CyberSpace: A CyberStorm Novel (Cyber Series Book 1) by Matthew Mather

Author:Matthew Mather [Mather, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pallas Publishing
Published: 2020-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

“YOU OKAY, SON?”

An elderly man with a shock of white hair and iron-gray stubble across his chin and cheeks held a cool rag to my head. Rivulets of water streamed from it across my forehead and into my eyes. I wiped the drops away with the back of one shaky hand. I was laid out flat on a bench by a dark wood wall.

“My name’s Joe,” the old man said, his voice calm. “Everybody calls me Farmer Joe. Sorry ’bout the boys, they got a little skittish on account of the news.” He inspected my face. “You’re gonna have one beauty of a shiner around that eye.”

I took the rag from him. My nose was still sore from two days before. I felt like I’d gone a round with Foreman. “Thanks.”

“Luke, you okay?” I heard him whispering.

“Go on,” I heard Chuck say.

My son appeared from my right and wrapped his arms around my neck. “I thought you were dead,” he whimpered.

“I’m fine,” I said, but I wasn’t.

I remembered the rifle butt coming at me, Chuck yelling, someone else screaming about a gun. My memory after that was patchy, my head pounding, my vision still swimming. And what was that smell?

Manure? Hay?

Both of those. And shoe polish. And smoke. The fires. The air felt heavier, denser.

I lifted my right arm to hug Luke, then used it to prop myself up. Hay was strewn across a cement floor. Chuck sat on a matching bench on the other side of the stall. There were bars across an exterior window with the hazy orange sky beyond, and bars on the opposite wall. It took me a beat or two to piece together the high arching ceiling and figure it out.

“Is this your barn?” I asked Farmer Joe, who perched on the bottom edge of my bench.

“That’s right.” He was dressed in a red plaid shirt and faded, stained dungarees. His long, bony fingers were calloused and knotted thick as braided rope.

Luke wiped away snot with his shirt sleeve. I whispered to him that I was okay and to go back with Uncle Chuck on the other side. I needed air, and while I wanted my boy close, having his arms pincered around my neck wasn’t helping right now.

I inspected the polished woodwork of the walls. “Nice.”

“Not built for working animals. Made this for my wife, God rest her soul. She liked horses. I do too. Not as much as she did. Had to sell them when she passed. So now it’s an empty barn. And empty house.”

“Sorry to hear that.”

“Mike, you okay?” Chuck took Luke back between his arms. “You took a hell of a shot to the head.” He glanced out past the bars of the door.

I could see the shaved-head guy. Standing guard, I assumed.

Farmer Joe stood to give me room to swing my legs down and sit up. A wave of nausea doubled me over.

“You want some water?” Joe asked.

For the first time, I noticed a small white dog. He barked.

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