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
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
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
“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?
