End Times Read Online Free Page B

outside the hardware store. Daphne vividly remembered visiting her uncle there, the way he’d held her up to see the wall of flashlights and brightly colored electrical tape and helped her open the gleaming drawers full of every size and type of screw, proudly explaining to her how he’d organized them all himself.
    “Floyd!” Hal, whose big, round ears stuck out of the side of his head like a pair of bolts and washers, creaked to his feet. He wore a faded flannel shirt and overalls, and the grin under his baseball cap was enormous. “Can you believe this?” He gestured at the sky. “Like it’s coming straight from heaven!”
    Floyd slowed to a stop, his engine idling. “Like a sign from God,” he agreed.
    “Straight out of the book of Revelations!” Hal peered into the truck. “Say, is this your little niece? She ain’t so little anymore!” He grinned at Daphne. “Last time I saw you, you had a bullfrog in your hands that you refused to let go. Did you bring this miracle in with you on the bus, or what?”
    Daphne shook her head. She dimly remembered Hal as her uncle’s boss, the owner of the hardware store. “I’m clueless,” she said. “Maybe there’s a band or orchestra visiting from out of town?”
    “Visiting Carbon County?” Hal whooped, underscoring a series of low, brassy notes that seemed to boom straight from the sky. “That’s a good one. Wherever they’re from, I can guarantee there’s even less to see here.”
    “Well, I should get Daphne home to unpack—and see what the missus has to say about all this.” Floyd pointed at the sky. “Ten bucks says she’s already called Pastor Ted.”
    “That’s one bet I’m not willing to take,” Hal chuckled. “See you around, Floyd.”
    They chugged on down the street, the trumpets waxing and waning like a fire alarm all around them. Daphne was starting to feel like the music was following her—no matter how far they drove, it always seemed to be coming from just over the next bend.
    “It’s good the hardware store’s still open,” she said. “You must be glad to be working.”
    Uncle Floyd’s grin disappeared, and the lines in his face grew heavier. “Well, Daphne, I guess that’s something I should tell you. Times are a little tough around here, and business hasn’t been so good lately.”
    Foreboding tickled the back of her throat. “Are you only part-time now?” she guessed.
    “Not exactly, no.” He concentrated heavily on the road, not meeting her eyes. “Hal kept me on for as long as he could, but it’s all he can do to keep the lights on. I’ve been out of work since December.”
    The tickle in her throat turned to a full-fledged ache. Why hadn’t Floyd mentioned that when she called? If she’d known the family was struggling, she would have found somewhere else to go. But before she could ask, Floyd pulled the pickup past a stand of scrubby pines and up to a narrow trailer home propped up on cinder blocks. Auto parts, old metal lawn chairs, and a long-forgotten birdbath rusted on patches of dry brown grass out front.
    “Here we are.” His tone, behind a jovial grin, was almost apologetic. “Home sweet home, trumpet fanfare and all.”
    Daphne gaped. “You’re still living in the trailer?” she asked before she could stop herself. The last summer she’d visited, when she was eight, the kitchen table had been spread with blueprints for the house Floyd planned to build. He’d been so proud when he pointed to the guest room where her parents would sleep, then to the square that would be Janie’s room, big enough for two twin beds and all the sleepovers the girls could dream of.
    Again, Floyd avoided her eyes. “I never could quite scrape together the money,” he said as the mysterious trumpets sounded a mournful note. “Tax rates went up, and the bank’s been pretty stingy with loans. But you should see what Karen’s done with the place—we got a new living room set a few years back, and everyone