Short Stories by Lanyon Josh

Author:Lanyon, Josh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: teachers, actors, navy seals, paris, actionadventure, geologists, single author collections, contempory romance, summer reads, short reads
Publisher: Josh Lanyon

* * * * *

The house loomed before me. Ten stories tall. The windows flashed red in the setting sun. The hinges of the broken front door shrieked as the door swung open…

I jerked awake. It was freezing. My head throbbed. My mouth tasted horrible. I needed a piss.

“Bad dream?” Luke asked softly.

Confused, I realized that we were somehow in the same sleeping bag, and I was lying plastered on top of him, my sweaty head resting in the curve of his shoulder. He was dressed again; we both were, although I didn’t remember pulling my clothes back on, didn’t remember zipping ourselves into the bag.

“I…No. I…don’t remember.” I answered in a whisper, responding to his own hushed tone, even as I wondered why we were whispering.

Somewhere to the left, a twig snapped. I shivered.

He pulled the sleeping bag — wet with dew — over my shoulders, and slipped one arm around me again. It felt very good to be held. Even like this, in jeans and flannel shirts, I could feel and was comforted by the heat of his body. His hand slipped under my shirt, absently smoothing up and down my spine.

Despite the soothing touch, I heard the steady, swift thump of his heart beneath my ear.

His other arm, I slowly realized, rested on top of the sleeping bag — and he was holding a gun.

“Is something wrong?”

“Not sure. I think someone might be out there.”

I sucked in a sharp breath, starting to pull away. He held me still. His put his mouth against my forehead. “Shhh. Don’t let on.”

I made myself lie still. Stared at what I could see of his profile in the dark. “What do we do?”

“Wait.”

Wait?

For someone to pick us off as we lay by the cooling embers of our campfire? And I thought I had to pee before? My own heart was ricocheting around my ribcage. I felt for the zip of the sleeping bag, gently pulled it down. Luke nodded infinitesimal approval, continued to stroke my back in that automatic way, his eyes watching the line of trees surrounding the clearing.

We lay there not moving for what felt like an hour. Then I heard an owl call: not the drowsy nocturnal hoot, but the screech they make when they hunt.

A dank, damp breeze scented with the tangled undergrowth washed over my perspiring face. And all at once the night was alive with sound. From silence to deafening racket; I could practically hear ants marching up and down the grass blades, the dew drops crashing from the leaves overhead. Even the stars overhead seemed to crackle brightly in the black and bottomless sky. Too bright for my eyes…

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