The Rapture: A Sci-Fi Novel by Nicholas Erik Read Free Book Online

cigarette crackles in my lips, burns harsh when I draw. Maybe they could market these. Riverton brand—sunburnt and past their prime.
    Her door’s got police tape covering it, one of those crime scene seals over the crack. A window’s open, too small to get in through.
    “Candice,” I call out, “you in there?”
    A dumb question, unless she’s taken to partnering with the local police for anti-prostitution outreach. I lean my head in the window too far, and I’m met with the putrid stench of decay. The place has been rummaged through. I don’t stop to inspect; something—or, more to the point, someone—died in there.
    And, seeing as how I haven’t seen old Candy down at the El Dorado as of late, I can only assume it was her that did the dying. Maybe that drug addiction snuck up on her.
    I shuffle back to the truck, smoke trailing from my fingers, and pause to glance back at the trailer. She’d have patched me up all right; she was good like that. Someone who beds everyone tends to become a bit of a Renaissance Man—or Woman.
    There’s a crumpled piece of paper stuck to a cactus near my truck. I pluck it off, find that it’s an old photograph. Candice and a little girl, not a few days old.
    I didn’t know the whore had a kid. I wonder where the little girl went; her smile looks sweet in the picture, like she don’t know that life is hard—even moreso for the offspring of someone who turns tricks.
    Makes me feel bad about Candice leaving this earth for wherever she’s headed; I never did employ her services, but she seemed about the only one who didn’t complain about Riverton. Just accepted it, got to whoring and got by as best she could. Which, even if she died and rotted out here, made her better than most.

11
    Gold Rush
    Strobe lights pulse to bad ‘80s hair metal as the bitter whiskey glides down my throat. After a few hasty drags on a cigarette, I motion again, a man trying to disappear or be swallowed up in the vastness of the desert. I know how that story ends, but I pretend—or delude myself—that my tale will go a little different. Besides, I’m in pain, and a hospital isn’t an option.
    I’m waiting for this meeting. I don’t know what to expect.
    The girls on stage—and most of them aren’t much older than that—slink back and forth in front of a comatose crowd. Someone passing by the El Dorado might wonder how anyone ends up in an establishment such as this, on the edge of existence.
    I think I’ve got a pretty good idea.
    The current patrons must’ve grown tired of tits; two guys are passed out in their chairs, and that about does it for company. Soon enough, though, the morning crew will trickle in, eager to wallow away their disability and social security checks in transactions humiliating for everyone involved.
    “Say Diz, you heard anything about Candice,” I say to the barman.
    Dizzy shoots me this look like I’m well behind the times. “Cops pulled her out of her trailer a week ago. Been dead for at least twice that long.”
    “Shoot, that’s rough.”
    “A good woman is hard to find, but she was one of them.”
    “You a patron of her services?” Inappropriate, I know, but I can’t quite determine what’s right these days. Could blame that on the liquor. Or the flare. It’s a toss-up.
    “We had our discussions, nothing more.”
    “Do they know what killed her?”
    “Could be lots of people.” He shrugs. “Dangerous profession.”
    “People?”
    “Pulled a bullet right out of her skull, the cops did.”
    “Here’s to not dying in the wasteland.” I hoist the shot glass in the air and suck it down. Dizzy’s got it refilled before it hits the countertop.
    “Rumor has it they had to pull some coyotes off her. Shot them dead before they could take the body away.”
    “A little big for a coyote to be partial to her, don’t you think?”
    “Hell if I don’t think the whole world’s going crazy. All sorts of stuff out there if you look close enough.”