The Terror of Living: A Novel by Urban Waite

Author:Urban Waite [Waite, Urban]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Drug Dealers, Drug Traffic, Wilderness Areas - Washington (State), Wilderness Areas, Crime, Sheriffs, Suspense Fiction, Thrillers, Suspense, Fiction
ISBN: 9780316097895
Google: cxlwwocKMcoC
Amazon: 0316097896
Publisher: Hachette Digital, Inc.
Published: 2011-02-07T08:00:00+00:00

GRADY WALKED DOWNSTAIRS. THERE WAS A CERTAIN pleasure he'd taken in shooting the two horses. He trailed a hand along the wall, and as he went, he hummed to himself. It was a song of his own creation, perhaps something he'd heard in the past, though now changed and used in a different context. In his other hand he carried the rifle. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he went to the small fireplace in the living room and made a fire. He built it up. He sat on the couch and watched television. He relished the idea of taking Hunt's life apart piece by piece, like separating sinew and tendon, skin and muscle, breaking him down.

When the fire had burned for about ten minutes and he could see the coals beginning to develop, he took red, glowing logs and placed them under the couch. He put others beneath the drapes.

The smell of smoke and burnt plastic began to fill the room. He went into the kitchen and turned every valve of the range until he could hear gas.

Outside, the rain was still falling. He stepped down onto the yard and he felt the wet earth beneath him. The smell of horses and something new, something of his own creation, smoke and fire, almost claylike. At the pasture, he stopped to look over the bodies of the two horses he'd shot. The first had taken the three shots lengthwise, one to the neck and then the others falling farther back. The second horse he'd taken his time with, a shot at the front quarter, then the back, and the final in the head. Trails of blood ran off the wounds and down onto the ground.

The third horse stood nearby but did not make a move as Grady came to the fence and looked him over. The rain kept falling. There was that faint earth smell to the air, puddles, and raindrops. Grady watched the horse, the light from the house reflected in its big eyes.

The house blew then, startling the horse. Grady raised a hand to look at the house, as if shading his eyes from a strong sun. Flames in all the windows. He wished Hunt could hear the sound; he wanted him to know there was no coming back.

Grady felt the rain's cold touch already soaking through his clothes and on his skin. Streams of water rolled down from his hair and dropped from his nose, collecting along his jawline and falling from his chin. The fire was a brilliant hue of orange and red, alive in the gray falling rain. He saw the horse back there, still running along the far fence, rounding the corner and returning almost to the midpoint of the pasture and looking on. "Nothing to be afraid of," Grady said. He was watching the horse. Then with both hands he raised the rifle and took aim.

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