driver, or somebody, moving around the front of the building, a human shape stepping off what looked like a covered porch running across the front of the building. The man walked back toward the truck.
        He closed his eyes and waited. He was too tired to care where the hell this was.
        
***
        
        "There you go, buddy." The trucker had stripped the blankets off the narrow bed in the Peterbilt's sleeper and wrapped the guy up in them. He'd laid him down by a section of wall where the windows were all still securely boarded over and the chilling night wind couldn't get through, or at least not much of it. An angle of moonlight reached down the big flight of stairs at the far end. The guy's face, white underneath the bruises and crusted blood, gazed up at the old lobby's ceiling, breath dragging in and out of his open mouth.
        The trucker peeled off his denim jacket, wadded it up and slid it under the back of the guy's head. The unfocused eyes screwed down in pain, then relaxed but still stayed closed as he lowered the fragile skull onto the makeshift pillow.
        "There's water in here now." He set the thermos bottle down, with the plastic cup, already filled, next to it. He'd dipped the water up from a stagnant puddle he'd stepped in outside.