Read Devil's Throat (The River Book 6) Online
Authors: Michael Richan
Devil's Throat (The River Book 6) (22 page)
Margie turned to look at Deem, and Deem pointed to Virginia.
“Help her!”
Margie turned and finally saw that Virginia was out. She
grabbed Virginia’s hands, then tried patting her cheeks. Virginia’s eyes
fluttered open.
“What happened?” Virginia asked.
“You fainted,” Winn said.
“It was looking at me,” Virginia said. “I felt it.”
“Me too,” Deem said.
“We’ll be back in St. George in about twenty minutes,
everyone,” Dave said over the intercom. “Please stay seated.”
Winn got up to talk to Dave. Deem joined him at the front of
the bus.
“Did it come in like that, before?” Winn asked Dave.
Dave kept his eyes on the road as he answered. “Not that I
saw,” he said. “It just ran alongside us. Didn’t come in.”
“Did you see it this time?” Winn asked. “Its head? Inside?”
“I saw something,” Dave said, “in my mirror. Can’t say
exactly what. Obviously someone’s upset back there. Can you talk to the woman
who screamed, make sure everything’s OK?”
“I’ll check on her,” Winn said, and walked back into the bus.
“Did he say its head was inside?” Dave asked Deem.
“Yes,” Deem answered. “Its head was inside.”
“But none of the windows are open, are they?” Dave asked.
“No, they’re closed,” Deem said.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Dave said.
Deem left it at that. Dave hadn’t seen the head inside the
bus, and she’d learned from her father not to relate stories that others might
find crazy; it tended to make them think
you
were crazy.
“You might want to consider cancelling this particular tour
going forward,” Deem said, “until we figure out what this thing is. I think
it’s dangerous.”
“Not my decision,” Dave said. “That’d be for the owners to
decide.”
“Then you might want to ask for another route,” Deem said.
“What do I tell them?” Dave asked. “Something jumped on the
bus and stuck its head inside?”
Deem knew Dave wouldn’t be relating that story to his boss.
Winn rejoined them.
“She’s fine, just shaken up,” Winn said. “She’s got a set of
lungs on her, that’s for sure.”
“Deem says it’s dangerous,” Dave said, his eyes looking at
Winn through his rear view mirror. “Do you think it is?”
“Might be,” Winn said. “Hard to say. Don’t know what it is,
exactly.”
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Deem asked Winn, pulling
his arm as she walked back into the bus. Winn followed her to a seat that was
several rows from the front, with no one around.
“It’s dangerous,” Deem said, “but not for any reason you can
tell Dave. I felt it lock onto me. I nearly passed out, like Virginia.”
“Lock onto you?” Winn asked. “Like how?”
“Our eyes were locked,” Deem said, “but then everything on
the edges began to black out until all I could see was his eyes. I got dizzy,
thought I might fall over. It was some kind of attack. Did you feel it?”
“No,” Winn said. “No tunnel vision for me. I didn’t feel
anything like that.”
“Did you feel it was looking at you?” Deem said. “Like it was
targeting you, specifically?”
“No,” Winn replied. “It glanced at me, but I felt nothing.”
“Well, it could be dangerous,” Deem said. “I told your friend
he should cancel the tours until we know what it is.”
“He’s just a driver, Deem,” Winn said. “If he tells them what
we saw, they’ll just think he’s whack, or drunk. Might lose his job over it.”
“If that thing out there has appeared before, it obviously
knows this bus and the schedule. It’ll happen again.” She was scratching her
left hand with her right.
“But what came of it, other than a scare?” Winn said. “I
don’t know what harm it caused. It was kind of like seeing a UFO. Not a lot you
can do about it.”
“It was more than that,” Deem said. “I’m sure of it. We’ll
need to ride this bus again tomorrow. Try the River next time…what the fuck is
this?”
Deem raised her left hand where she’d been scratching. There
was a round, quarter-inch bump in the skin of her left little finger, between
the first and second knuckles.
“Looks like a bite,” Winn said.
“It’s not,” Deem said, pressing on the bump with her right
index finger. “There’s something really hard inside, and it’s sharp. It hurts
when I press it.”
Winn took over and tried pressing on the bump. It looked red
and sore like a spider bite, but he could tell as soon as he touched it that it
wasn’t a bite. It was soft and squishy, like a pocket of liquid, but inside was
something small and hard.
“Ouch!” Deem said. “Don’t push on it!”
“How long have you had this?” Winn asked.
“No idea,” Deem said. “I don’t remember seeing it before.”
Winn reached into his pants pocket and removed a pocketknife.
He popped the blade open.
“Whoa, hold on!” Deem said. “What are you going to do?”
“Cut it open,” Winn said. “I’ll just slit the top open here.”
Deem winced at the idea, but part of her knew the bump was
abnormal, and she wanted whatever was inside it to be out of her. “It’s gonna
bleed all over the place.”
Winn got up and walked back to Margie and Virginia. They
talked for a moment, then Winn returned with a small white handkerchief.
“We’ll use this,” Winn said, “to wrap it up.”
“Alright,” Deem said.
Winn held Deem’s little finger and slowly inserted the blade
into the bump. Once he had the tip of it past the skin, he slid the blade
sideways, making an eighth-inch cut. As he removed the knife, thin wisps of
grey smoke emerged from the incision, and the skin collapsed as the gas
escaped. Winn gently pulled the skin apart, and saw a small piece of something
white.
“Hope that didn’t hurt,” Winn said.
“Didn’t feel a thing,” Deem said. “No blood, either. What is
that?”
Winn gently inserted the blade of his knife back into the
slit and pried under the object, lifting it out of the skin. He held it up for
Deem to see. It was small, white, and jagged.
“What is that?” Winn asked, studying it. He held it for Deem
to see. “Is it bone?”
“What the fuck?” Deem asked, looking up at him.
▪ ▪ ▪
This has been a complimentary first
chapter of the first book in
The Downwinders
series,
Enjoy the rest of the novel by
downloading your complete copy from Amazon.com
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And continue with The River series by
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