Free HIGHWAY HOMICIDE by Bill WENHAM Page A

reasonably waterproof. He made his way back over to the hayloft ladder and, picking up the oil lamp, climbed the ladder up into the loft.
    He cleared a space of hay and emptied his pockets of all of his collected supplies. He’d put the lamp down but he wouldn’t light it. It would be a dead give away to the house’s occupants that there was someone inside their barn. A light shining inside the barn would surely bring them out to investigate, even if the barn was no longer in use.
    David was suddenly very hungry, almost ravenously hungry now. He attributed it to his freezing and debilitating experiences of the previous day.                Now, looking at his collection of unlabelled cans, he made his choice. Because it was the easiest, he chose what he believed to be canned meat. It was the easiest because it had its own pull strip and attached key. He thought would know immediately if it was still edible by the smell of it. Meat that was ‘off’ didn’t usually leave you in any doubt at all as to its edibility.
    Beside him, poking out from under the hay was a small piece of painted plywood. He picked it up and wiped it on the sleeve of the parka. Not very hygienic, he thought, but what the hell, he had to put the meat on something.
    He keyed the metal strip open and sniffed at the contents. The meat seemed to be okay and once again he was out of options. He continued pulling the top off of the can, upended it onto the piece of plywood and shook it. Nothing happened until he had shaken it several more times.
    Finally it plopped out of the can and on to the plywood ‘plate’. It was corned b eef, just as he’d thought it would be. David picked up the board and sniffed at the meat again just to be sure. The can was sure as hell long past its ‘use by’ date.
    He took a deep breath, picked the block of meat up off the board and bit into it. He wasn’t sure if it was contaminated in any way but right now it tasted just great. In no time at all, he had eaten all of it, but he’d also need to drink as well.
    He’ d had nothing liquid at all since the coffee at the diner the previous day. After leaving the board on the floor of the loft, he climbed back down the ladder and began to look around the barn. He soon found what he was looking for. A galvanized metal bucket was hanging from a nail in one of the stalls.
    It was dusty, but otherwise appeared to be relatively clean. He took it over to the small entry door, scooped some snow into it and wiped it out. Then he half filled it with fresh snow and carried it back inside again. When the snow melted, the water he’d have would be as pure as he could have wished for. In the meantime he took a handful of snow and slowly put some of it into his mouth.
    Carrying the bucket up the ladder, he set it down on the loft floor and packed hay around it, which he thought would speed up the melting process. He didn’t realize that out in the barn, the hay would probably insulate it rather than help to melt it.
    Finally he made one more trip down the ladder. This time he took the piece of plywood with him. Carrying it over to the door as he’d done with the bucket, he used some more snow to scrub it as clean as he could.
    He smiled to hims elf as he recalled a saying his old English grandmother used. “Don’t worry about a little bit of dirt, laddie. You’ll be eating a peck of it before you die.” She never did tell him what a peck was though.
    David closed the door and carrying the board with him, he climbed back up the ladder into the loft again. He put the board down beside the oil lamp and took off his jeans, his soaking wet socks and boots. He hung the socks and jeans to dry over the rail of the loft, and then he burrowed himself as deeply down into the hay as he could. Within minutes, he’d stopped shivering and he was fast asleep.
    Hours later, he awoke in a panic to the sound of an engine running right outside the barn door.

Chapter Eleven
     
    Erica