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“New hat? Boy, what in tarnations you talkin ’bout?”

The hands slather the margarine heavy, then pull away. “You’ll see, grandma…”

We hear more off-screen talk. “Doc, you and Argi get on that side, Me and Cristo got this side.”

“Of…course, sir.”

“I’ve always liked this way the best. Who we do this to, Argi? It was up in Newark wasn’t it? Kline?”

“Naw, boss, I think it was Ringerman, you know? That runt we had runnin’ numbers for us.”

“Oh, yeah—Ringerman! That fuck. He had balls, didn’t he? Shit, that guy went way back to my grandfather’s time—”

“Vinch the Eye—”

“God rest his soul…”

“Shit, we had that guy on our payroll for decades, and then we find out he’d been stealin’ from us half that time.”

“Well, he got his.”

“Best part was makin’ his wife watch.”

“Yeah! That was sweet, wasn’t it?” A pause. “You ready, Melda?”

“I sure am, Paulie!” exclaimed a ludicrous woman’s voice.

“On the count of three. One…two…three!”

A salvo of grunts.

“Good, yeah, but—shit, Melda. No offense but you’ve gained some weight!”

“Well, I can’t help it, Paulie. Can’t walk, can’t do nothin’ but sit—er, sit, and smother people in my pussy and eat.”

Laughter.

A peculiar shadow hovers over the old woman’s head, then something indescribable seems to edge the top of the frame…

“Push that big pussy open now, huh, Melda?”

“It’s open, Paulie!”

“One…two…three…down!”

In a split second, the old woman’s head disappears as it is completely engulfed by a frame-filling morass of pallid flesh. A mammoth sack for a belly is observed, as well as a severely stretched wedge of pubic hair. Whatever it is, it has swallowed the entirety of the old woman’s head.

“Give it a few seconds.”

A few seconds tick by, then, “Now, boss?”

“Naw. A few more…”

“We don’t want her croakin’, do we?”

“All right, now. One, two, three—up!”

shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-LUCK!

The morass is lifted off as though it has defied gravity to disgorge the woman’s head, which now looks like a perversely glistening wax mask, only semi-human. The head shudders, old gray hair slicked down. The eyelids struggle but eventually open.

“Great! She didn’t kick. Kind of thought she would, old as she is.”

“Proof of the resiliency of the human biological unit…”

The old woman’s face, quite surprisingly, laughs. “Ha! That all you silly boys can do? Just wait till my son Helton gets ya! He’n his kin’re gonna fuck all yer brains ta puddin’!”

“One, two, three—down!”

The horrific mass re-lowers, yet again engulfing the head.

“I’m tempted to just kill her now. I hate that old cunt.”

“Sure, boss, but that’s the reason we shouldn’t kill her.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. Okay, guys! One, two, three—up!”

The head is re-exposed, looking a bit more weary than the first time.

The off-screen voice directs. “Back in the chair now”—grunting—“yeah, there. Cristo, get Melda back in the Winnie.”

“Right away, boss.”

“Thanks, Melda.”

“Oh, any time, Paulie! I love the feel of a head in my pussy!”

“She still alive, Doc?”

A manicured finger angles into the frame and touches the old woman’s slick throat. “Wait—wait, why… yes!”

“Perfect!”

The head lolls now, muck-shellacked and wheezing for breath, but eventually the old woman summons the last of her strength and looks right back at the camera. “Helton, my dear son! Don’t ya mind none what these Satan-worshipin’ bastards are a-doin’ ta me. I’se old and it’s way past my time, and I’se had me a wonnerful life. Just you take care, son, like I knows ya will! I knows you’ll git these fellas’n show ’em what fer! Hunt ’em down and fuck their evil heads like heads ain’t never been fucked b’fore! The Tuckton’s ain’t never lost a feud! Make the family proud like ya always done—” but then her speech is drowned out by the most shockingly vicious sound: not quite that of a chainsaw, not quite that of a lawn mower.

The frame seems to collapse as the Alpine stump-grinder lowers. It lowers slowly, ever so slowly, first just nicking the top of the woman’s skull, coming back up, then lowering some more. The screech of metal to bone is unmentionable. Blood, brain, and bone-bits fly like goulash out of a lidless blender.

Down and down, then, the stump-grinder lowers, and when it’s done it’s pulled away, leaving only a meaty neck-stump.

The motor-sound cuts off. Eery silence ensues.

“How you like them cookies, huh, Helton?” the off-screen voice inquires, and then comes a staccato of laughter…

««—»»

Veronica had collapsed even before the “film’s” finish. She lay now on the floor, in a shuddering fetal position. Helton, Dumar, and Micky-Mack, on the other hand, remained standing. Staring. Wide-eyed and tearing up. What they’d just witnessed on the computer screen—in spite of the presence of morning light—somehow turned the air smoke-dark.

No one spoke for quite some time.

Helton passed around a bottle of some citified liquor called AsomBroso 100% Blue Agave Tequila that he’d pinched from Marshie’s mansion. They each took hearty slugs.

“Paw?”Dumar was the first to speak. “Grandma Petunia was up’n the finest ole gal there ever was, and I —”

Helton severed the condolence with a wave of hand. “Ain’t no words necessary, boys. Our work’s cut out fer us…”

Tears ran freely down Micky-Mack’s face. “Unc Helton. We’se gotta get ’em back worse’n ever, we’se gotta—”

Helton’s silencing hand rose again. “Like I done tolt ya’s before, there is one rellertive’a Paulie’s not too far from here, not too far at all—”

Micky-Mack’s fist banged the table. “Then let’s go! Now!”

Helton’s face looked as dark as the air. “We’se’ll go, all right. But we gots ta wait till tonight. In the meantime, we needs ta go back ta that big store, that one calt the Home Depot…”

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