I’m not sure how long it took us to get back, about a half-hour, I reckon. I only know the sun was starting to go down and it was getting cold, like, real cold, enough to see our breath and for our fingers and toes to start going numb. One thing was for sure: it was going to be a hellish night with no radiator and no heat, unless of course Tucker got back—if he was coming back—before the freezing temperatures set in.
I only know that Tucker was the last thing on my mind when Danny told me to search the payload toolbox for a lighter, and it’s funny, because when I first saw him stretched out in the bed of the truck I thought he was fooling and had somehow double-timed through the trees and beat us there, just to give us a good scare.
But Tucker wasn’t fooling. He was dead. I knew it the m
