Read Supernatural Noir for Free Online Page B

farmhouse. Seemed like a good plan at the time. Now I can see all the gaping cartoon mouse holes in everything. Maybe my brother Joe was right. I don’t think ahead.
    Mike says, “We’re not going to her house. We’re gonna play it like Henry is ratting us out.”
    “What if he isn’t?” I say. I mean it too. Because it doesn’t feel right. It doesn’t feel like Henry. Even with Greg blowing it all up like he did, Henry wouldn’t play us. Henry has always taken care of us. He’s fifteen years older than me, and he worked at the Mobil just a few blocks from where I grew up. Him and his early gray hair. He looked like someone’s dad. He saved us a couple of times when me and Mike were walking home from school and got jumped by these kids. The second time they jumped us, he busted their heads open with a bike chain. So Henry kept us safe, took us for rides around Worcester, would sit and watch as we bent car antennas and broke windows near the Holy Cross and Clark campuses. Henry would sell us weed, and eventually, we helped him sell to our friends. By we , I mean me and Mike. My brother Joe didn’t like or trust Henry, wouldn’t come out with us ever. I tried telling him that Henry was a good guy, that he was fun, that he was one of us, but Joe didn’t care, wouldn’t listen to me. He never listened to me. Stubborn ass would pull the oldest-in-the-family bullshit about knowing what was best. So I went out with Mike and Henry, and Joe, he just stayed home with Grandma and painted his goddamn pictures while she watched TV.
    Mike says, “Even if he isn’t, we still can’t show up at that farmhouse without him.”
    Greg starts swearing and crying into his hands. Like that’ll help. Then he gets back into his old tune. “Fuck. What if we left him? We can’t just leave him. Maybe he’s hiding in a dumpster or something, back near the pawnshop, waiting for us to come back. Someone call him. Mike, you call him.”
    “We can’t. No calls.”
    Mike is right again. Especially if we left a bloody Henry in the parking lot. Cops or an ambulance would definitely have him by now. We can’t be on any phone records today.
    Then it hits me, suddenly. Where we can go. Good a place as any for a half-assed getaway, or some kind of last stand.
    I say, “I know where we can go, boys.”
    ——
    The trip is going to be longer than it has to be. Need to avoid the Mass Pike and its tollbooths and cameras. So we go north on 190, then we’ll hit Route 2 West, then 91 North, then over the river and through the woods to my grandma’s old lake house in Hinsdale, Vermont, a one-cow town just outside of Brattleboro. It’s not her place anymore, but it’s no one’s place anymore, either. My great-grandmother had the tiny two-bedroom bungalow built next to a private lake. I don’t even remember the lake’s name. Something long and with a lot of consonants.
    It’s not Grandma’s place anymore because her family never really owned the land. They got the place on a ninety-year lease. Grandma died two years ago, and so did the lease. The state took the land back over, wouldn’t offer a new lease, and talked about using the house and lake for some electric-company outpost or some shit like that. I didn’t take that estate meeting well and left Joe to the room and the lawyers. Two years ago is the last time I was up there with Joe. The two of us and a dumpster. Didn’t save anything.
    Far as I know, nothing has been done with the rundown place, and I can’t imagine anyone would use it, completely out in the boonies with only a five-mile-long, one-lane dirt road as access to the property. I guess we’ll find out.
    We’ve been on 190 for almost half an hour. Finally turning onto Route 2. We’ve left our cell phones on in case Henry decides to call or text us. Nothing. Same kind of nothing on the radio, too.
    I pull my cell out of my pocket and stare at the screen. I kinda want Joe to call, too. Not that I could answer his call