Edward Lee - The Chosen

“There now that’s better, ain’t it, sweetcakes?” Jorrie queried. “Let’s see what we’se can do about gettin’ you out of these here constrictin’ garments, hmm?” He yanked her sassy fancy-labeled jeans right on off and tossed them in the road.

“Check out them purdy panties!” Mike-Man enthused. They were frilly and pink. “Bet she bought ’em at Garfunkel’s!”

“Or maybe even Ward’s,” Jorrie ventured. He peeled them off likewise. Suddenly the cold moonlight reverted his ruddy face to a primordial mask. His glass eye stared. “And a shaved snatch, lookit that, Mike-Man! Don’t that beat all?”

“Sure’s hail does,” Mike-Man was quick to agree. “That’s damn sure the purdiest slab of pie I ever did see.”

The blonde lay shivering. Terror pried her eyes open. Those big firm breasts of hers quivered like turgid Jell-O when Jorrie busted open that nice flannel blouse. “Best pair I’ve seen in quite a spell,” he was cordial enough to compliment, and he didn’t waste no time getting his hands on them. His erotomanic one-eyed gaze reveled in their shape: big as they were they didn’t have no sag to ’em at all, not like a lot of these gals who sport an ample rack and wind up havin’ ’em swinging to their bellybuttons once they get out of the bra. No sir, these didn’t have no flop to ’em whatsoever, and Jorrie really took a fancy to that, just as he took a fancy to that pretty shaved box. He gave her breasts a good, thoughtful kneading, then began to fiddle with her lower. “Ain’t it cute?” he observed. “Bet if I squeeze it, it squeaks!”

Mike-Man chortled his companion on. “Yeah boy! Bet it squeaks like one of them rubber dog toys!”

“Please don’t please don’t please don’t,” the blonde whimpered over and over through gleaming, perfectly straight white teeth.

Jorrie made to unbuckle his pants. “Down boy! Down!” he joked, alluding to his current state of libidinal animation. “First I think I’ll treat this purdy shaved pie to a good ole in and out, then I’ll have me a good creaming on this dandy knockers, huh?”

“Yeah boy!” Mike-Man celebrated, keeping the knife in place.

Jorrie’s good eye roved up and down the blonde’s tremoring flesh. He jacked his trousers down his hips. His glass eye felt cold in his hot skull, and he was tremoring himself quite a bit now, so close to this hot dish. He climbed up between those long, lean, silky legs, but when he looked up again—

“What the—Hey!”

Mike-Man was gone.

Jorrie craned forward, straining his monocular vision past the open driver’s door.

“Where the fuck’s you gone!”

Then he heard a quick, slick, ever faint crunch!

And a groan from way down low in the gut.

Within the block of darkness beyond, Mike-Man fumbled back up into view, teetering and cross-eyed. Jorrie stared.

“Yeah boy,” Mike-Man managed to croak. His eye—, balls seemed to revolve. “I think, I say, I think we done picked the wrong gal to pull a romping on tonight…”

But what was wrong? Mike-Man’s voice sounded really low and shaky like when you’re sure-fire drunk and can’t even say the words proper. Jorrie couldn’t figure it until he took a closer look and realized the cause of his friend’s newfound speech impediment.

“Holy Sheeeee-it!” Jorrie screamed.

Mike-Man’s eyes rolled up, and he sidled over dead in the footwell. A long, shiny knitting needle had been stuck clear through his ears.

The blonde smiled up at him in the moonlight; she began to laugh. A shakedown! Jorrie realized. He flailed to crawl out over the blonde, but a hand reached in and snatched onto his hair. He was dragged out of the Blazer, spun around, and slammed back. “Howdy,” a youthful voice greeted him. Jorrie’s visions swirled—it was some young dude trying to take him down! Where’d he come from? The van! he realized. We done been set up! Jorrie maneuvered to defend himself. His fine, hard-pointed boots had never failed him in the past; he’d taken out a good many fellas a lot bigger than this dude. He reeled back, then lashed out to kick this fucker a good one right in the nut sack.

And missed.

The blonde was still laughing, leaning up on the bench seat to watch. Jorrie’s throat was grabbed, and the back of his skull was slammed once, twice, three times good and hard against the inside edge of the door. On the fourth whack! his glass eye popped out of its socket and shattered on the road.

He collapsed as if crushed.

“Hey, Zy. I’ll bet you thought I’d never get out here. ”

The blonde stepped over Jorrie, retrieved her designer jeans, and stepped back into them. “Actually I wish you would’ve waited a little longer. These two were a riot.”

Jorrie’s right eye dimmed; he could still see in blurred pieces. The dude was dragging Mike-Man toward the van, grabbing either side of the knitting needle as though it were a convenient carrying handle. The blonde was grinning down at Jorrie, buttoning up her jacket.

“Thanks for stopping to lend a hand. It was very charitable of you.”

Jorrie couldn’t move.

“Hey!” the dude said. “I like those boots.”

The blonde shrugged. “Help yourself. It’s not like this hayseed’s going to be needing them anytime soon.”

Jorrie felt his fine hard leather shitkicker boots pulled off his feet. The dude stepped into them. “Nice fit, fella. Thanks.”

The blonde departed to start the van. The dude, whistling “Eighteen Wheels and a Dozen Roses,” dragged Jorrie to the vehicle and threw him into the back.

His consciousness seemed adrift in a sea of dull pain. He felt heaped atop things. The van doors slammed shut. Jorrie’s one eye moved against its nerves. Mike-Man’s body lay limp upon several more bodies. One fella’s head had been crushed. Another fella lacked a head altogether. On the other side, though, Jorrie felt movement. His eye darted. More bodies lay atop one another, only these were alive. Three of them at least, all girls who’d been tied up and gagged. They squirmed together in shared terror.

The dude climbed into the passenger side. “Not a bad night,” he commented, taking a glance into the back.

‘Sure.” The blonde pulled onto the road. “But you’re going to have to be more thorough in the future, Lemi. He’s still alive.”

“Huh?”

“The guy with the boots. He’s still alive.”

“Oh. Well I’ll fix that splickety-lit.”

“That’s lickety-split, Lemi. Jesus.”

“Whatever.” This Lemi dude climbed into the back, ducking his head. He was still whistling. Jorrie gave a crushed grunt when he took the first kick in the middle of the spine. Suddenly his legs felt like dead meat. Next, the fine hard point of the boot rammed into his neckbone, quite effectively fracturing the #2 and 3 cervicular vertebrae, hence transecting the spinal column. Jorrie Slade’s brain went out like a light.

Candles flickered behind him from sconces set into rock. The Factotum stepped forward to the nave. It was damp down here, and strangely warm. Seepage trickled. The stone floor bore the vaguest shapes: blood, no doubt, decades old. The blood of all the people who’d been murdered here. Did their ghosts linger as well?

Ghosts, the Factotum pondered. He could have laughed.

He wore a garment akin to a priest’s black cassock, but the Factotum was no priest. He might be called a priest of sorts, yet only in the darkest connotation. The back of his bald head reflected the wavering candlelight—tongues of gentle flame squirming over skin. Beneath the cassock, his naked body felt purged, revitalized. He felt strong again. He felt good.