'You need to do it quick, man,' said Chauncey. 'Like when you're tearing off a bandage or having a chest wax.'
'This isn't like a chest wax. This is surgery.'
'Do you want me to do it?'
'Oh, sure, brain surgery by a twitchy-fingered drug addict. Sign me right the fuck up.'
'Hey, that was a gesture, man!'
'How about you two give me some privacy?'
Tom shook his head. 'No way. You'd try to escape.'
'What am I gonna do? Scrape through the wall with a pair of tweezers?'
'You might! Did you see that movie with Tim Robbins? The Shawshank Redemption?'
'It was a rock hammer, and it took him, like, thirty years! The only way I'm gonna escape is to tie a message to a rat!'
Chauncey nervously looked around for rats. Tom smacked him in the shoulder.
'No privacy,' said Tom. 'You do it now or the bullet stays.'
'Fine.' Stanley angled the mirror just right, and then very, very slowly began to insert the tweezers into the bullet hole.
'Oh, man, that is nasty!'
'Shut up! You're disrupting my concentration!' Stanley shoved the tweezers in deeper.
'Did you get it?'
'I said shut up!'
'We should be taking pictures,' said Tom.
'I mean it, be quiet so I can focus.' He shoved the tweezers in even deeper. 'Okay, I've got something. No, wait, that's just brain.'
Tom and Chauncey both crouched down to get a closer look.
'What does it feel like?' Tom asked.
'It doesn't feel like anything. You don't have pain receptors in your brain.'
'But it feels weird, right?'
'Enough with the questions! I'll give you a full report when it's done!'
Chauncey poked at his own forehead with his index finger. 'I dunno, man, I don't think I could do something like that.'
'Nobody's asking you to.'
'I didn't say that anybody was asking me to, but if I were in that situation, I think I'd just leave the bullet where it was.'
Stanley frowned and jiggled the tweezers a bit.
'Do you have it?' asked Tom.
'I'm not sure. I think so. I can't tell.'
'Maybe you should lean your head down and shake it.'
Stanley started to tell him to shut up again, but then decided that the advice was sound and took it.
'Anything?'
'Do you see any bullets dropping out of my head?'
'No.'
'Then it's not doing anything!'
'Don't be so goddamn testy, man. We got you the tweezers and mirror like you wanted!'
Stanley raised his head, let go of the tweezers, and pointed at both of them. 'If you don't stop talking, I swear to God, I'll beat the crap out of you.'
Neither of the thugs looked intimidated. Their lack of fear was probably directly related to the pair of tweezers protruding from Stanley's forehead.
Stanley fished around for a few more moments in blissful silence. 'Oops, there went high school Algebra.'
'No big loss,' said Tom.
Stanley pulled out the tweezers and shook his head. 'No good, I can't get it. I'll need a medical professional to do the brain surgery.'
'That bites, man.'
'Yeah.'
And then Stanley realized that this was his big chance. Tom had lowered the gun, and both men were still staring at the hole in his forehead.
He slammed the tweezers into Tom's chest. Tom screamed in pain as Stanley grabbed for the gun. He missed. Tom swung it toward his face, but Stanley threw a punch that struck the inside of his wrist. The gun fell to the floor.
Stanley got Tom with a devastating head-butt that he was pretty damn sure hurt himself a lot more than the thug, considering that he already had a hole in his skull.
Chauncey tackled him. They struggled on the floor, Man against Zombie.
Zombie was getting his ass kicked.
Chauncey bashed Stanley against the floor four, five, then six times until Stanley had to admit that he probably wasn't going to emerge as the victor.
'Cuff him!' said Tom, groaning in pain.
Chauncey rolled Stanley over onto his stomach and refastened the handcuffs. Then he bashed Stanley's face against the floor a couple more times.
'What do we do with him?' Chauncey asked.
'I'll tell you what we're gonna do. We're gonna make sure that the folks paying his ransom know good and well that this is the real Mr. Corpse. Go get a knife. Biggest one we've got.'
'Okay, that idea is really unnecessary,' Stanley insisted, rolling over onto his back as Chauncey left the room. 'I'm very recognizable.'
Tom plucked the tweezers out of his chest. 'You can fake pictures. You can't fake an arm.'
'Aw, shit, c'mon, Tom-'
'Did you just say my name? Did he tell you my name?'
'No, no, you just look like a Tom.'
'This ain't good.'
'What difference does it make if I know your name? I know what you look like, too!'
Hey, Stanley, how about you not say anything else that stupid for the rest of the day?
Chauncey returned to the room, holding a butcher knife. 'Did you tell him my name?' Tom demanded.
'No.'
'How'd he know it was Tom?'
'Oh. Maybe.'
'So, Hugh, how's it going, Hugh, did you get the knife like I asked, Hugh?'
'What's the big deal? He's already seen our faces, and Tom is a very common name.'
Tom considered that. 'Yeah, you're right. Give me the knife and hold him down.'
'Guys, you don't need to do this,' Stanley said, not even trying to be manly and keep the terror out of his voice. 'They'll pay the ransom. They've got too much invested in me. I'll tell the press that you were kind, generous captors and that we experienced that weird bonding thing that you hear people talk about.'
Tom shook his head. 'You're losing an arm.'
'At least just take a thumb. My thumbs are distinctive. They'll know it's mine.'
'Arm. It'll grow back, right?'
'No! I heal, but I don't regenerate body parts!' Or did he? After all, he was a supernatural being…
Nope, the arm wouldn't grow back.
Hugh/Chauncey shoved a dirty tube sock into Stanley's mouth. It tasted like foot. Then he tied a gag around his mouth. Stanley screamed a few times to test it out.
'Roll him on his stomach and hold him down,' said Tom.
Hugh rolled Stanley on his stomach. He struggled with all of his might, figuring that his situation wasn't going
