Bugsy’s eyes almost popped out of their sockets when he saw what Ryatt was tugging. His fingers scrabbled blindly before catching hold of Ryatt’s pant leg. “No, no, no, no, no—”
Ryatt yanked it away. “Take your damn mitts off my leg.”
He lifted the jackhammer and put the chisel near Bugsy’s head, which landed with a loud clank. “Say Hi to Jack.”
Bugsy shook like a fish caught in a net, thumping on the floor.
“Badger. Grab the fucker.”
Leo cackled and wrestled Bugsy’s left arm down. He was comically small compared to Bugsy, but as he put his entire weight on one forearm—pinning it down with his hands and knees—it was highly secure.
“Please, please, please, just listen to me for one second…” Bugsy’s desperate words tumbled out like an unrestrained flash flood.
Ryatt hauled the tool and placed it on Bugsy’s left shoulder. On its touch, he tried to jerk aside, but to no avail. The rusty tip wedged itself between the sockets, scratching off his white skin and smearing it with dark tar particles from its previous job.
“Oops. Almost forgot.” Ryatt took out a lollipop from his jeans and put it in his mouth. “Can’t forget this.”
Bugsy shouted. “No! Why?!”
Bugsy would never know why this was happening. Just like how Ryatt would never dare to find what exactly Bugsy did to his mom, and if the rumors on the streets had any truth to them.
“Why?” Ryatt smiled while also shedding tears. “The axe forgets; but the tree remembers.”
Three pairs of arms and shoulders stiffened in anticipation of Jack’s force, when Ryatt took a deep breath and pressed the switch.
Nothing happened.
Ryatt frowned and lifted its cable to check it was connected to the generator. It was.
He asked Thomas, “What’s wrong with this piece of sh—”
A whimper interrupted him. Ryatt looked down and found Bugsy crying in a low-pitched voice.
“Pipe down.”
But Bugsy didn’t. He shook uncontrollably.
“I said shut your fucking yap.” Ryatt put his sneaker on Bugsy’s mouth and shushed the sniveling pig, then he looked up at Thomas. “Hey. It ain’t working?”
“The generator,” Thomas said without turning. He was sitting at the entrance, keeping watch. How did he know what the problem was without even looking at anything?
“What about it? Jack’s connected to the generator.”
“Start the damn thing first, fool.”
“Oh,” Ryatt felt his cheeks getting hot. “Come in and turn it on, Buddha. We all got our hands full.”
Thomas did as he was told, trying his hardest to not look at the threesome.
“What you mad at me for?” Ryatt scratched the back of his head.
Jack slipped from Ryatt’s one-handed grip and plummeted towards Bugsy’s petrified face. But Ryatt grabbed it at the last moment and apologized. A little damage was however done. The chisel had gouged a patch of Bugsy’s skin and it was bleeding. “Sorry. My bad. Totally new to this whole torture thing.”
When the generator started, Bugsy said, “Pi—pi fauri—”
“Here we go!” Ryatt pressed the button, and Jack’s metal tip drilled into Bugsy’s shoulder. He writhed as if he had been electrocuted. The blood spritzing out of the pounded meat, along with the smell of exhaust fumes, merged together and formed a hypnotizing odor. It didn’t take Jack more than a minute to pierce through the body and batter the steel floor beneath.
When Ryatt let up, he was exhausted. Though they weren’t trying to amputate the limb but just pulverize the bones underneath, operating Jack even for a short while was an exacting task.
“… disembowel you, you cocksucking son of a whore.” Bugsy screamed.
Ryatt grinned, having gained a sudden burst of motivation. He told Leo, “The leg.”
“Wh— no, no!”
Leo grabbed the leg and Ryatt went to work. As Jack speared its way between Bugsy’s hip and femur, his threats slowly turned into driveling beggary.
Jack seamlessly shattered the bones, like they were potato chips. The only complaint Ryatt had with Jack was that its motor was extremely noisy. The ear-splitting sound overlapped the wailing of Bugsy, and Ryatt had to strain hard to even pick out bits and pieces of it.
When Ryatt was done, he stopped the machine and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Leo released Bugsy’s thigh, and the leg moved like jelly, independent from the torso.
In spite of his eardrums being numb, Ryatt heard Thomas coughing and heaving. He looked up in time to see his burly friend hurry to a bush, which he eventually decorated with puke. Ryatt didn’t feel disgusted because his hatred for Bugsy superseded his revulsion. But what about Leo? He acted cool, just another day in the job. Ryatt didn’t know, didn’t want to know, what made Leo this strong. Or broken.
“Done?” Leo asked.
Ryatt examined the partially destroyed man on the floor. Bugsy’s face didn’t yet show the same level of agony Ryatt had seen in Iris’s face whenever he visited her. “Nope. Only halfway done.”
Bugsy muttered something. Could be English or Italian. It came out as air and thin sprinkles of saliva. But when Jack started the penetration once again, some mysterious entity infused Bugsy with the energy to communicate in the language understood by every human on the planet: the guttural cry.
However, to Ryatt’s chagrin, Bugsy made no noise when the duo went to work on the last limb. Bugsy took the pummeling without any resistance whatsoever. Flogging a dead horse. In this case, hammering.
When they finished, Leo looked up and regarded Ryatt’s face.
“What you staring at?” Ryatt panted. “You think it’s a beautiful moment to declare your love for me?”
“Fuck you, I ain’t no homo.” Leo cackled.
Ryatt closed his eyes and sniffed. The unmistakable rank of defecation floated in the air. “This asshole shat himself?”
Leo shrugged.
