Skunk Hunt Read Free Page B

long would it take for help to arrive in this
blizzard?
    And then he heard the crunch of someone
walking on glass.
    Raising himself on his elbow, he peered
through the display glass at the front of the store. The big man
had checked on the status of his partner. He leaned back,
muttering, then looked towards the back. He began to approach the
counter.
    Fear replaced pain, at least enough to
generate movement. Pulling his legs back from the base of the
counter, Marvin began crawling sideways. He knew he was going the
wrong direction, away from the safety of the back office and its
lockable door. But he couldn't move fast enough. There was no time
to turn around.
    He had made it to the end of the display when
the robber turned the corner at the opposite end of the counter and
looked down the aisle at him.
    "Where is he?" the big man said.
    "Oh...oh..." Marvin gasped. Not only had the
pain returned with a vengeance, but he now saw the trail of blood
he had left behind as he crawled.
    "That sounds bad, mighty bad." The man nodded
at the top of the counter. "And you left your gun behind."
    "Please...p...p—"
    The man stepped over to the office and
disappeared through the door.
    "Fuck!" he shouted a moment later from
inside.
    Marvin tried to crawl some more. But a
numbness had overcome his limbs. He was finished with trying to
escape. He was at the robber's mercy.
    When the big man came out, he noted the
bloody smear on the panic button and grunted.
    "Stop crying," he said. "You'll get help soon
enough."
    "I'm not—" Marvin gasped, then stopped when
he realized he was.
    "You're the only one here," the man stated
flatly.
    "Y—y—"
    "Aw shut up."
    But he had asked , the jerk. Marvin's head fell back onto the
rolling footstool used to access some of the higher displays.
Turning his head slightly, he could see the front of the store. The
door, so far away. The stool rolled a little and his neck slid
down. He was again facing the robber. His eyes widened when he saw
the dark slick on the front of the man's jacket.
    "You've—"
    "I see it," the man answered lowly.
Grimacing, he pulled down the zipper. "Looks like you got me,
partner. Two for one. Not bad shooting."
    He took a step forward, began to fall, then
braced himself up on the counter. "You fucking little twerp," he
murmured, shaking his head. "After all that..." And now he seemed
to be talking to himself, analyzing a past and limited future.
"...a fucking little twerp."
    The young man's eyes fluttered. He knew he,
Marvin Hemmings, was leaving conscious reality. The question was,
would he be back?
    And then a sharp bang brought him back. The
big man had raised his gun. No, Marvin would not be back. The
robber would finish him off. He wanted to explain that there was no
need to eliminate him as a witness. Everything that had just
happened had been recorded for posterity, the images stored safely
at a remote location. But when he blinked out the mist in his eyes,
Marvin saw the man aiming not at him, but towards the front.
    The robber fired again. Marvin heard glass
exploding. He rocked his head to the side and saw two concentric
fractures in the display window. It seemed reasonable enough. In
the condition he was in, nothing was particularly irrational. It
even made sense, of a kind, when there was another shot and one of
the musical wine glasses disintegrated. The bullet finished up in
the window, creating a third fracture. The robber was shooting out
the glasses, one by one. Well, that made sense, too. Sort of. But
in spite of his pain and fading consciousness, Marvin acknowledged
something weird about it.
    There was a loud thud. The shooting stopped.
Marvin guessed the robber had collapsed. He could not confirm this.
He could no longer turn his head to look.
    In fact, the last thing Marvin saw were the
shards of Reidel & Schott Zwiesel crystal scattered across the
floor.

CHAPTER 1
     
    To make a long story short…
    Aw, forget it.
     
    I'm not going to tell you anything