1931 The Grand Punk Railroad: Local Read Online Free

it’s just, well, I felt sort of like, you know, like the corpses might get up and come to kill me. I-I mean, a little while ago, I read about it in a book. It said corpses get up and drink the blood of the living and kill them…”
    “You’ve got to learn to tell reality from fiction, Jacuzzi. That could never happen.”
    Just then, suddenly, a roar went up behind them.
    “Rrraaaaarrgh… Corpses, get up, drink blood, trouble, scary.”
    “Oh, you think so, too, Donny? I’m glad it’s not just me…”
    “Luh, leave it to me.”
    The big guy he’d called Donny thumped his chest. His brown skin and halting English marked him as an immigrant who’d just come up from Mexico.
    “I-I’ll, kill ’em, real good.”
    No sooner had he spoken than the big man’s foot stomped down on the pile of bodies. Dull sounds and sharp sounds formed a weird ensemble that echoed across the area. At the impact, the corpses bounded up almost as if they’d been alive, and the knives that had been stuck in them all fell out at once. In time with the impact of the next few stomps, blood geysered out from the holes left by the knives.
    “Waaaaaaaaugh! D-Donny, stop it! You’ve got to treat dead people politely!”
    Jacuzzi hastily checked his subordinate. As if trading places with him, Nice walked up to the pile of corpses. Then she took several long, thin cylinders from inside her shirt and began to dress the strings that sprouted from their tips.
    “Um, Nice? What are you doing?”
    He had a truly awful premonition. The unease was clearly audible in Jacuzzi’s question. In response, Nice—smiling—took out a Zippo lighter.
    “No, don’t tell me, you wouldn’t really, would you? Nice. …Nice? Niiiiiiice!”
    Before he could stop her, Nice had set fire to the fuses. They began to spark vigorously.
    Gazing raptly at those fireworks, as though they were a lover she hadn’t seen in a hundred years, Nice quietly laid the metal shells attached to the other end of those fuses atop the mountain of corpses.
    Then, with a smile so pleasant it was startling, she turned to address her companions.
    “Now, then. If you don’t run fast, you’ll be in danger!”
    A roar echoed through the alley. Red flares repelled the moonlight, and then the alley was enveloped in a violent flash.
    Even after that had died down, smaller lights burned here and there throughout the corridor. Fragments of something that had been sent flying by the exploding dynamite had turned into kindling, and they cast a dim glow over Jacuzzi and the others, who’d taken cover at a distance.
    As she got up slowly, Nice comforted the shaking boy.
    “There, there, don’t cry. You see? The corpses are all in pieces now, so you don’t have to worry. They won’t be able to come back, so don’t cry. I did it for you, Jacuzzi.”
    As he calmed his rough breathing, the boy glared at Nice with tear-filled eyes.
    “Th-th-that’s a lie. Y-y-you just wanted to use explosives, didn’t you, Nice? You just wanted to see an explosion, right?”
    “Actually, yes.”
    She answered without compunction, giving her very best smile with the only eye she had.
    “Nuh, N-N-N-Niiiice, I’m going to hit you later!”
    “You couldn’t. You never could. You couldn’t do anything that barbaric, could you, Jacuzzi?”
    “Wah…”
    “There, you see?!”
    Watching the triumphant Nice out of the corner of his eye, Jacuzzi spoke to the one man who hadn’t taken cover during the explosion.
    “Then, Donny, you hit her instead.”
    “Mm, got it. I hit Nice, Jacuzzi happy, then I happy, too.”
    The brown-skinned giant swung his arms around happily.
    “I’m-sorry-I-won’t-do-it-again-I’ll-never-go-against-you-again-so-forgive-meee!”
    Holding her head with both hands, the one-eyed woman ran around among the flames.
    As they watched this exchange—which happened once every three days or so—their other companions laughed: “Hee-hya-ha-hee-hee!”
    “O-o-okay, guys, let’s hurry