Free The Vile Village by Craig Sargent Page B

of the worthlessness of what they now owned hit them as they lay shivering
     and hungry in their sleep.
    “Here, mister, got a nice glove for you,” a voice yelled out.
    “Mister, here, got socks all sizes, some even with heels left,” screamed another.
    “Cat jerky here,” an old woman cawed out. “Fresh and dehaired. Cat jerky—from the tail, not the paw.” A rack of leather cords
     were strung up between two poles, and on them were hanging cats of all sizes, strips of cats like leather, paws, ears, about
     a dozen tails all fricasseed and smothered in some kind of sauce. Stone felt his stomach getting a little uppity, though Excaliber
     seemed to take quite an interest in the culinary display, his eyes opening wider than they had All morning.
    “Mister, mister, you want sell dog, make good stew. Good stew—me split profits with you,” one particularly ugly fellow with
     no now or ears kept shouting as they cruised by slowly. Stone could hear Excaliber growling softly behind him as he caught
     the man square in the eyes. The appeals for the quick bucks of Pitbull Platter suddenly stopped dead, and the fellow returned
     to stirring his huge vat of turnip soup, which he was trying desperately to hawk to the crowds. It was not exactly a breakfast
     dish—or any other, for that matter. But it was all he had, so he tried to sell it as if it were precious gold. “Soup, soup,
     delicious turnip soup. Good for gonorrhea, cancer, and tumors of the spine.”
    It went on for blocks like that. And then it suddenly stopped. Stone passed a final stand, and then there were no more. The
     town itself stood ahead, a fairly well-developed place with two- and three-story buildings, most wood-framed, stretching off
     on all sides. These weren’t in great shape, either, though most of them did have roofs. But as he headed the bike in and came
     up to the first paved street he had driven on for a while, an all black dog, quite large, with burning red eyes, sudenly darted
     out from an alley and sprinted straight in front of the bike, forcing Stone to pull hard on the bars and slam the brakes on.
     The Doberman/shepherd hybrid gave a quick glance up at the canine sitting behind Stone and gripped its load a little harder
     between its daggerlike teeth. Stone blanched, for the midnight-black dog was carrying a hand, a human hand, in its jaws, the
     wrist cut about two inches up from the be of the hand. The whole damn thing was still trailing tendrils, dripping a pinkish
     liquid in little splotches on the cracked concrete beneath it.
    The animal darted ahead suddenly, sprinting like a cheetah, and was gone into the far alley to dine in peace. Stone stared
     after it for a few seconds. If God was sending him signs these days, Stone thought darkly, then he would have to say that
     that had not exactly been an invitation to Paradise.
    He let his heart calm down as the vision of the thing kept burning in his skull like a bad dream. Then he started the be up,
     seeing Excaliber staring intently down the dark alley like he wanted to go introduce himself. But Stone snapped his hand around,
     steering with the other for a second, and whapped the pitbull on the nose, just so he didn’t start getting any ideas. With
     all he’d been through lately, Martin Stone wasn’t in the mood to get in the middle of any dogfights.
    Once inside the town, Stone could see that the citizenry had the same dreadful look as those on the outskirts had. They looked
     terrified, like they were afraid to let their breath completely out, their eyes darting back and forth like rats’, as if awaiting
     attack at any moment. Drunken forms lurched around here and there as he drove on another block or two. And then they were
     everywhere. Men lying on their backs, their faces; propped up against the sides of the wood buildings; pissing against walls;
     vomiting out their guts; or just lying dead—facedown in the dirt of some alley, as if waiting to be buried only by