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VELOCITY

Page 26

by Jude Hardin


  I sprayed on some mosquito repellent, took my camera out of its case and got out to snap a few pictures. The cypress trees surrounding the clearing were heavily draped with Spanish moss, and some of them had purple carnivorous pitcher plants clustered at their bases. The sun was setting and the full moon rising and the area took on an eerie glow I knew the camera wouldn’t capture.

  An owl hooted in the distance. I followed the sound and tried to zoom in on it with my telephoto lens, but the bird was well-camouflaged and it took me a while to find it. I scanned the treetops for several minutes and finally saw a big yellow eye peering back at me. I snapped the shot. The eye was huge. You could have served a piece of pie on it.

  I heard some splashes, so I knew there was some water nearby. Probably a gator having dinner, I thought. I didn’t follow the sound and try to zoom in on it with my telephoto lens. Alligators don’t amuse me. I hate them. When I was fourteen, a friend from school named invited me to stay the night one time. We were goofing around one of the water hazards at the golf course across the street from his house when a gator came from nowhere and bit his right arm off at the elbow. I knew a little first aid, enough to tie a tourniquet and keep him from bleeding to death. My friend didn’t show up for school the next week, or the week after that. Or the week after that. I never saw him at school again, but I saw him in my dreams for a long time. Alligators don’t amuse me. I hate them.

  The owl hooted again. It was getting spooky out there in the swamp. It was creepy, and I started feeling like the guy who always gets slaughtered at the beginning of a horror movie. I climbed back into the car and put the camera away and rolled up the windows.

  Before I’d left civilization, I stopped at McDonald’s and bought two Big Macs and a large coffee and a bottle of spring water. I drank the coffee on the drive to the swamp, and I figured the burgers would give me something to do while I waited for eight o’clock. I unrolled the top of the bag and opened one of the Big Mac boxes and took a couple of bites and washed it down with some water.

  When we were still on good terms, Juliet used to fuss at me every time I bought fast food. She’s a nurse and she sees people younger than me admitted to the hospital all the time with heart attacks and strokes and other health issues brought on by lifetimes of bad choices. I knew she had a point, but I had given up cigarettes over three years ago and still attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings over the heroin addiction I’d acquired while imprisoned by the Harvest Angels. I’d always been kind of skinny and my blood pressure and cholesterol stayed within normal limits, so I didn’t think the occasional cheeseburger or scoop of ice cream was going to kill me.

  Thinking about Juliet made me want to call her. I looked at my cell phone, but there was no signal. I was too deep in the wilderness, too far from a tower. I made a mental note to call her on the way home. I opened the second Big Mac box and thought about it and decided one was enough. I stuffed the empty box from the first burger and the empty coffee cup and some dirty napkins into the McDonald’s bag and rolled the top of the bag tight and set it on the passenger’s side floorboard to throw away later.

  By 7:55 the sun was gone all the way but the moon was bright and I could still see the shapes of the trees and the Spanish moss. At 8:03 I decided nobody was coming. I reached for the ignition switch and something hit the windshield with a thud and then rolled off the hood and fell to the ground. I pulled my flashlight out of the glove box and my revolver out of its holster and opened the door and got out, thinking maybe the owl I’d heard earlier had accidentally smashed into the glass. I walked around the car and pointed the light at the object by the front tire on the passenger’s side.

  It wasn’t an owl.

  It was Nathan Broadway’s head.

  This concludes the sample chapters. If you would like to finish the entire novel, SNUFF TAG 9 is now available for purchase.

  Thanks again, and happy reading!

  Jude

  Copyright © 2015 by Jude Hardin

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author. Previously published by Amazon Publishing.

  August 2015

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  Excerpt: THE BLOOD NOTEBOOKS

  == Bonus Novel: CROSSCUT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  Excerpt: SNUFF TAG 9

 

 

 


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