Stung (Zombie Gentlemen) by K.A. Merikan Read Free Book Online

the view wasn’t very pleasant. The bloke
looked like a victim of trampling. His skin was dirty, nose crooked and broken,
and a few bruises bloomed in different colours on his face. Victor’s stomach
turned. He couldn’t let that happen to himself. Crunch wouldn’t let that
happen... it wasn’t like the man had that many options here.
    “What, like you, Jake?” sneered a balding man with
several teeth missing and  hollowed cheeks. He seemed to be a veteran here,
judging from the patches of rough skin and bony frame.
    “Yeah like me!” Jake spat to the floor, and Victor
noticed he was missing a few of his front teeth as well. Would this be his
future? “I should have never gone into business with the Dals. You all think
that, but I’m the one to say it.”
    “How long have you been here?” Victor licked his
lips, slowly walking deeper into the barrack where his shared bunk was.
    “A month? Lost count. What’s your name anyway?”
Jake shot him a look that Victor could not decipher with so little light.
    “I’m Victor. You?” He found the right bed and sat
on his squeaky bunk. There was another man already laying on the palliasse, but
all Victor could see from beneath a thin blanket was thinning, dark hair.
    “Jacob. What’re you in for, Victor?” Jacob crooked
his head, eyeing him up in a way that gave Victor chills. As if the man was
already counting what he could scavenge from his body.
    The bald man cackled. “What could he be in for?
Look at’im! Used more money than he earned!”
    “No I didn’t.” Victor scowled. He might have been
somewhat spoiled, but he wasn’t brainless enough to borrow money from the Dal
clan. He didn’t say that, of course, in a room full of men who had done just
that. “I... had an argument with Frey Dal.”
    “Ouch.” One of the men who arrived on today's
train walked up to them. He introduced himself before as Tompson when they had
a sneak chance for a chat in the orchard. “Not good at all. Frey sure knows how
to hold a grudge.”
    “Well, I don’t think there’s much chance for him
to recognize he’d overreacted.” Victor shook his head and reached over his
bunkmate's body for his own blanket, which was thin and smelled of filth, but
it was the only one he got. Nothing like the thick ones Crunch had in the
watchtower.
    “You lookin’ awfully clean.” Baldy’s voice made
Victor’s throat go dry.
    Jacob approached him and squinted, looking at him
as though he was examining the teeth of a farm animal to assess its health.
“Clean as a priest on Sunday and not comin’ to dinner...”
    “Got friends here, Vic?” Tompson walked up closer,
slouching his powerful body over Victor like a tidal wave ready to break and
choke him.
    “No... it’s just...” He felt blood draining from
his face. “I am a singer, you see, so one of them wanted me to perform. That’s
all.” He hoped his blatant lie wouldn’t be discovered.
    “Oh a singer!” He heard a laugh from the side.
“This is gonna be a jolly barrack from now on.”
    “Unless they get fed up with this canary some day
and cut his tongue out.” Jacob, whom Victor already recognized as the grim
character of the barrack, glanced in their direction from his own bunk.
    Victor managed a polite smile, even though the
sole thought made his stomach clench. “Let’s hope not. And you? What are you
here for?”
    “I did a job for the Dals.” Jacob spat onto the
floor again. “But fuckin’ Bluefinger didn’t like how I spoke to his fuck-pet,
and I ended up here. Now I actually hope change in the Parliament is coming.
And when it comes, I hope all the Dal heads end up on spikes!”
    “I couldn't care less whether they rot or not. The
question is whether we should simply take all of this with our heads down?”
Victor looked at Jacob, biting his lips hard. He would never be able to sneak
out alone. Crunch wasn’t a bad man, but it was in his interest to keep
Victor here, and staying was the last thing