CHAPTER EIGHTOctober 2005
Blake had lied about having to relieve himself. It was just an excuse so he could collect his thoughts. The tracks on the ground brought back a powerful ghost, one that haunted him relentlessly. The footprints led into and out of the six-foot sewer pipe. The prints were deep and long—the tracks of a big man carrying a heavy burden in and out. They were his own tracks from almost a year ago, still waiting for the rainy season to mercifully release them from the mud that had turned them into concrete, baked by the blazing summer sun. Not even the edges had broken down and tumbled inward. They were sharp and jagged, like tall prison walls, holding in the memories of the day Blake had been here—the day he had carried his friend’s limp body into the pipe after drawing
