Read Bad Radio for Free Online

always talking about scholarships and going to the Olympics. After that, every time I wanted to go to the mall or have a sleepover or even go on a date, suddenly I was sacrificing my future.”
    “Did it work? Get any scholarships?”
    She looked away. “Of course not. I could have, I really was that good. Amazing, in fact. But after I finished high school I just snapped. I moved out, refused to go to college, dropped out of the circuit, pretty much the whole teen rebellion cliché. I even stopped speaking to my family. That really broke my mom’s heart. And Patrick’s.”
    Plates bearing wedges of pie slapped down on the table between us, breaking the moment. Anne stopped talking and poked at her pie to give herself something to do. Her fork stopped halfway to her mouth, the green and white layers of key lime quivering in midair. She wrinkled her nose and gave the piece a sniff.
    “Ugh. I think mine is bad.” Then her eyes jumped to the window and beyond. Her fork sank back to plate forgotten, while she stared intently at a white minivan as it powered past the diner on the highway. “It’s not the pie, is it?”
    My stomach tightened. It had come from the east, the same direction as my farm.

6

    I threw money at the table and pulled Anne out of her seat before it landed. We threaded through the tables too fast, and I ended up bumping into our hostess as we neared the door, knocking a stack of menus out of her hand. I yelled an apology over my shoulder, and she yelled something back at me, but I didn’t catch it. I’m sure it was nice, though.
    Two seconds later I was standing by Anne’s passenger door trying hard not to yank at the handle as Anne fumbled with the keys. I was in the seat before the car’s unlock chirp faded from the night air, and moments later we were jerking backwards out of the parking space.
    “What are we doing?” she asked, eyes darting between her windows and mirrors.
    “Going back to my farm. Fast as you can.”
    She threw the car onto the road before she started asking more questions. Anne would have made a great soldier. No hesitation and no arguing when taking action. Of course, if I knew anything about good soldiers, the latter would change at the first opportunity. We merged smoothly onto the long, empty highway before she spoke.
    “It was the same men, wasn’t it?”
    “I don’t think so. I think that van was coming from my farm, and the men who killed your grandfather wouldn’t have had time to get there and back since we saw them. Was the smell the same?”
    “Will you stop with that? I couldn’t have smelled anyone on the highway from inside the diner.”
    “You smelled them right before you picked out the van. We both know it wasn’t the pie. It’s not even a smell, according to your grandfather, it’s just your brain trying to interpret information from a sense you don’t have an organ for. Now, was it the same?”
    She paused to think. “I don’t think so. It was the same kind of smell, like garbage and swamp gas or something, but it was different than back at the home. Like bad fish and bad steak both smell like rotten food, but not like each other. Why?”
    “Patty used to say that they all smelled different. He could always tell if the same one came creeping around.”
    “The what came around? The baitbags or whatever?”
    “Them, or things like them.” I shrugged in the dark car. “Unnatural things, I guess.”
    “I don’t understand what you’re telling me! What does that mean, unnatural? They’re people, right? Why do you call them baitbags? Is that some kind of army slang?”
    I glanced at the speedometer. She was keeping a steady but brisk eighty on the highway, even while she was frustrated and scared. Patty would have been proud.
    “It’s a nickname that Shadroe came up with. Shad was with your grandfather and me in the squad.”
    I looked out into the familiar darkness. Each day was different, but every night was the same one, stretching