The Exiled by Christopher Charles Read Free Book Online Page B

teeth.” Enjoying himself. Raney thought: One day soon, I’m going to put this fucker down. He fired into the stairs, hoping to draw Dunham’s attention. The woman went quiet. Raney stepped back into the front room, emptied the pail onto the floor and stomped out the flames.
    Dunham appeared in the doorway, dragging a female skel by the hair, dangling her an inch off the ground. Her coat was three months out of season, her feet bare.
    “Jesus, Deadly,” he said, nodding at the man in the corner. “You missed one.”
    “I was getting to him,” Raney said.
    “He must reek like sewage under all those blankets. Come on, let’s finish this.”
    Raney walked over, jostled the man with his foot. Nothing. He pressed the barrel of his bat against the man’s temple.
    “Get the fuck up. Now.”
    Nothing. A hard kick to the ribs. The man didn’t stir. Raney turned to Dunham.
    “I think he’s dead.”
    “Take out your piece and make sure.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me.”
    Raney felt the bat being pulled from his hand, looked down, saw a long blade swing for his thigh.
    “Holy shit,” Dunham said. “It’s alive.”
    Raney jumped back, reached for his gun, but the man was on top of him.
    “Gonna cut you, motherfucker.”
    Raney backpedaled, his hands up, the man following, slicing hard and fast, Dunham laughing, his female skel begging to be let go.
    “Handle this, Deadly,” Dunham called. “Come on, handle it.”
    The man drew his arm back and lunged. Raney slipped him, saw the knife stick in the wall, saw the man struggling to jerk it free. Raney kicked his feet out from under him, jumped on his chest, pummeled him unconscious. He stood, breathing hard, burying his face in the crux of one arm.
    “Nice, Deadly! Nice.”
    Dunham stepped forward, jerking the woman with him.
    “This guy a friend of yours, darling?”
    She shook her head.
    “He’s no skel,” Raney said.
    “Sure he is. He sobered up inside is all. Look at him—he’s still got his yard muscle.”
    “His eyes were burning red.”
    “Do me a favor,” Dunham said. “Take a couple of steps back.”
    “What?”
    Dunham tossed his bat, pulled out his gun. The woman went limp. Dunham shook her.
    “Now, darling,” he said. “There’s some good news. You’re gonna live to see your next fix. But I want you to watch this very carefully, and then I want you to tell all your friends from the neighborhood what happened here tonight. You understand?”
    She nodded, spit dangling from her lips.
    Dunham shot the man twice in the face.
    “You think you can remember that, angel?”
    He let her drop, knocked her backward with his heel, belly-laughed as she crawled through the doorway and down the steps.
      
    They pulled into a dark and empty aisle at the end of a Turnpike rest stop. Dunham beat his fists against the steering wheel, unleashed a victory howl.
    “Goddamn, that feels good,” he said. “I mean, tell me your blood’s not pumping. Tell me you aren’t more alive now than you were when you woke up this morning. Where do you go after something like that? What do you do? Fuck a stripper? Lift some weights? It’s like one minute you’re swimming with sharks and the next you’re in a coma. So how do you hold on to that feeling? You know what I mean?”
    “I think so.”
    “Tell me something—do you sleep?”
    “Everyone sleeps.”
    “Okay, but I mean, do you just lie down and shut off? Head hits the pillow and that’s it?”
    “Most nights.”
    “You’re lucky. Not me. I’m afraid if I fall asleep I won’t wake back up. It’s a thing. There’s a name for it. I’ve had it since I was a kid. Since before I can remember. So I take pills. And then those pills stop working, so I have to find different pills. It’s like a game. Sometimes I mix the pills with booze. But sometimes I don’t want to sleep. There’s a feeling I want to keep. I want to stay up with it all night long. You hear me?”
    “I hear you.”
    “So let’s