Freezer Burn Read Online Free PDF Page A

time he realized the taste in his mouth was from the water.
    He looked up the creek, saw there was a film in the water and the film was dark, the color of cough syrup. Bill went down the creek and around the bend and jumped back. There in the water, the top of his head blown off, his ankle stretched out and wrapped in some vines, was the deputy.
    Bill squatted down and looked at him. The deputy’s jaw was gone and so was the top of his head. Bill could see that somehow the deputy had tripped and the sawed-off shotgun had gone off and caught the deputy under the chin and stopped him from cussing, walking, or anything else.
    At first Bill was elated, then he realized that with the deputy missing a manhunt would go out for certain. Probably there was one already with the cops combingthe area for the firecracker stand robbers, and when they found this deputy, boy were they going to be mad.
    ’Course, that still didn’t mean they knew he was involved. If he was careful, he might go undetected.
    Bill crawled up to the other side of the creek and peeked through the thin line of trees there, saw something that surprised him.

PART TWO
    Frost

Six

    There was a huge pasture and the grass was cut way short and summer-burned to the color of a saltine cracker, and Bill knew if he stepped on it the grass would crackle like corn flakes. Parked on the pasture were a number of caravan-style trucks and silver trailers with brightly painted sides hooked up to semi-cabs, and there was an old station wagon and a motor home.
    The trailers had pictures of weird people, wild animals, and snakes painted on them, and blazed across one in red paint was ODDITIES OF THE WORLD.
    There was one shiny silver trailer off to the right, away from the others, as if placed there on special assignment. Painted on its side in black and blue was a stocky, bearded wild man encased in a block of ice. The man was blue-skinned with black hair and the ice block was a lighter blue. Above this were the words ICE MAN written out as if in icicles.
    There were a handful of people moving amongst the trailers and trucks, and even from a distance Bill could tell they were not normal folk. One was a tall lean pinheaded man in overalls and another was a woman witha beard and a green dress with some kind of dark pattern on it.
    There were a number of others that Bill could not see well, and could only think of as being in various states of ugly. One actually ran on all fours, and had a spine bent like a horseshoe. A midget in a porkpie hat stood next to the bearded lady, as if ready to crawl under her dress and hide.
    Bill settled down in the creek bed and looked at the dead deputy and wondered what he should do. He was surprised at how tired he was. The creek bed was cool and there was an indentation in it and the dirt was soft and damp, and without really realizing it, Bill made himself comfortable, and soon was asleep.
    When Bill awoke he was famished and thirsty and none of it had been a dream. It was growing late and the sunlight had lessened, though it would be light until nine o’clock or so. Bill wondered what time it was. He went over to the deputy and checked to see if the deputy had a watch. He did.
    Bill picked up the deputy’s arm and pulled it out of the water and looked at the watch on the corpse’s wrist. The watch was obviously waterproof. The second hand ticked away, and the time read seven forty-six.
    Well I’ll be screwed and tattooed, thought Bill, I’ve slept for hours.
    Bill dropped the deputy’s wrist, waded upstream away from the flow of blood from the deputy’s head—which had stopped, but the idea of it still bothered him—and dipped his hand in the water and scooped out a drink. The water felt good and tasted sweet at first, but soon it made his stomach hurt.
    He decided he had to find food, no matter what. It was just the sort of thing that would make him fuck up, being this hungry. He had to have something to eat, even if he had to show