CHAPTER 15CHARLIE
December 9, 2090
Orville, Kansas had been run-down when I was a kid, and it hadn’t improved during the years I’d been away. Many businesses on Main Street had closed, and those that remained all had cracked display windows and peeling paint. Head down against the wind and hands in my pockets, I walked until my feet left the pavement and crunched over the gravel of the dead-end road I’d walked every day of my childhood.
In the dull moonlight, my house loomed, always dilapidated but now with broken windows and missing shingles. It didn’t bother me to see the house falling apart, but sitting on the front steps, Griff, as big and intimidating as ever, stopped my feet.
“Hey, kid. I was worried you wouldn’t come.” Although I expected him to lunge at me, he simply stood and
