Freezer Burn by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online

pulse, with my blood. It is me, and him.”
    “Good God!”
    “That’s not all.” Frost unbuttoned his pants and lowered them and scooped at his underwear and peeled them down over his ample right hip and showed a massive red scar that ran all the way up his right side. “And here was the third. Triplets. By operation and the choice of my parents, I lived, and they died. They were misshapen. I was the easiest to save. I am one of three and I am all three. Sometimes, late at night, I can almost feel the hand at my chest, squeezing, trying to drive its fingersthrough my chest, angry I survived, wanting to mash the life from me. And the scar on my hip. It heats up, pains me. When it’s cold especially. Other nights, the scar and the hand are companions.”
    “You were Siamese triplets?”
    “Incorrect term, but as I said, I was one of three. I am still one of three. You can not create one by destroying two. Had my parents chosen for them to survive, they would have been my brothers.”
    “You couldn’t have lived a normal life.”
    Frost readjusted his clothes. “True. But there’s very little normal about wearing the wounds and remains of your brothers. To know I survived because I was in the middle, easier to save because my heart was stronger and my appearance normal, it has its burden.”
    “They didn’t look right?”
    “They were misshapen. Prunish is the word used to describe them. Shriveled up like little mummies. They wouldn’t have grown very large, either of them, but I would have grown to the size I am now, carrying them with me. One clutched to my chest like a nursing baby, the other hanging to my hip like a pet monkey.”
    “Shit, you’re lucky,” Bill said. “You’re alive and they’re dead. That’s no burden.”
    Frost’s face took on a sardonic air. “You think so?”
    “Take it from someone who doesn’t have any luck. You’re lucky.”
    “I suppose it’s all in the way you look at things. Do you have more to tell me about why you’re wandering about in the woods, hungry, worn out, and mosquito-bit?”
    “I don’t guess so,” Bill said.
    Frost studied him. “Well, I trust my instincts. You don’t look like a murderer.”
    Bill thought: No, I look like someone with a million mosquito bites.
    “I suppose you have your secrets and your reasons. You’re welcome here. You may sleep in my place tonight. Tomorrow night, you wish to stay, we must find you another bed. When you feel stronger, you may leave.”
    “I’m much obliged, Mr. Frost.”
    “That’s all right, Bill. That’s quite all right. I’m always glad to help a man that’s down. Especially one I can see needs the help. If there is one thing I believe, it is this. Man is meant to help man get along in life, and that is our singular purpose on this earth.”
    “Thanks,” Bill said, and thought: Boy are you a dumb shit.

Ten

    “We got to sleep on the couch while a guy with a fucked-up face we don’t even know sleeps in our bed?”
    “Just for tonight. Must you curse?”
    “Must I? No. But I want to.”
    Bill could hear them talking at the other end of the trailer. They were trying to be quiet, or at least Frost was, but their voices carried clearly into the bedroom.
    Bill lay there listening to them because he couldn’t sleep. He had slept too much already. He thought that was sort of funny. Just a short time before he couldn’t get enough sleep, now he was wide awake with his hands behind his head looking at the ceiling, listening to the beautiful blonde tell Frost she wanted her bed back.
    Bill was considering all this, pretty amazed. How in the world had this hot blonde hooked up with that freak, Frost? Frost was a nice enough guy, but that hand on his chest, that scar on his side, it gave Bill the willies.
    After listening to them awhile, Bill showered and the warm shower helped him become sleepy again. He went back to bed and fell asleep right off, but he didn’t stay that way. He awoke to the door