Casket for Sale, Only Used Once by Jeff Strand Read Free Book Online

think this improved your situation?"
    "Bite me!" I replied, proving my spirit wasn't yet broken but that I was too shaken up to think of anything more clever to say than "Bite me."
    Then I thought , oops, I should've shut up and pretended to be dead. What a dork.
    "We're not here to kill you," Goblin said, "but we'll do it if we have to, no problem."
    "What's our other option?" I asked.
    "Come out and give yourselves up."
    That didn't sound like a very good option. On the other hand, if their master plan had been to just blow us all away, they wouldn't have bothered with the whole trap-us-between-two-trucks thing.
    There had to be a way out. Quite honestly, I was more comfortable with the idea of sprinting toward the woods and dodging bullets than surrendering.
    Joe barked.
    "We'll even let the dog go," Goblin promised, and the others chuckled. They sounded close.
    Unfortunately, with the camper on its side, our methods of escape were limited. Climbing up through the windows on top was a sure way to get a shotgun blast through the skull. That left the broken front windshield and the rear window. The rear window had shattered in the fall but so much of our camping junk was piled in front of it there wasn't room to climb out.
    At least, no room for anybody but Joe. Yet somehow I didn't see this particular pug as one that would perform Lassie services for our family.
    "Are you sure we can't settle this through a bribe?" I asked, silently ushering Helen and the kids toward the front windshield. "We've got marshmallows."
    "Sorry. Ogre might go for it, but not the rest of us."
    I wondered who Ogre was. Probably the huge guy in the second truck.
    "What if we toast them first?" I asked.
    "I'm not here to perform a fuckin ' comedy routine with you," Goblin said. "You've got ten seconds to come out here before things get really ugly. Nine ... eight ... seven..."
    "My wife's leg is broken!" I said. "She can't move."
    "...six ... five..."
    "It's pinned under some suitcases! She can't go anywhere!" I moved over to the rear of the camper, where Roger was hurriedly moving our gear out of the way.
    "...four ... three ... two..."
    "I'm serious!"
    "...one. Time's up. How about we toast those marshmallows for you?"
    Seconds later, a bottle fell through the broken window on what was now the camper's ceiling. A bottle with burning cloth stuffed into the neck. The Molotov cocktail struck the wood paneling and burst into flames, separating me from my family and forcing Roger and I to squish against the rear of the camper.
    As the camper filled with smoke, Joe rushed around the flames, barking loudly, to where Roger and I stood. I could barely see Helen on the other side, her arms wrapped tightly around Theresa and Kyle.
    A second Molotov cocktail fell right where the first had landed. Believe it or not, I'd been in worse situations, but this one sucked pretty intensely.
    I picked up the closest weapon: Kyle's Wiffle bat.
    Roger found one of the fishing poles.
    A third Molotov cocktail shattered against the wood, which kind of seemed like overkill by this point. The camper was so filled with smoke I couldn't see my wife and kids anymore, though I heard Helen coughing.
    Joe squirmed underneath a blanket.
    Obviously, we couldn't stay in the camper any longer. I crawled out through the rear window, coughing as well. Though my eyes burned and my vision was a bit blurry, the shotgun barrel two feet from my face was perfectly clear.
    Roger followed me. He immediately was faced with a shotgun barrel of his very own.
    A woman held the shotgun pointed at me. She had dirty black hair cut short, and looked about forty. Her blue jeans had holes in the knees and she wore a white lab coat with a few dried bloodstains. Her ID badge identified her as "Witch."
    Roger's new buddy, "Troll," was also in his forties. He wore shorts and a light blue T-shirt, which showed off dozens, maybe hundreds, of scars on his arms and legs. There were also four or five fresh cuts. A