Edward Lee - Header 2

“If they’re still in town, we’ll find ’em, boss,” Argi offered the consolation.

“They dug up my kid and fucked it in the head!”

“We’ll find ’em and make ’em pay.”

“Yeah,” Cristo said. “Enough of this sendin’ movies back and forth. I want to get my hands on those guys now. I’ll cut ’em up like pork ends—”

“Yeah,” Paulie added, “but only after we stump-grind ’em!”

Cristo had taken over the driving responsibilities. He stopped at the traffic light deeper in the residential streets. The streetlamps had all been shot out, leaving the block dark save for periodic Christmas lights blinking in windows covered by bars.

“When’s this damn light gonna change?” Cristo griped.

“Yeah,” Paulie said. “We ain’t got till Christmas,” and then he paused and everyone laughed. As they did so, however, squealing tires could be heard, and a great rattling…

“What the fuck is—”

A large black piece-of-shit-looking delivery truck had pulled out behind them, lights off, then swerved around to cut in front of the motor-home. “Eeeeeee-Haa!” they heard, then—

BAM!

—a bullet hit the windshield, and—

“Holy shit! It’s them!”

Cristo’s head exploded at the wheel.

Brain-matter fanned out in both directions, slapping Dr. Prouty and Argi.

“The rednecks just capped Cristo!” Paulie yelled. “Follow ’em!”

Argi bulled forward, popped the driver’s door, and shoved Cristo’s corpse into the street. Meanwhile, the black truck had made a mad right-hand turn onto the bisecting and even darker road.

“Go! Go!” Paulie yelled and then shoved his silenced .380 auto out the window. He squeezed off several shots.

“I think we can catch ’em, boss,” Argi said and gunned the motor-home. “The Winnie’s gotta be faster than that old piece of shit!”

“For three hundred grand it damn well better be!” Paulie looked behind him. “Doc, you all right?”

Smirking, the doctor scooped brains out of his eyes with curled index fingers. “I’ve…been better…”

Up ahead, the cumbersome black truck belched sooty smoke into their faces. The Winnebago gained quickly on the truck, engine racing.

Both Paulie and Argi leaned their pistols out the windows to release a hail of small-caliber gunfire. The bullets tinked! against the truck’s steel hide but most just bounced off.

“Get ’em, Argi!” Pauluie yelled, snapping in another magazine. “Ram ’em if ya got to!”

Agri pushed the gas all the way to the floor, but—

clank!

—just ahead of them, the rear doors of the truck flew open. One grinning long-haired redneck—

BAM!

—discharged a large revolver, and—

plup-plup-plup-plup!

—blew out a front tire, while a younger blond-headed redneck simultaneously released what appeared to be a slingshot.

clink!

Another hole appeared in the windshield. The steel bearing nicked Paulie’s ear—“OWWWWW!”— and continued into the rear of the motor-home’s interior. But as Argi tried to give further chase, the flattened tire buckled around the rim and the Winnebago was rendered undriveable.

“We gotta fix this flat!” Argi barked.

“Now we’re fucked!” Paulie yelled and jumped out. “They’re gonna get away!”

Argi followed him out; both men drew their pistols.

“Is that them?” Argi asked, squinting.

Halfway down the street a bulk shape seemed to sit there, hulk-like.

“Can’t tell. They got their lights off—”

sheeeeeeeeeeeesh…SWACK!

Argi bellowed, leaning over.

“How you like that, city boy!” a voice cracked.

Argi was on his knees, hands to groin. “The kid with the slingshot hit me in the nut! ”

BAM!

Another bullet slammed into the Winnebago.

From the darkness, the voice of Helton Tuckton boomed: “Catch us if’n ya can, Paulie!” and then tiny red tail lights flicked on at the bulk-shape’s form, and an engine revved.

A thin figure darted across the street, stopped, and poised itself.

It was the blond kid, pulling back on the slingshot. “Ain’t no citified dick-lickers can fuck with us! ”

sheeeeeeeeeeeesh…SWACK!

Another bearing sailed out of the dark, exploding one of the motor-home’s headlights.

Argi, gritting in his agony, managed to squeeze off a half a dozen rounds.

The blond kid fell.

“Ya got him!” Paulie celebrated.

In an instant, the kid’s silhouetted body was dragged into the truck—presumably by the pistol-wielder—then the truck sped off in a gust of smoke.

“Holy fuck, boss! Look at my nut! ” Argi had extracted his scrotum, isolating a ruptured testicle. “It’s just a bunch of mush!”

“Fuck your nut, Argi. We gotta get this tire changed. “Doc! Get your ass out here!”

Helton Tuckton’s truck was long gone.

Changing a Winnebago tire entailed quite a bit more than changing a regular tire; nevertheless, the men toiled arduously, and within a half-hour, their clothes were besmirched, their palms blackened, yet the spare tire was on, and they were off.

“We gotta find those fuckin’ guys,” Paulie grated. He looked to his lieutenant. “Argi, you all right?”

“Fuck, no, boss! My nut’s popped, and it hurts like a motherfucker!”

“Yeah but at least you waxed one of the rednecks.”

“I was aimin’ for his crotch, the fuck!”

Dr. Prouty, still winded from the exertion of changing a huge tire, leaned forward to examine Argi’s exposed scrotal sack. “Hmm, yes—oh, dear, that’s an acute testicular rupture, all right, definite impact-related orchitis and sequent inflammation coinciding with a complete breech of the tunica albuginea…”

“That don’t sound so good, Doc!”

“And I’m afraid you’ll experience some troublesome yet temporary edema.”

“Edema?” Paulie asked. “The fuck’s that, Doc?”

“Swelling. But there’s good news, Mr. Argi. Your testicle will heal in time, and you may even continue to produce motile and quite normal sperm cells with it.”

“Ya hear that, Argi?” Paulie said. “You’ll still be able to knock chicks up!”

Argi rolled his eyes, struggling to drive and manage the undeterminable pain at the same time. They cruised the town, hunting for Helton’s conspicuous vehicle.

Meanwhile, Dr. Prouty repaired momentarily to the back of the vehicle, but when he returned…

“Mr. Vinchetti, sir, I’m afraid I have bad news…”

“What?” Paulie snapped.

“It’s…Melda—”

“What about her? She croak on that last box of donuts?”

Prouty cleared his throat. “It seems one of the gunshots that struck the vehicle…hit Melda in the head…”

Paulie jumped out of the passenger seat, rushed to the rear room—

And stared.

The massive formation of pallid flesh that was Melda sat half-sidled over on the bench. Her horrendous, rubber-boned legs lolled, her unspeakable bare feet curled inward. Her head hung back as her mouth gawped; her tongue jutted. The bullethole in her forehead was more than apparent.

“Poor Melda,” the doctor mourned.

“Poor Melda? Fuck that,” Paulie griped. “Poor me. Where else am I gonna find a woman with a pussy as big as hers?” He stalked back toward the front of the vehicle. “Shit on this! This just keeps gettin’ worse—these rednecks are ruining my vibe! They fuck my step-kid in the head, they fuck my mother in the head, they fuck my dead baby in the head, then they kill Cristo and now this! Fuck it! We ain’t playin’ hide’n seek no more.” He whipped out his cellphone.