Crab Town Read Online Free PDF

buildings from the ground up. But Jack tried to fix them. He tried to get at least one side of his building up to code enough to rent the apartments as low income housing. The city wouldn’t approve, no matter how much money he sank into it. He could point out that some apartments on the more respectable side of town were in just as bad shape as this one, but the council wouldn’t listen to him.
    Later, he learned that the council had no intention of approving any of the buildings in Crab Town. The bill was passed just so they could get rid of the vagrants and lowlifes that infested the city streets, who no longer could contribute to society after the war. They just wanted to hide these people away so that they wouldn’t have to worry about them anymore.
    Jack lost his day job, but at the time he didn’t realize it was due to the fact that he was a Crab Town resident. A few months later, he heard stories from everyone in his neighborhood that they too had lost their jobs for no explainable reason. It was as if the government wanted to purposely keep them there, with the rest of the refuse. He believes that they don’t call them Crab Towns for nothing. They call them that because it is where all the bottom feeders are sent. The people here are just radioactive scavengers, who eat everyone else’s shit, just like the black crabs that come out of the sewers.

    “Daddy, read me a story,” his daughter asked him, lying in bed.
    Jack smiled at her. “Of course, sweety. Which one?”
    “The one about the prince and the garden.”
    “That’s the one mommy has been teaching you to read, isn’t it?”
    She nodded.
    “Then why don’t you read it to me.”
    She shook her head.
    “Why not?”
    “I only know a few words. Mommy said she can’t teach me anymore until she can see again.”
    Jack looked at the scar on his ring finger. The ring was stolen a long time ago, so the scar he received when it was ripped off is all that he has left to symbolize his love for her.
    “What’s wrong with her eyes, Daddy?”
    Jack shook his head. “Don’t worry about it, honey. She just needs glasses is all.”
    “She doesn’t play with me much anymore either.”
    Jack brought the book to his daughter and sat next to her on the bed he had constructed out of particleboard and other scavenged wood. He pulled his feet out of the water puddle that covered most of his daughter’s floor and lay down next to her. No matter how well he patched up the walls and ceilings, the water still managed to find its way in.
    “Why don’t we try to read it together,” Jack said.
    She nodded and laid her head on his shoulder. He kissed her on the bald spot in her hair.
    “One day things will get better,” he said. “Then you’ll be able to go to a school. Eventually you’ll be able to read stories to yourself.”
    She smiled up at him. “If I knew how to read I’d read every single day.”
    “Someday you will, honey. I promise someday you will.”
    Before the end of the year, both Jack’s wife and daughter died of radiation poisoning. He isn’t sure how they got it. When he still had an income, he paid inspectors who told him the water in the building was drinkable. He never fed them sewer crabs or any food that might have been contaminated. But they both died nonetheless, leaving him all alone.
    When he learned about a group of people trying to get organized in Crab Town, he signed up right away. At first, they were just trying to help out their fellow citizens. They fixed up buildings, organized gardening projects, set up a clinic, tried to convince companies to give their people work. Their deeds were somewhat successful, but it was never enough. That’s when the organization took things in a more aggressive direction. They decided to become the House of Cards.

    His real name was Oliver, but once in the House of Cards he became the Jack of Spades. Each Jack in the organization is responsible for a squad of soldiers, one from each suit.