Death Pays the Freight

This is the creaking gore. This is your host to welcome you once again in the Vienna Sanctum. Come on in, I never mind looking back over your shoulder. Whatever it is that's behind you can't be half as bad as what in the front.

As the man who's throat had just been made the scene of an experiment with a razor while he slept said, I'm going from bed to hers. Now it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it.

Just keep a good hold on yourself. As your wife, if your life insurance paid off. Joe Harris, 21 wearing a cheap blue search suit and a thin topcoat. Cold and wet on a cold and rainy night.

Decides to make a change. Kansas City's okay, but there's nothing there for me. I gotta get out. My wardrobe ain't built for a hard winter, so I figure it could be more comfortable on the coast, California. But I ain't paying for rail transportation this year, so I head for the KC Freight Gods. And I picked me out a nice long freight job that happens

to have an empty car and pull a slide into a robot. Leave it from finger hole for when we reach the land of oranges. The old boiler up front's got the steam on them and we're off.

I relax. All I gotta do is let a couple of days slide by. Sunshine. I didn't notice nobody else was in the car. Didn't you, now, Pally? No. That's too bad. He leaned back into the darkness of his corner so I couldn't see him very good.

He was a young guy, maybe my age, maybe a couple of years older. My size, too. Same color hair and eyes. Almost close enough to be brothers, but there was something in his eyes that had never been in mind.