Home Fires — a Jake Burbank Mystery Thriller

HOME FIRES

The crickets and tree frogs chirped in the warm night air, a contest over who could be the loudest noise in the otherwise still night.

The old two story farmhouse sat at the end of a weed clogged dirt road, the ruts worn deep, the red clay packed like baked stone.

Woods surrounded the farmhouse, hiding it from the gravel road that led between the trees and fields to an old two lane blacktop.

A solitary figure turned off the asphalt and onto the crunchy gravel.

The night was dark, moonless, but the figure moved without light, seeming to know the way well.

He wandered from one side of the gravel road to the other, feeling the tall weeds whip against his pants leg, a warning that he was close to the deep ditches that lined either side.

The insects in the grass were quiet as he passed, instinct assessing him as a threat, but returned to their merrymaking as soon as he left them.

A pocket of quiet marked his passage, but no one noticed.

The three houses scattered along the road were deserted, dilapidated structures, mere shells of their former selves.

He could see none of the homes from the road, but he knew they were there, just as he knew to turn off the gravel road onto the weed choked dirt road.