Whirlwind Read Online Free Page A

hands wiped across his jeans and curled into fists. Now they had made him angry.
    â€œPaulie, come on.”
    â€œGo back up,” he ordered without turning around.
    Something had definitely moved out there, probably a bunch of wiseass kids trying to creep toward him. He took a sideways step up the uneven bank; his foot nudged a short length ofdead branch. Without taking his eyes off the dark, he reached down and picked it up.
    â€œPaulie.”
    â€œGo up!” he snapped, louder than he’d intended. “Damnit, Patty.”
    Staring so hard made him dizzy. It was like trying to pin down the edges of a black fog.
    His free hand rubbed his eyes quickly and hard, but nothing changed.
    There just wasn’t enough light.
    This, he thought, is really dumb. Get your ass outta here before something happens.
    An arm snaked over his shoulder, and he bit so hard on a yelp that he choked.
    Patty’s hand opened to show him the dim gleam of a gold cigarette lighter. He took it and half-turned, his expression demanding to know when she’d started smoking. He realized the ridiculous timing when she flashed him a not now, stupid grin and jerked her chin to turn him back around.
    His own smile had no humor.
    He shifted the branch club until it felt properly balanced. Then he took a bold step forward and squared his shoulders. “Listen, assholes, you want to get lost, you want to get hurt, your choice.”
    No one answered.
    Only the hissing.
    He held the lighter up and sparked it, squintingagainst the reach of the flame’s faint yellow glow until his vision adjusted. There were shadows now that slid away and slid toward him as he raised the light over his head and moved his arm from side to side. The trees moved; the leaves turned gray; the bank took on contours that didn’t exist.
    â€œHey!”
    Another step.
    â€œHey!”
    Another.
    The breeze touched the back of his neck and twisted the flame to make the shadows writhe.
    They kept coming, still whispering, and he gripped the club more tightly, angling it away from his leg, ready to swing at the first face that broke through the dark into the light. It wouldn’t be the first time he smacked a homer with just one arm.
    A low branch brushed leaves across his right cheek and shoulder before he could duck away.
    He thought he heard Patty snap his name, but he wasn’t sure. All sound had been reduced to his sneakers sliding over the ground, to the breeze tucked into the branches, and to the whispering.
    He frowned.
    No; it wasn’t whispering.
    It was, as he’d first thought, hissing. But strange. It wasn’t like snakes at all, but like something…no, a lot of things brushing roughly over a rough surface.
    Voices whispering.
    He faltered, and licked his lips.
    Okay, so maybe it wasn’t people out there, and Patty said it probably wasn’t snakes, and it sure wasn’t the river.
    So what the hell was it?
    The breeze moved the leaves, and he looked up quickly, looked back and smiled.
    That’s what it was—someone dragging a branch along the ground. Leaves; the hissing was the leaves.
    Growing louder.
    Suddenly the lighter grew too hot to hold. He cursed soundlessly and let the flame die, whipping his hand back and forth to cool his fingers off, and the metal, so he could use it again in a hurry.
    Timing now was everything.
    He would wait until the asshole was close enough, then he’d turn on the light and swing at the same time. The jerk would never know what hit him.
    He listened, a corner of his mouth twitching, his body adjusting slightly so that he was almost in a baseball stance.
    Batter up, he thought; you goddamn freaks.
    Louder.
    No footsteps yet, but that didn’t matter.
    He checked back, but couldn’t see his sister; he looked ahead, and made out a faint shadow that,because of virtually absent light, seemed taller than it ought to be.
    Louder.
    Very loud.
    City boy, he thought angrily,