The Hanging Hill Read Online Free

past the moon in about a minute. Faster if nobody needed a bathroom break.
    Now Zack observed an obstacle—dead ahead.
    “Houston, we have a problem,” he thought.
    “This is Houston.” He imagined a different voice to keep the dialogue rolling in his head. “We see it. Appears to have eighteen rotating drive mechanisms. What in blazes is it, man?”
    “Some sort of cargo vessel,” navigator Zack shot back. “The markings on its tail fin flaps suggest it’s an intergalactic grocery hauler from the planet Krogerus. How ever, I suspect it’s actually a pirate ship carrying concealed contraband from the mining colony on Melkior Six.”
    Judy flicked on her turn signal and, increasing speed, eased into the passing lane.
    “Houston, we are initiating aggressive counter-measures.”
    “Careful, man!”
    “Careful? Ha! I laugh in your general direction. Ha, ha, ha!”
    “You might run into a meteor shower,” said the nervous radio voice back on earth.
    “No thanks,” the cocky space cadet voice snapped back. “I already washed my hair.”
    Zack knew every good space movie needed a couple corny jokes. They called it witty banter.
    Suddenly, a glowing missile came flying out of the truck.
    A cigarette butt.
    Its tip flared red as it left the driver’s window and flew like a hot coal shot from a cannon. It would’ve scored a direct hit on their windshield, but the small car’s sleek aerodynamic design sent it up and over the roof!
    Ha!
    The invisible force field had once again proven to be an excellent defense against sneak butt attacks!
    Zack checked out the side-view mirror and saw the cigarette smack into the pavement, where it exploded into a shower of a thousand tiny sparks.
    Cigarettes.
    They were always out to get him.
    Cigarettes were what killed his real mother. Gave her cancer. Of course, she said she only smoked so much because Zack drove her crazy and ruined her life just by being born.
    He felt the turbocharger kick in as they eased past the rumbling truck. Zack looked up to give the trucker a wave—just to let the guy behind the wheel know how not afraid of flying butts he was.
    Only the truck driver wasn’t a guy.
    It was a woman, a fresh cigarette already jammed between her lips.
    She flicked her lighter and Zack saw her face, illuminated by the candling flame.
    She looked angry. Furious at the whole world. She looked exactly like his real mother had looked right before she’d gotten sick and died.

9
    Reginald Grimes lurked in the shadows at the back of the auditorium, watching the cast of Bats in Her Belfry take their curtain calls.
    Near one of the exit alcoves, Grimes noticed a terrified usher. She was staring at him.
    So Grimes glared at her.
    She scurried away.
    They always did.
    The audience was on its feet now, giving Grimes’s staging of the beloved Broadway musical comedy a standing ovation. As the show’s director, Grimes did not attend every performance after opening night. But tomorrow he was scheduled to begin rehearsals for Curiosity Cat . A perfectionist, Grimes wanted to make certain Bats was in the best shape possible before he moved on to his next project.
    It was not.
    He would need to go backstage. Have a word with the cast.
    Heads would roll. Well, at least one very pretty head.
    As the audience continued to applaud and thunder “Bravo!,” Thurston Powell, the actor playing Dracula, came to center stage to twirl his cape and take his solo bow.
    Grimes wondered once again how that must feel.
    To savor the limelight. To bask in the glory of a triumphant performance. To soak up the love and adulation of a thousand total strangers.
    Yes, there had been a time when Reginald Grimes had dreamed of being a world-renowned actor, but his physical deformity prevented it from ever becoming a reality. As a small child, barely two, he had been left alone in the orphanage laundry with a gas-powered wringer washer. He had, or so he had always been told by the nurse who witnessed the