Read Online Uncollected Stories 2003 by Stephen King - Free Book Online Page B

stood up suddenly. "Okay, you two skulkin' varmits! Hold it
right there!"
Pinky Lee dropped to his chest, fanning the hammer of his sinister
Buntline Special. Slade felt bullets race all around him. He fired back
twice, but curse it – the hammers of his two sinister .45s only clicked on
empty chambers. He had forgotten to load up after downing the three
badmen back at the Rotten Vulture.
Lee rolled to cover behind a barrel of taco chips. Columbine was
already crouched behind a giant bottle of mayonnaise that had been
airdropped a month before after the worst flood disaster in American
Southwest history (why drop mayonnaise after a disaster? None of your
damn business).
"Who's that out there?" Lee yelled.
Slade thought quickly. "It's Randolph P. Sorghum," he cried. "The real
McCoy, Lee! And this time I'm gunna blow off more than three
fingers!"
His crafty challenge had the desired effect. Pinky rushed rashly (or
rashly rushed if you preferred) from cover, his sinister Buntline Special
blazing. "I'll blow ya apart!" he yelled, "I'll – "
But at that moment Slade carefully put a bullet through his head.
Pinky Lee flopped, his evil days done.
"Lee?" Sam Columbine called. "Pinky? You out there?" A craven
cowardly note had crept into his voice.
"I just dropped him, Columbine!" Slade yelled. "And now it's just you
and me...and I'm comin' to get you!"
Sinister.45s blazing, a Mexican cigar clamped between his teeth,
Slade started down the hill after Sam Columbine.
Halfway down the slope, Sam Columbine let loose such a volley of
shots that Slade had to duck behind a barrel cactus. He could not get off
a clear shot at Columbine because the wily villain had hidden behind a
convenient, giant bottle of mayonnaise.
"Slade!" Columbine yelled. "It's time we settled this like men! Holster
yore gun and I'll holster mine! Then we'll come out an' draw! The better
man will walk away!"
"Okay, you lowdown sidewinder!" Slade yelled back. He holstered his
sinister.45s and stepped out from behind the barrel cactus. Columbine
stepped out from behind the bottle of mayonnaise. He was a tall man
with an olive complexion and an evil grin. His hand hovered over the
barrel of the sinister Smith & Wesson pistol that hung on his hip.
"Well, this is it, pard!" Slade sneered. There was a Mexican cigar
clamped between his teeth as he started to walk toward Columbine.
"Say hello to everyone in hell for me, Columbine!"
"We'll see," Columbine sneered back, but his knees were knocking as
he halted, ready for the showdown.
"Okay!" Slade called. "Go fer yore gun!"
"Wait," Someone screamed. "Wait, wait, WAIT!"
They both stared. It was Sandra Dawson! She was running toward
them breathless.
"Slade!" she cried. "Slade!"
"Get down!" Slade growled. "Sam Columbine is – "
"I had to tell you, Slade! I couldn't let you go off, maybe to get killed!
And you'd never know!"
"Know what?" Slade asked.
"That I'm Polly Peachtree!"
Slade gaped at her. "But you can't be Polly Peachtree! She was my
one true love and she was killed by a flaming Montgolfier balloon while
milking the cows!"
"I escaped but I had amnesia!" she cried. "It's all just come back to me
tonight. Look!" And she pulled off a blond wig she had been wearing.
She was indeed the beautiful Polly Peachtree of Paduka, returned from
the dead!
"POLLY!!!"
"SLADE!!!"
Slade rushed to her and they embraced, Sam Columbine forgotten.
Slade was just about to ask her how things were going when Sam
Columbine, evil rat that he was, crept up behind him and shot Slade in
the back three times.
"Thank God!" Polly whispered as she and Sam embraced "At last. he's
gone and we are free, my darling!"
Yeah," Sam growled. "How are things going Polly?"
“You don't know how terrible it's been," she sobbed. "Not only was he
killing everybody, but he was queerer than a three-dollar bill."
"Well it's over," Sam said.
"Like fun!" Slade said. He sat up and blasted them both. "Good thing I
was wearing my bullet proof