The Santa Shop by Tim Greaton

Author:Tim Greaton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Focus House Publishing
Published: 2010-06-30T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight: A Last Hurrah

The bridge turned out to be only a twenty-minute walk from town. It was also surprisingly easy to find once I noticed a street sign declaring River Road. Though brief, the walk to the river was scenic. The town of Gray sat on a plateau that separated a series of four mountains in the east from a deep gorge and another cluster of mountains in the west. River Road skirted along the edge of the town's plateau and offered a breathtaking view of the snow-covered gorge and the western mountains beyond. Sheer granite faces dotted the otherwise white peaks in the distance. Painted against a brilliant backdrop of blue sky, the scene was like a picture you might find on a puzzle.

As it happened, the bridge was one of those tall, black steel affairs. Barely two cars wide and at least a hundred feet long, the charcoal structure extended from the edge of the plateau, across a deep ravine, all the way to a ridge on the other side. I peered over the edge and gasped. It was easily a hundred feet straight down to the soupy mixture of ice and black water at the base of the ravine.

No wonder people killed themselves here. It was certain that no one could survive the fall.

I backed away from the edge and waited for my heart to return to normal. There was an irony here, I knew. It seemed ludicrous that I was ready to leap from the bridge, but the chance of slipping and falling from it terrified me.

I walked a little further back toward town and leaned against a tree, comfortably distant from the edge of the ravine. For a while, I watched the water and ice churn slowly downstream. The wind was biting. My breath emerged in great clouds, and even with my hands stuffed securely into the depths of my woolen pockets I could feel them stiffening in response to the frigid Vermont air.

If I wanted to survive long enough to leap tonight, it was obvious that I had to get back to town and find a warm place to hole up. The thought of a movie theater was a pleasant fantasy, but Gray didn't look big enough to even have a video store.

During the walk back, a man in a silver CadillacTM crossed the bridge and stopped to offer me a ride. I caught the look of derision as he eyed me up and down and could see relief on his puffy face when I declined.

"Merry Christmas," I whispered as he gunned the engine. As if in response to my sarcasm, the Cadillac'sTM big tires spun snow up into my face.

Unlike the Albany station, Gray's bus stop was nothing more than a sign and a bench. There weren't even a few rectangles of PlexiglasTM to break the wind. I thought of cuddling up on the open bench, but it would surely be too cold and would bring suspicious eyes my way.

There was no

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