Free The Rip-Off by Jim Thompson Page A

had long since ceased to spout. But in the days when water poured from it, the ever- thirsting weeds and other rank growths had flourished into a minuscule jungle. And the jungle still endured, all but obscuring the elaborate masonry and piping of the fountain.
    I walked toward it absently, somehow reminded of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village .
    Reaching the periphery of the ugly overgrowth, I thought I heard the gurgling trickle of water. And, curiously, I parted the dank and dying tangle with my hands, and peered through the opening.
    Inches from my face, eyeless eyes peered back at me. The bleached skull of skeleton.
    We stared at each other, each seemingly frozen in shock.
    Then the skeleton raised a bony hand, and leveled a gun at me.

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    I suddenly came alive. I let out a yell, and flung myself to one side. The overgrowth closed in front of the skeleton, with my letting go of it. And as he pawed through it, I scrambled around to the rear of the fountain. There was cover that way, a shield from my frightful pursuer. But that way was also a trap.
    The skeleton was between me and the house. Looming behind me, in the moonlit dimness, was the labyrinthine mass, the twisting hills and valleys, of the garbage dump.
    I reached toward it, knowing that it was a bad move, that I was running away from possible help. But I continued to run. Running- fleeing-was a way of life with me. Buying temporary safety, regardless of its long-term cost.
    Nearing the immediate environs of the garbage mounds, I began to trip and stumble over discarded bottles and cans and other refuse. Once my foot came down hard on a huge rat. And he leaped at me, screaming with pain and rage. Once, when I fell, a rat scampered inside of my coat, clawing and scratching as he raced over my chest and back. And I screamed and beat at myself, long after I was rid of him.
    There was a deafening roar in my ears: the thunder of my over-exerted heart and lungs. I began to weep and sob wildly in fear-crazed hysteria, but the sound of it was lost to me.
    I crawled-clawed-climbed up a small mountain of refuse, and fell tumbling and stumbling down the other side. Broken bottles and rotting newspapers and stinking blobs of food came down on top of me, along with the hideously bloated body of a dead rat. And I swarmed up out of the mess, and continued my staggering, wobble-legged run.
    I ran down the littered lanes between the garbage hillocks. I ran back up the lanes. Up, down, down, up. Zigzagging, repeatedly falling and getting to my feet. And going on and on and on. Fleeing through this lonely stinking planet, this lost world of garbage.
    I dared not stop. For I was pursued, and my pursuer was gaining on me. Getting closer and closer with every passing moment.
    Thoroughly in the thrall of hysteria. I couldn't actually see or hear him. Not in the literal meaning of the words. It was more a matter of being made aware of certain things, of having them thrust upon my consciousness: a discarded bottle, rolling down a garbage heap. Or a heavy shadow falling over my own. Or hurrying footsteps splashing up a spray of filth.
    At last, I tottered to the top of a long hummock, and down the other side.
    And there. He-It-was. Grabbing me from behind. Wrapping strong arms around me, and holding me helpless.
    I screamed, screams that I could not hear.
    I struggled violently, fear giving me superhuman strength. And I managed to break free.
    But for only a split second.
    Then, an arm went around my head, holding it motionless-a target. And then a heavy fist came up, swung in a short, swift arc. And collided numbingly with my chin.
    And I went down, down, down.
    Into darkness.

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    At the time of the accident, Connie and I had been married about six months. I had been at work all day on an article for a teachers' magazine, and I came down into the kitchen that evening, tired and hungry, to find Connie clearing away the dirty dishes.
    She said she and her father had already eaten, and