The Manor Read Online Free PDF Page B

shed.
    But Korban Manor was nearly a mile away, and not many messed around in this neck of the woods. Chances were, nobody was in shouting distance even if George could baloon his lungs up enough for a good scream. Chances were, the other hired help was busy around the house, packing in the latest batch of rich artists, Miss Mamie glaring at them if they dared to rest for even a minute. Chances were, even if he managed to crawl out from under three tons of wood and steel and glass, he'd leak away the rest of his blood before he made it back to the trail, let alone to the wagon road or manor.
    But first he'd have to get free. Then he could worry about the rest of it. He looked to his right, to the side of his body that was missing a part. A section of the roof that was more or less intact sloped down from a point just above his waist to the ground fifteen feet away. The rubble above him was held up by a single bowed rafter. If that gave way ...
    "Then it's 'Sayonara, Cholly,'" Old Leatherneck said, coming back from whatever shocked pocket of George's brain that the ornery bastard had been hiding out in. "Now move it." A two-by-four rested near George's cheek, the grain rough against his skin. If he could maneuver it, maybe use it as a lever, he could pry his left arm free. He moved his arm, and the bone of his elbow clubbed against the wooden floor. His right arm must have been asleep, because now it came to tingling life. He scooted the two-by-four against his side, and the payoff came. The end of his arm exploded in a bright burst of agony. This was orange pain, the color of or-ange that shot out of the Human Torch's hands in those Fantastic Four comics he'd read as a kid. Still, he pushed the two-by-four along until he could cradle it in the crook of his injured arm.
    "There you go, Georgie-boy," said his one-man chain of command. "Give 'em hel. Only, what are you going to use as a fulcrum for your little make-do see-saw?"
    Old Leatherneck had a point, as much as George hated to admit it. But if he gave up now, then surviving Nam and Selma and the stroke and stepping on a copper-head was all for nothing. Sliding down along those miners' rails in the dark would be that much easier. Just as an experiment, because he needed to know, he closed his eyes. And he was deeper inside the long dark tunnel. The light at the living end was fainter now, fuzzier. And he was accelerating, sliding fast and smooth as if sledding on snow. The air was thin and cool as the final bend came nearer.
    George relaxed, though he was shivering and his blood was starved for oxygen and his heart was ham-mering like a roofer trying to beat a rainstorm. Because in here, in the tunnel, it was okay to give up hope. Nobody in here would hold it against him. He sensed that oth-ers were waiting to welcome him, huddled in the shad-ows, those who had ridden the rails before him. And he was rounding the bend, hell, this was easy, this was fun, and then, the soft slithering sound pickaxed him in the skull. What if there are SNAKES around the bend?
    George opened his eyes and fought back to the mouth of the tunnel and saw that the sun was still hanging stubbornly in the sky somewhere above, and the AWOL hand was splayed out stiff and livid, wear-ing a bracelet of splinters and dirt. He'd almost gone under, and knew that shock was setting in. Back in An Loc once, some of the grunts had been sitting around knocking down Schlitz tall boys with George Jones on the record player. A young medic named Haley stubbed out a joint as big as a rifle barrel and told them why shock was a dying soldier's best friend.
    "Some kinds of pain, even a plungerful of morphine won't touch," Haley said, a wreath of blue smoke around his head. "But shock, man, it shuts you down nice and easy. Blood pressure drops, breathing gets shallow, you get all sweaty, and you don't even know your Mama's name. Crash and bleed out, man, then drift off."
    They'd told Haley to shut the hell up. And George