Prairie Edge by Conor Kerr

Author:Conor Kerr [Kerr, Conor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2024-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

I woke up with a start. The pitch-black room closed in on me. The walls felt like they were pulsing in the darkness. I didn’t know where I was. Why was it so dark? I closed my eyes and I saw the dead guy staring back up at me. I heard his final breath again and again. I lay perfectly still, scared to breathe. I didn’t want to sound like him. I wanted to sound alive. I could feel my clothes on me. I reached down and checked. My jeans and hoodie were still on. I was wrapped up in a kohkum quilt. As my eyes adjusted, I recognized the Edmonton Oilers flag hanging behind a television mounted on the wall. Then it all clicked. I was in Tyler’s bed. I got up and straightened out my clothes. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. The house was quiet. I looked at my phone. Seven in the morning. It wouldn’t be dark out for long. I started tiptoeing my way towards the front door. I recognized Tyler’s soft snores coming from the living room. I didn’t want to wake him up. The less we talked, the better. I didn’t have time to bullshit. I had to get the livestock trailer and truck back up to my parents’ before people started recognizing it and looking for it. Or maybe they would never look for it. Maybe I had gone unnoticed. I didn’t know. I just needed to clean it out and be rid of it. I started putting my boots on. The snores stopped.

“Grey,” I heard Tyler call out. The tableside lamp turned on. He stood up, wearing only his boxers. The dim light brought out his best features and hid the worst ones. From this angle, he looked like he did twenty pounds ago, back when we first started seeing each other. I felt a twinge of lust run through me. I pressed it down. It could be so easy to fall back into bed right now and just forget about the truck, trailer, bison, Ezzy, that dead man, all of it. We could hide out here forever.

“I have to go,” I said.

“My cousin Ryan will be by in an hour or so. You want to wait around for him?”

“Nope. I need to get this trailer back to my parents.”

“Let me make you a coffee for the road,” he said.

“I really can’t. I have to go now.” I left the house and walked as fast as I could towards the truck. I would not run. Running was weak. But I was weak. The dead man was weak. That’s why he was dead. Ezzy was weak. Tyler was definitely weak. The land was strong. It supported all of our weak-asses.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.