Frag Box Read Online Free PDF

Thought he was hot shit, gives us a hard stare for a while like he’s lookin’ to rumble some. Finally he just splits.”
    “Let me guess…”
    “Down to the gulch. It was like a regular fucking parade, man.”
    “This is good,” I said, and I handed the other half of the bill over to him. “Thanks, Linc.”
    “You gonna let Mingus, there, up?”
    “He fuckin’ well better,” said the head that was down by my foot, “or when he does, I’m unna—” I stepped down a bit harder, and he grunted a bit and then shut up.
    “Back off thirty paces, and he’s all yours.”
    They walked backward, back to their trash barrel, and I slowly lifted my foot. Mingus, if that was really his name, pushed himself up fast to a hands-and-knees position, looking pissed. But before he could jump up to his full height, I stuck the barrel of the .38 up against his nose and let him have a good look at it.
    “Don’t do anything stupid, Mingus.”
    He stared cross-eyed at the piece for a moment, then shook his head vehemently. I let him get the rest of the way up, and he hustled off to join the others. When they started their own muttered, low conversation again, I turned and walked away, toward the reportedly popular gulch.
    I let out the breath I’d been holding for longer than I could remember.
    Fifty yards later, I was in a totally unlit area of weeds, rocks, and trash. A short way ahead, it got even darker, as the snow gave way to the utter black of Connemara Gulch, gaping below and beyond me. Or maybe it was just some railroad ditch. I wasn’t that sure of where I was anymore. I couldn’t tell how far it was to the bottom, but the way down looked steep and treacherous. There had to be a better route. Right or left? I picked left and walked along the edge of the gully for a while, and sure enough, I came to a crude roadway with a gate across it where it dropped down into the hollow. And standing with one hand on the gate was a guy who must have been the ramrod-ass that the village people had liked so much. Stiff posture, military-style brush cut on his light hair, and a dark topcoat that hung on him like a tent that was one size too big. And even in the dark, I could tell he wore a look that said, “I’m in charge here, and you are lower than whale shit.” One of my favorite types. I wondered if I could find an excuse to shoot him.
    “This road is closed,” he said.
    No “mister,” no “sir,” not even a “please.” Wow, he really did want to impress me with what a badass he was. And for all I knew, he really was. He was big, anyway. He had his hands shoved deep in his coat pockets, and I had the impression I did not want him to take them out.
    “Because you say it is? Who are you, exactly?”
    “You have no business here,” he said, in non-reply. “Move along.”
    “I asked who you are,” I said.
    “I’m Mister Colt.” He opened his coat and let me see that he had two semiautomatics in holsters, in addition to a compact submachine gun that he had just pulled out of a pocket. “And your name is Mud. Some people are about to get hurt here, and unless you haul ass now, you could be one of them. This has nothing to do with you.”
    That was way too much firepower for me. “Thanks for the warning,” I said. I kept my hands at my side, turned around and walked back into the shadows.
    In the black gulch below, somebody was switching on powerful flashlight beams. They looked as if they were on the bottom of the ocean. Then there was a bunch of shouting that progressively got louder. Some of it sounded hysterical, all of it angry. Soon there were crashing noises to go with it and then sporadic automatic weapons fire.
    And there was the smell.
    What the hell was it? A gasoline smell of some kind, but not like what you whiff when you fuel up your car. Kerosene, maybe, or the kind of gas they use in camp lanterns.
    As I thought about it, the gulch below lit up with the orange glow of tents and sleeping boxes and