Deadside in Bug City Read Online Free Page B

the “lovers” jump, and Joe jerked his head toward the sound.
    Rat Face staggered backward, righted himself and pulled a hunting knife from the leather sheath hidden beneath the tails of his fatigue shirt. With a roar of rage he dove over the counter in a graceless parody of a swashbuckling pirate in an old Douglas Fairbanks movie. He and the storekeeper disappeared behind the counter as the pistol fired again, shattering the florescent light in the ceiling and sending down a small shower of glass and shadow.
    The girl tugged on Joe’s hand, urging him toward the door, but he resisted, keeping his feet planted on the dirty tile. He was drawn to the violence. He had to see it. To walk out now would be the same as walking out of a blockbuster action movie during the best part. He couldn’t do it. Never mind that this was most certainly not a movie and that he himself might easily become a victim of the violence. He simply couldn’t tear himself away.
    “Come on ,” said the halter-top girl. “Are you nuts?”
    “You go,” he told her without glancing her way. “Call the police.”
    She wrenched her hand from his (he had forgotten he was still holding it) and dashed out the door. The cowbell clattered in her wake.
    Joe couldn’t see them, but he heard the scuffling and grunting and cursing as the two men grappled on the floor behind the counter. And he heard the steady bonging of the church bell. He was getting used to the lulling sound of the ancient bell, and it somehow gave him courage to approach the counter and peer over its edge, past the Marlboro display, the herbal stay-awake pills, the disposable lighters, the little rack of beef jerky, and all the other junky impulse-items arrayed near the cash register.
    The knife rose in a dirty hand attached to a tattooed arm. Joe gripped the counter with both his hands and followed the arc of the blade as it sliced through the chilly air and struck the Pakistani’s throat, sinking halfway to the hilt. Blood gushed from the wound and spurted onto the knife-wielder’s thick knuckles, then dripped down the ragged edges of his fingernails, eclipsing the black crud embedded beneath them.
    Joe watched with sickened wonder as the blade pulled out of the punctured throat, drawing a stringy gutted-worm piece of the Pakistani’s inner anatomy (a severed blood vessel?) with it. Then the blade descended again, this time burying itself deep in the storekeeper’s chest. The Pakistani’s eyes bulged from their sockets and he worked his mouth as though trying to speak, but his ruined throat gave him no voice. Blood leaked from the corner of his mouth. In the dim light, his tongue looked like a tiny cornered creature trying to escape a death trap.
    Rat Face jerked the blade free and set to work on the storekeeper’s face, stabbing repeatedly, puncturing both eyes, opening up gashes in the cheeks, the forehead, slicing off an ear, stabbing, stabbing: stook…stook…stook…
    The stook..stook…stook was punctuated by the deep-throated bong of the church bell. Joe wondered if the knifer knew he had fallen into perfect rhythm with the bell. Then he wondered why he wasn’t doing anything to stop the slaughter.
    I can’t just stand here and watch, he told himself. A weapon. I need a weapon .
    He looked around for something—anything—to use to club Rat Face over the head.
    He saw nothing heavy enough to cold-cock the madman. And what if the guy was on drugs? Something like PCP, that Angel Dust stuff that could turn scrawny dopers into raging berserkers. Christ, he’d already been shot, and that hadn’t slowed him down. If I don’t knock him cold, or kill him, he’ll start working me over with his knife. I better get the hell out of here and let the cops deal with it.
    But then Rat Face did something so totally unexpected that Joe Carr could do nothing but stare at the act of animalistic depravity. The man stopped stabbing the storekeeper, leaned down and began to gnaw the raw