Free Her Yearning for Blood by Tim Greaton Page A

never have come here. He hadn’t hung out with any of us since third grade, the year his father died. I remembered the event clearly because my grandfather had also been found dead in the woods that same day. The police claimed it was a passing serial killer, but no one in Groacherville had ever believed that.
    The ex plosions seemed to have stopped but rather than thinning , the molecules in the air grew denser , b lack and clotting like an airborne cancer. I c ould barely see my outstretched hand in front of me . Anxious to get free of the smo ke before I suffocated , I took several more inhalations through my collar then h eld my breath and swung forward a s quickly as my crutches would allow until I had to stop and suck air through my blouse again. A healthy person might have crawled across the ground where the air w as probably b etter, but I couldn’t even bend my knee forget crawl on it.
    S e veral panicked voices surged toward me from the right .
    “ This is the wrong way, Sherrie! ” one girl squealed . “We should have seen the cars by now ! ”
    “ It’s not my fault,” another female snapped. “ I t’s not like I’m a ranger or anything.” She coughed. “ Let’s g o right.” Cough. “The cars must be that way ! ”
    I probably should have call ed out , but I recognized the voice of our head football cheerleader. Sherrie Tepper would have been more likely to steal my crutches than wait for me . Besides, she and her gaggle sounded as lost as I was. I drew more tainted air through my shirt. Suddenly, fear of dying on a concrete pad at the end of a dead end road seemed entirely too possible. Shaking the thought from my mind , I pressed forward . I had only moved a dozen steps when the faint sob s from Sherrie’s group faded completely into the cloying smog behind me. F eeling as though a death shroud had been thrown over the abandoned military site , I fought my rising panic and forced myself to keep going.
    Thud, swish. Thud swish.
    My rhythm faltered when the tip of one crutch slid forward on a loose patch of sand. I gasped and managed to stop the slipping rubber before something terrible happened, but as I pulled my crutch back into position I silently curs ed the murky air. Even in clear conditions, the sand, c racks and loose chunks of concrete made using crutches tricky. I n the black smog , they were downright treacherous .
    I sucked air through my collar and tried to calm the dread that had been rising inside of me since the first explosion hit. I knew that once I reach ed th e edge of the concrete, I w ould be able to follow the border to Amanda’s car . Unfortunately, the growing pain in my side and the feeling that I might not be going in a straight line made me doubt I w ould ever get there . I breathed in several lungfuls of acrid air then , praying the smoke would settle soon, set out once again in the dark haze. A fter stopping several more times , my side ached and my lungs burned. My world had bec o me a nightmare of pain and fear . But each time I wanted to give up, I convinced myself that it wouldn’t be much further, that the cars and my friends were just ahead.
    Thud, swish.
    Suddenly, on e of my crutches sank and twisted out of my hand, spilling me onto the rock-strewn sand. A thousand spikes of pain rocketed from my kneecap straight to my brain. A week earlier, when my doctor removed my cast and replaced it with a plastic and foam brace , he had warned me that my knee would be fragile for several more months .
    Just one more price I had paid for trying to impress Evan Groacher .
    I sucked in a ragged breath. That’s what I got for thinking he might actually see me as something other than the grease- monkey who made out his bills whenever he stopped for an oil change or tire rotations at my father’s garage. The worst part about my soccer accident was that he had not even been c oaching th at day .
    Knowing I was either t he unluckiest or dumbest person in Groacherville,