Black Heart on the Appalachian Trail Read Online Free Page A

stark and barren. She is in her late twenties, they both are, and she has the build of an athlete, strong bones and strong muscles left over from her gymnastic days when she was a teenager in Oklahoma. Her eyes are hazel, and Devon often comments on the gold flecks in her pupils. She thinks her jaw is crooked and her nose is too big, and her hair is too flat, but her lover never mentions any of those things. He’s an aspiring artist and sixth-grade teacher on spring break, and she’s a laid-off scientist who worked for Luctow Labs in Tuscaloosa for five years. They have been together four of those years, met at a cocktail party after she attended a downtown art exhibit one Saturday evening.
    Today she wears a Nike shirt and has on long pants because they conceal her thighs, which are more solid than fat, but she lives with worry Devon will lose sight of the difference. Her lover is skinny and can eat all he wants and not put on weight. She wears his ring. The diamond is bright and hard and promises two people wish to live together forever.
    â€œDo you think I’m a bad person?” she says, rising and backing away. She picks up her pack, an internal Osprey she selected because she likes how it fits against her back.
    â€œYou are a fire-breathing monster.”
    â€œDevon.”
    â€œAsk a ridiculous question, get a ridiculous answer.” Devon has brown eyes behind thick glasses and the magnification gives him a serious look. They are the same height, something she thinks he finds annoying because she often wears two-inch heels when they go out.
    â€œI almost pushed you off the edge,” she says.
    â€œNow you’re talking crazy.”
    â€œIt’s happened before.”
    â€œWith me?” He sounds surprised.
    â€œWith others.”
    She closes her eyes and sees a murder gene twisted inside her DNA. The gene looks thin and flexible, deadly, like a garrote wielded in experienced hands. She was seven when the gene first showed itself, on the edge of the quarry where she stood behind Bobby Heavenside. Bobby had a crooked leg and walked with a limp, did not like it when other kids poked fun at him. She was big for her age, often rode a red bicycle her father bought for her seventh birthday. The boy stiffened against her thrust, was so off balance he could not stop moving forward. She jerked her hand away, like it was on fire, and peered down at his tumbling body, listened to the shrillness in the air. She felt no remorse, only a hot hand and a numbing stillness inside.
    There had been one more, a girlfriend shoved off the top deck of a parking lot, an act Simone tried to delude herself into believing was an accident, but she gave up after a while because she knew the truth about herself. Deep inside she carried the intense desire to push people over the edge.
    Strangely, the desire came and went on its own, submerging and resurfacing like a demented creature that only needed to breathe once in a great while. In high school, the desire surfaced when she was in a gaggle of kids atop the bleachers during a football game. The urge was strong, but she was so worried about getting caught she was able to shove her hands in her pockets and walk away. That was the first time her rational mind took control, and it gave her hope for the future.
    At Ohio State, she studied genetic biology and familiarizedherself with the intricacies of DNA, polymers and nucleotides, chromosomes and replication. She read the works of Dr. Bristow, a scientist who theorized that one secret of the human race is that every person is born with a genetic flaw that leads to his fall. His theory comforted her. It meant the deaths were not really her fault, but at the same time she felt depressed. If her desire was gene based, that meant it would linger until the day she died.
    During that four years, the desire surfaced from time to time, never strong enough to act upon, and she was, more often than not, amused with herself