Dark Witness Read Online Free

each other. There is nothing I can do to make it better. No one can make this better especially not the guy in the dork hat who puts his hands on girls' butts and drinks beer before he drives.
    Some of the boxes break free, others slip and slide against their restraints. Now we're rag dolls tossed into a toy chest with outsized blocks. I try to throw my arms over my head, but then I put them straight out and grab for something, anything that will stop my slide.
    Then I'm levitating.
    I am free.
    The weight on my shoulders lifts. Worry is a thing of the past. Fear is replaced with awe. I am flying. When the driver opens the door, when I come to ground, when I can see the damage done, I will be fearful, and grateful, and probably be one of those crazy people I always worry about. But now I am flying and happy and then Billy cries out in anguish. He knows what's going to happen a split second before I do.
    The container is hit in the middle and folds like a big guy sucker punched by a coward. The edge of the flatbed hits the same hard thing a second later. The boxes break free completely. My hands go over my head. I tuck as best I can into a fetal position. In the blackness I don't know where the danger is coming from; in the next instant I do. Danger is coming from everywhere: down, up, around us, inside and out. Boxes filled with heavy things fly at us, the container surrounding us is no longer formidable; it is only a skin as easily cut through as that on my arms. We bounce around like pinballs; we slide away like air-hockey pucks. We try to grab ahold of one another to keep from smashing into things, but things smash into us. Our hands never meet. Our voices rise and fall. The sounds we make are nothing compared to the awesome sound of metal crushing. The heavy cab of the truck gets the best of the trailer and is now racing downward, front first, pulling us with it. We careen. We crumple. We roll and bang. I scream and scream. Billy calls out my name one last time and then all is silent.
    All is still.
    My mind goes dark.
    Billy Zuni is no more, and neither am I.
     
    ***
     
    Nell kept the plane steady on its course for ten miles before dipping down to check out a particularly promising place, in the seemingly endless forest, where she might be able to put down some weekend warriors who didn't want to hike from her usual drop point.
    Idiots .
    What were they coming all this way to do if not hike?
    Still, the customer was always right so here she was scouting as the day wore down. When she found a clearing that would do, Nell made the turn and headed home. Her heart really wasn't in this gig. The season was over, she had worked steady, and her bank account was solid. The last thing she wanted was to be responsible for a bunch of fat cats who would panic at the first white out and then blame her for not being able to get in to pick them up.
    Nell checked her headings and then veered off course a few degrees, flying low and tight to the mountains just for the fun of it. She started to sing Some Enchanted Evening in a voice that would never be ready for prime time as she drummed a beat over the sound of the engine. She was almost on the second verse when she thought she saw something out of whack below. She was too tight to circle, but kept her eye on it as long as she could as she fired up the radio.
    "This is Beaver 220," she said.
    "Hey there," came the response. "Whatcha doing up this late in the day?"
    "Scouting," she said. "Listen. Is there some major logging going on out north of my location?"
    "Not that I know of," came the answer. "What are you looking at?"
    "I'm not sure. Looks like a big hole in the universe down there." She laughed. "Like all the trees are missing just below an old road."
    "That's weird," came the reply. "No construction or logging that I know of. Any vehicles on that road?"
    "Not that I can see," Nell answered. "Back at you if I figure it out."
    With that, she signed off. She was home forty minutes