The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four Read Online Free PDF Page B

with a
jar and knocked the palette back a good foot, twisting under the Whirlpool and
knocking everything off kilter.
    “Danny, you asshole!  What the fuck are you doing?” his
shift boss said.  Danny cursed, slammed the shift into reverse and backed up to
do it again. 
    Danny was starting to get the sweats.  He was a strong
man, just a hair over six feet, short hair, with the tough corded muscles of
someone who used them all day.  I read him as mid-twenties, draftable but lucky
so far.  He wore a faded corduroy jacket, almost worn through at the elbows,
and kept his cigarettes in his chest pocket.  He had gotten the Shakes some
time back, and when he toughed it out and the disease passed, he thought he was
home free.  No doctors for him, thank you very much.
    Too bad he hadn’t defeated the disease.  Without me,
your friendly neighborhood Arm, on the job, Danny would go into withdrawal in a
day or two, become a psycho and make the news in a very special way.  A strong
bruiser like Danny, as a psycho in juice withdrawal, had a chance of killing
more innocents on his short run to hell than I had in my entire career as an
Arm.
    More likely, though, he would just get himself killed by
running out into traffic.  Urban life was no place for a mindless psycho.
    After Danny finished moving the washing machine, Danny’s
boss called him over to where he stood, arms crossed, by the GE refrigerators. 
His boss was an old cuss, mid-forties, with no patience with screw-ups.  Danny
got a look at his boss’s expression and his face fell.  He climbed slowly down
from the lift, woozy from low juice.
    “Sorry about that,” he mumbled, looking away from his
boss.  Over past the refrigerators, the super’s desk sat under a pile of
papers.  October’s Playboy bunny watched from her position above the desk, legs
spread and lips eternally puckered.  Danny suspected his boss would fire him. 
See where a little fear of the big nasty medicine men will get you, if you
don’t go get tested when you get sick? 
    Danny was dead, no matter what, because it was too late
for him to get placed with a Focus.  He just didn’t know this.
    “Go home, Danny,” his boss said, cutting Danny some
slack he didn’t deserve.  “Shift’s over.  Do a little better tomorrow.”
    “Thanks, man.”  Danny found his winter hat on its hook
back by the super’s desk and his lunch pail on the shelf above it.  The outside
air hit him with a frigid blast as he left the comparative warmth of the
warehouse, starting him shivering.  He pulled the flaps down on his hat and
soldiered on.
    Danny didn’t look for threats as he made his way to his
car, two thirds of the way down the long warehouse.  Why should he?  It was
3:00 on a sunny late fall afternoon, the lot was fenced, and Danny wasn’t the
sort of man a sane person would threaten.  He simply opened his car door and
got in, sliding over the tear in the seat and the duct tape that held the seat together.
 He paused only long enough to light his cigarette before starting the car and
heading home.
    He didn’t know I was in the back seat until he felt the
belt around his neck.  I cinched the belt tight and he passed out immediately. 
I pushed him out of the driver’s seat and took over driving, all while keeping
the belt around his neck.
    I found myself a secluded spot and gave Danny a one-way
ticket to heaven, saving forklift boy from the agony of withdrawal and a
guaranteed spot in hell.
     
    I climbed off the body and got up.  As I did,
forklift-boy’s death spasm boner brushed the lower part of my abdomen, and I shuddered
at the surge of sensation.  Ruthlessly, I forced the sensations down.  I wasn’t
into screwing corpses, and I wouldn’t start now.  I needed to find someone
soon, though, or I would crawl out of my skin.
    I smiled, happy to be a free Arm.
     

Gilgamesh Collates Crow Research
    Gilgamesh sat at his kitchen table and wrote.  He filled
page after page of