How about a free chapter read from the book on this Halloween eve…
The Dope Man
Copyright © 2023 Prophet X, all rights reserved foreign and domestic.
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LEGAL
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places or incidents depicted are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual living persons places, situations or events is purely coincidental.
The Burg New York
Atimus County Transfer Station 2
Gabe Kohlson came around slowly, his hands clutched tightly across his face.
They had gone for the eyes: Gulls; they were everywhere here… Thousands of them.
Fuck that! They had gone for all sorts of things, but he could not protect it all. Without eyes you could not see, even an idiot knew that, and so he had protected those and let them have the rest. The backs of his hands were in bad shape, he could feel that.
He could also tell that it was morning, or close to it, the red screen beyond his eyes, beyond the hands that covered his eyes, told him that, but the hands had done their job. He had probably passed out and stayed gone until this morning. If he could see that red screen, then he could see, and so if the hands were a bit ripped up it was worth it.
The rest of his body hurt too, it was not just the hands, but he supposed he should still be grateful, after all he had not expected to live through it. He had been sure she would kill him when she had come for him and Johns, and so if he hurt a little, even if he was banged up pretty good, at least she had not killed him. He removed his hands, but left the eyes closed.
Ah, yes, the redness was brighter, not much brighter, but it had been fairly damn bright to begin with, he opened them slowly, one at a time, and … … He looked up into a clear, blue sky. There was not a cloud in sight anywhere: Stunningly beautiful, absolutely beautiful, especially since he had not expected to ever see it again. One lone bird up there, circling in all that blue, looked like a buzzard for sure, but even that did not break the spell. He’d probably been lying here unmoving all morning long and so the buzzard had obviously assumed he was a goner. Fuck that though, once he was up and moving Mr. Buzzard could take a walk. No free meal for him today, Gabe Kohlson assured himself.
He tried to sit.
Well, maybe not totally unhurt he told himself. He could feel his legs, but they did not seem to want to move for him.
Do not panic, he told himself, keep a cool tool Gabe, probably broke ’em or something like that is all.
He tried to lift his head. It did not budge. It did not even try to budge.
Fuck!
Hey hold on, your hands work, right?
“Yeah,” Gabe said aloud in a buzzing-whisper. He had not meant to whisper; in fact he had meant to shout. The buzzard was dropping lower and he thought a shout might send him along. Let him know for sure that Gabe Kohlson was not road-kill, but his voice did not seem to be working all that well. The hands…?
He brought them up from his side and looked closely. Blinked and looked again.
They were fuckticated big time: Really fuckticated. They weren’t really hands anymore either. They were really nothing more than bones, tendons, and a few stringy runners of flesh.
Apparently they had suffered a little more than he had thought they had, apparently they had suffered greatly and apparently they had not suffered alone.
Gabe Kohlson had always thought there was just one great big long bone that ran up a person’s arm from the wrist. He saw now that he had been wrong. There were two, and not great big bones like he had thought either, pretty skinny thin ones, and… And how was it that they could be this bad and still move, Gabe? How could that be?
A shadow slipped across his face, before he could think of an answer, and he dragged his attention back to the sky above.
Mr. Buzzard was coming down quick. No more than ten feet off the ground now and circling like a mad bastard as he spiraled downward. Gabe jammed his fingers under the back of his head and tried to lift it. It came, but barely. He could move the fingers, but apparently there was no real strength in them. It came up enough though, enough to get a good peek at the rest of him. He quickly let go of his head, and it cracked back down to the ground. He was lying on a mound of garbage. A huge mound of garbage… County dump? Transfer Station? Maybe; and that was bad, but his body was worse. He quickly pushed what he had seen away.
His swiveled his eyes to the left. Mr. Buzzard had apparently been cleared to land over there. He glared back at Carl with his beady little buzzard eyes and strutted importantly, purposely, towards him.
Gabe had gotten a good peek while he had been holding his head up, and was not Mr. buzzard really wasting his time?
He was, the small little voice inside him agreed, and Gabe had to agree right back. He had seen in that little peek that there was nothing there for him to eat, somebody, or maybe several somebody’s had beaten him to it and so how could he disagree.
There was nothing but bone below him, at least what he could see. White bone, gnawed bone, several types of bone, but it was all bone and there was…
The buzzard was standing over him now, and Carl really did not like the way the son-of-a-bitch was looking at him, not at all.
“Get,” he whisper-croaked.
No good. The buzzard, Gabe was afraid, had noticed that there was some left. Maybe not the good stuff, maybe not even the best stuff, but still…
A quick blur of movement, and suddenly, painlessly, the left eye stopped working. He could see why too, the son-of-a-…
Another quick blur…
It was dark now, totally and utterly, no redness, no anything, but he could still feel that little son-of-a-bitch staring at him up there, and the last thing… The last thing he had seen was his own…
Ouch! Oh you bitch, you no good…
Come along on a crazy ride: Mob button men. Crime bosses, dirty cops. Top-level dope dealers and Dollar, a low-level loser just trying to stay alive… #Crime #OrganizedCrime #Mob #Readers #Thriller #BookLovers #BookWorms #Drama https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CW1HTMNP
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