27 Hanging On by Dean Koontz

Author:Dean Koontz
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9780871311184
Publisher: M Evans & Co
Published: 1973-11-14T06:00:00+00:00

Kelly was directing the tearing down of the eighth tent, embarrassedly parrying all questions, when Lieutenant Slade arrived. Slade was furious. "You are harassing the men who stood with me, the men who wouldn't sign those insane credit contacts." Slade shook a finger in Kelly's face.

"Not at all," Kelly said, feeling like a heel. "The hospital staff says we're short of bandage materials. If we suffer another Stuka attack, the shortage could be a matter of life and death. So we're confiscating a few of the tents to cut them into strip bandages." He felt ill, and he hated himself.

"Canvas bandages? Ridiculous! If you're not harassing these men who stood with me," Slade said, "why are you demolishing only their tents?"

"Are we?" Kelly feigned surprise. He consulted his chart. "Why, we just picked the names out of a hat." Into which, of course, they had only put the names of the men who had not signed their contracts.

Lieutenant Slade followed them, ranting impotently as the tents came down. As they were folding up the eighteenth square of canvas, he planted himself in front of Kelly. "You aren't going to rip down my tent. You won't bully me into signing away my good name!"

"I'm not bullying anyone," Kelly said, wishing it were true. "Besides, your name wasn't drawn from the hat. We aren't confiscating your tent. You will be snug and warm and dry tonight." Kelly looked at the sky, pointed at the thick gray thunderhead clouds rushing westward. "Sure does look like rain before morning." He was conscious of all the other men looking skyward with him. "These other fellows whose names were drawn at random from a hat will have to put up with a soaking, I'm afraid. But we couldn't make it any fairer " Any unfairer. Kelly sighed. "We have to remember there's a war going on, and that some of us must make sacrifices. At least we don't have to put everyone out in the rain, eh? You needn't worry, Lieutenant."

Slade saw the full implications of what the major had said. He grimaced. "Very cunning, sir. But you are not going to divide and conquer us. We aren't going to put our lives and futures in the hands of a man like Maurice, no matter what you do to us."

"I admire your strong character," Kelly said.

Ten minutes later, the eighteen tents had been stacked in a corner of the hospital bunker. They made quite a mound.

Lily Kain put her arm around Kelly's waist and detained him at the bunker door as he was leaving. "You really think it will work?"

"Work?" Kelly asked. "Never. Oh, this and a few other things I have planned might get them to sign their credit contracts. But that won't mean very much in the end. We're all going to die. We just have to go through this charade now to keep the fairy tale moving. You know?"

"Don't start with that fairy tale shit," Lily said.

"Can't help it. Puts things in perspective. Keeps me alive.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.