CHAPTER TEN
It was one of those nights, he thought, where the southern heat fills the countryside like an invisible giant, hell bent on stomping everything. His footfalls on the sidewalk were soft and yet sounded impossibly loud. Even the tree frogs and the crickets sounded loud, almost like some weird fake noise that was pumping through an impossibly loud speaker.
He was walking close to the buildings along the street, trying his best to keep as much of his body away from the sparse streetlights as he could. Dusk had turned to night about half an hour ago, casting the small-town streets into a state of quiet that was almost otherworldly.
But the quiet was the whole reason he was here—well, maybe not the quiet itself but what the quiet brought out.
As he reached the end of the street,
