“Lance wait, I need to tell you…”
Andy’s voice was lost as Lance stopped the car in the vacant parking lot and set his phone down on the center console. As he climbed from the SUV, the building reminded him of a massive crouching predator, its mouth open in the form of the two darkened front doors. With growing trepidation, he walked toward the structure, and noticed an expanding wall of black clouds just beyond the tall pines encircling the grounds.
The uncomfortable heat and humid air was carrying a storm. He could hear the faint rumblings of thunder, a promise of the fury the clouds longed to unleash on the world below. The storm’s got teeth, Lance thought as he closed in on the face of the building, and he shivered before the cool air of the indoors touched his skin.
John wiped his brow with the back of his hand, the skin there slick with sweat. He glanced out of the pickup’s window at the darkening sky. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been this hot and rainy in September. The world’s gone a little haywire, he thought, as he rounded the last bend and Lance’s house came into view. He felt a little disappointment when he saw that the younger man’s SUV wasn’t parked in its usual spot.
John pulled the truck around the short loop and stopped in line with the front door. He breathed in and let out a shuddering breath. The nausea he had pushed away the night before crept back in. He hadn’t had a drink since the night he told Lance everything he knew about the young man’s origins, and it was beginning to catch up with him. He hadn’t gone this long without alcohol in well over fifteen years. The shaking in his hands and the unsteadiness in his legs he could handle, but the roiling sickness of his stomach was almost unbearable.
He breathed in a few more times, rubbing the webbing between his thumb and forefinger with his opposite hand. May had done this to Henry when he came down with the stomach flu. She’d said it was an Old-World cure, that she’d read it in a natural medicine book somewhere. John hadn’t put much faith in it then, but it had calmed his son, and it seemed to be doing the trick now. The nausea eased enough for him to open his door and get onto his feet beside the truck.
The air felt like a wet blanket over his shoulders as he shuffled around to the bed of the pickup. His shirt dampened further, and he felt a bead of sweat drizzle down the middle of his chest. He reached over the side of the truck and grasped the handle of the gas can and slid it to the rear of the bed. The can in the shed was beginning to get a little light, and he hated running out when there was work to be done.
The tailgate stuck when he tried to open it and he cussed out loud at it, willing it to release. After another tug, it did. He slid the can out and set it beside him on the ground, then slammed the gate shut. He would have to start thinking about a different vehicle soon; the old Ranger was beginning to fall apart.
“You and me both,” John muttered as he bent and picked up the can from the gravel.
The sky looked lower, and waves had started to beat a steady rhythm on the rocks below. He decided that he’d better hurry if he was going to get any work done before the rain decided the day.
“John.”
He heard the whisper just as he took a step toward the shed. The door to the house had swung open. John watched the entry for movement, but when no one emerged, he moved closer, peering into the dim interior.
“Lance? You here?” John took another step before the voice from within the house stopped him dead in his tracks.
“John. Your lies have finally caught up with you. May and your son are here with us.”