“No, I tell you it was cleaner than a knife,” he said for probably the fiftieth time, but nobody was counting. “Cut through Old Rupe’s arms and legs faster than you can blink. And no blood came from the stumps. Not one drop. Sealed them right up.”
“What kind of blaster can do something like that?” one of the citizens asked, shaking his bald, sun-browned head in disbelief.
“Predark, whitecoat secret technology, I figure,” Grub speculated at top volume, for the benefit of the approaching newcomers. “Same goes for their body armor. I know what I saw. It’s burned into my brain. Hundreds of pistol balls fired at those two muties from rock-chucking range, and not one ball so much as grazed them.”
“Sounds bastard impossible,” said the tall stranger with the scoped longblaster as he and his friends stepped up to the table. “You wouldn’t be shittin’ everybody, now would you?”
“You don’t know Grub Hinton, mister,” one citizen replied. ‘ ‘He could never make up a story like this.”
“I’m too fucking stupid,” Grub agreed good-naturedly.
Everybody at the table laughed at the joke; so did the skinhead girl, in a kind of hysterical cackle.
Grub liked the look in her eyes. A lot. It was crazy, like her laugh. He figured she was the kind of girl who’d go triple wild if he could just get a leg over on her. And he could tell from all the silky bosom she was showing out the top of her dress that she had a much firmer body than either of the gaudy sluts he’d sampled. He licked his dry lips, then took a deep, satisfying pull of ‘shine. In the radically altered universe of Grub Hinton, anything was possible.
The tall, gray-haired man then bent over the citizen and practically nose to nose with him said, “Why don’t you folks give us a few minutes alone with this gent?”
The color instantly drained from the citizen’s face. Choking, he got up at once and offered his empty chair with a wave of his arm. “Need some water,” he said, rushing for the bar.
The other citizens reluctantly rose and followed him, driven from their places by the threatening looks on the strangers’ faces. Only the two sluts remained glued to their seats, clinging somewhat defiantly to the storyteller’s arms. After all, this was both their primary residence and place of business.
“Out, bitches!” the skinhead female snarled at them. Then she gave Grub a look so sexy and inviting that it made his groin twitch and jerk like a head-shot jackrabbit. “We need us some privacy” she said huskily.
One of the sluts started to protest, but her co-worker caught her by the wrist and stopped her, indicating with a nod of her head the cocked, short-barreled, blue-steel pistol the skinhead held pointing downward, along the outside of her thigh. Without another word, the two women made themselves scarce.
As the four newcomers sat, the gray-haired guy produced a full bottle of booze and topped up Grub’s cup. His hand trembled a little as he poured, slopping some ‘shine onto the table. “Might as well get properly introduced,” he said. “My name’s Gore, the Right Reverend Gore. And she’s called Giggly Jane.”
The skinhead woman sitting next to Grub showed him her wet tongue. It was quick and pink, and pointed at the tip.
“This here’s Spadecrawler.” Gore indicated the barrel-chested, round-faced man on his right, who looked as if he’d been caught out in an acid rainstorm without a helmet. A big splatter of dead-white, hairless scar tissue sat on top of his head, the waxy skin dripping down on the right side to a shriveled mushroom of an ear.
“And this is Egregious Jones.” The third man was big and powerfully built, with oily, debris-flecked brown hair hanging to his shoulders. Exposed at the open neck of his duster were interlaced, angry red raised scars. The overlaid self-brandings were what in some parts of Deathlands passed for tattoos.
Grub noted that Egregious Jones’s front teeth, upper and lower, had been filed to sharp points, but he was far more interested in Giggly Jane, whose amazingly hot little hand was under the table, resting lightly high on his inner thigh. “Have a drink,” Gore said. Grub drank deeply, slamming the empty cup to the table when he was done. “What do you folks want to hear about?” he said. “The tornado? The blasters?