World Without End
Excerpt I

Patrolman Stevie McHenry stared out the window at the pale disk of the moon."Guys been walking around up there." He sipped his extra-large double cream, double sugar and thought about how improbable that was. "You believe that, Jerry?"

Jerry sat at scarred wooden desk, a drift of paper sifted out in front of him. He looked over the top of his glasses at the young patrolman. "Course I believe it. What, you think people make stuff like that up?" He snorted and went back to his papers.

McHenry left the window and leaned against the long counter that faced the door, watching Jerry write in the log book in his tiny, anal-retentive handwriting. "My daddy never did believe it. Couple of birthdays ago, I got him a DVD of those guys walking around up there in those white suits, picking up rocks. He said it was made up, just like all those space movies. Believed that til the day he died."

Jerry grunted and continued to write.

McHenry sighed and glanced at the clock.

Two o'clock in the morning. Only five hours until shift change. That was the butt-ugly downside of being a Mississippi Highway Patrol officer. You sat behind a desk in the quiet of the night, waiting for something to happen. He'd been a patrolman for all of a month, and already it drove him crazy. And it didn't help when you pulled a shift with a fossil like Jerry Clegg.

Stevie sat down at the other desk. Jerry’s pen scritched on the paper of the log book. Stevie bit little indentations into the rim of his paper coffee cup, all the way around. At least he could look forward to when Billy checked in. Billy was as old as Jerry, but Billy liked to talk.

The phone rang, loud in the quiet office.

copyright 2006