Text d: Thriller

The yellow moon is misshapen like an overripe mango, hanging heavy over scrubby trees and weeds and dense shadows. In the uneven light of the moon, Hog can see well enough to make out the thing.

He sees it coming because he knows where to look. For several minutes, he has detected its infrared energy in the Heat Stalker he moves horizontally in the dark in a slow scan, like a wand, like a magic wand. A line of bright-red hatch marks marches across the rear LED window of the lightweight olive-green PVC tube as it detects differences in the surface temperatures of the warm-blodded thing in the earth.

He is Hog, and his body is a thing, and he can leave it on demand and no one can see him. No one can see him now in the middle of the empty night holding the Heat Stalker like a leveler while it detects warmth radiating from living flesh and alerts him with small bright-red marks that flow in single file across the dark glass.

Probably the thing is a raccoon. Stupid thing. Hog silently talks to it as he sits cross-legged on sandy soil and scans. He glances down at the bright red marks moving across the lens at the rear end of the tube, the front end pointed at the thing. He searches the shadowy berm and feels the ruined old house behind him, feels its pull. His head is thick because of the earplugs, his breathing loud, the way it sounds when you breathe through a snorkel, submerged and silent, nothing but the sound of your own rapid, shallow breaths. He doesn’t like earplugs, but it is important to wear them.

Cornwell, Patricia. 2005. Predator. London: Time Warner Books.

Created with the Personal Edition of HelpNDoc: Free EPub producer