Read Backwoods for Free Online Page B

crossed the threshold, reached into the darkened
bathroom and flipped on the lights. “Fresh sheets for the bed, too.
Oh, you’ve got a mini-fridge over by the bureau.”
    Andrew followed him, curious, taking note of
a television set atop the bureau. And matching VCR, he
observed. “Jesus, didn’t these things die out with the dinosaurs?”
he asked with a laugh.
    “There’s a video library down in the rec
room,” O’Malley said. “No cable or satellite.”
    Great, Andrew thought.
    “If there’s nothing else, I’ll leave you to
it,” O’Malley said, not elaborating on whatever ‘it’ he was
specifically leaving Andrew to.
    “Oh,” Andrew said. “Hey, sure. Thanks for the
nickel tour.”
    O’Malley nodded once, politely, as he walked
toward the door. “Be seeing you.”
    ****
    After O’Malley had left, Andrew went back
outside. He followed the sidewalk encircling the compound and annex
until he came to the approximate spot beneath Moore’s balcony where
his iPhone would have landed. It didn’t take long for him to find
it. Or what was left of it after its two-story fall.
    “Shit.” He stared in dismay at the cracked,
darkened screen, pushing impotently at the power button, even
though he knew there was no way in hell it would work.
    “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” he heard Suzette
Montgomery say from the deck above, and he looked up, eyes flown
wide with surprise.
    “Hey,” he said with a startled, awkward
laugh. “Uh, hi. I didn’t see you there.”
    “Hi, yourself,” she replied, leaning
languidly over the deck railing, her arms crossed, a cigarette
dangling from one hand. In the other, she held a glass tumbler with
ice cubes, a wedge of lime and a clear liquid inside. “If I didn’t
know any better, I’d say you were trying to spy on me.”
    “I was looking for my phone,” he replied. “I
dropped it into the bushes earlier.”
    “Any luck?”
    Again, he glanced at the broken iPhone in his
hand. “Yes and no.”
    He wondered if Dr. Moore was still in the
apartment and thought about just turning around, bolting back into
the building to be on the safe side. Apparently he was going to be
stuck there for awhile, and since for all he knew, Dr. Moore was
working on biochemical weapons in that top secret, hush-hush lab of
his—one O’Malley had ominously referred to as the “house of
pain”—he figured it might be in his own best interest to avoid
pissing the guy off any more than he already had.
    “I’d say you could use mine, but there’s
still no service.” Suzette drew the cigarette to her mouth and
inhaled deeply, setting the smoldering end brightly aglow. It
occurred to him that her stance allowed him a virtually
unobstructed view down the front of her blouse. “I’m sorry about
earlier. Edward hitting you and all.”
    “That’s alright.” Andrew’s hand trailed to
his cheek. Not much of a bruise had formed where Moore’s knuckles
had connected, but the residual soreness from the blow remained.
“He hits like a girl.”
    “I’ll tell him you said so.”
    Andrew laughed. “Please don’t. I’m in enough
trouble as it is.”
    “That’s right.” Suzette inhaled on her
cigarette. “I hear you’re going to be staying with us awhile.”
    “Yeah.”
    “That’s too bad,” she told him with a playful
sort of smile that suggested she thought it was anything but.
    Before he could open his mouth to answer, he
heard a sharp sound, the staccato patta-pat-pat of automatic
gunfire echoing from somewhere in the distance, deep in the woods.
Startled, he whirled, eyes flown wide.
    “Jesus!” he exclaimed, shoulders hunched
reflexively, just as more gunshots rolled out of the trees. The
noises overlapped, multiple rifles firing simultaneously, a heated
exchange from the sounds of things. “Those are gunshots!”
    “Sure sounds like it,” she agreed, using her
fingertip and thumb to flick her cigarette butt into the
courtyard.
    “What are they shooting at?”
    “The