Free Drummer Boy: A Supernatural Thriller by Scott Nicholson Page A

had heard that same voice on a long-ago summer day. He looked down at his hands as if they belonged to a stranger. “I’m guilty,” he said. “Of a lot of things.”
    Sheriff Littlefield picked up his hat and pulled the brim down so it threw his eyes in shadow. “Looked like you slipped to me, Bill. I don’t see any probable cause.”
    “You’re both crazy,” Bill said, breaking into a jiggling jog back toward his Humvee. “See if I support your ass in the next election.”
    As the oversize engine gunned to life and the vehicle circled, smashing into a two-foot wild cherry in the process, the sheriff moved to Hardy’s side. “Maybe he’s right,” Littlefield said. “Maybe we’re both crazy.”
    “I wish,” Hardy said. “That would make a whole lot more sense.”
    They shared a gaze into the silence of the Hole but looked away before whatever might be in there had a chance to look back.

CHAPTER SEVEN
     
    Wood and lacquer exploded in a white cascade, a cannonball thundering through the ranks.
    “Mother
fuck
,” Elmer Eldreth said, balancing on one toe like a ballet dancer after two pitchers of Old Milwaukee. He squared and faced the 7 and 10 pins, which wobbled with just as much unsteadiness as the man who’d tried to knock them into the next county. Hands out, Elmer pointed his index fingers at the pins like a gunslinger in a street showdown.
    “Split like a whore’s legs on payday,” Jeff Davis said. “Too bad Mac’s gone high-tech redneck with those electronic scoreboards, or I’d cheat you a pin on the card.”
    Elmer holstered his fingers as the rack swept the fallen pins away and replaced the two outside pins. Only one way to play it, knock the 10 with a reverse spin and hope it kicked off the wall and across the lane to the other gutter. But that was a shot only a lefty could pull off, and only under the blessing of a blue moon, or by selling his soul to the Gutterball God. And damned if Elmer’s soul wasn’t already maxed out, run-to-the-red bankrupt.
    He trailed Jeff by seven pins in the last frame, and unless he nailed the split, he wouldn’t get that final bonus roll that might push him over the top. Tonight’s bet was for tickets to the Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte. The big NASCAR races were heading west and north, following the corporate money, and all the Southern tracks were stuck with the Tru Value Hardware Monster Truck Mash and rinky-dink shit like that.
    Not that Elmer was opposed to watching mountains of steel and rubber pile up in a giant, smoking scrap heap, he just didn’t feel like driving two hours to do it. He could get the same experience right at home in the trailer park and have a fridge full of beer at his fingertips to boot.
    Still, a ticket was a ticket and a win was a win.
    Not that a win was likely. Jeff had drilled two strikes in a row to come storming up from behind. That little jab about Mac McAllister’s new computerized scoring system was pretty much dirty pool, except Jeff usually kicked his ass at pool, too. Elmer suspected Jeff had laid back and coasted in his draft, fell behind on purpose just to make a last-second run and blow Elmer’s head gaskets while dashing for the checkered. Elmer was running on fumes but he was going to punch the pedal to the end. He realized he was mixing racing and bowling in his head but he figured one beer-drinking activity was as good as the next.
    “I’ll nail this one,” Elmer said, licking his thumb as the ball rolled up the return and clacked against Jeff’s in that macho ball-knocking ritual that no heterosexual male would ever acknowledge for what it was.
    “You can’t even nail Mac’s wife,” Jeff said, loud enough for their pal to hear over the clatter of pins, the rumble of wracking machinery, and a twangy, boozy Kenny Chesney blaring from the jukebox speakers.
    Mac lifted the aerosol can he’d used to sanitize a row of rental shoes, pointed the nozzle at Jeff, and shot a pine-scented mist that