THE LONGHEADS

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER 1

The donkey on the hill laughed loudly through its Halloween mask.

It stomped its feet, shaking the snow off its fur, and let out a small, deep-throated giggle as well as a squeaky fart. The donkey turned toward the sunset, its eyes filling with pure light, and then dropped dead in the same way it had lived: joyful and filled with gas.

At the bottom of the hill, the city of Thompson, New Jersey bustled, despite the heavy snow and bitter cold. It acted out its routine like an oversized ant colony. Each man, woman, and child went through the motions of good citizens, despite the underlying hum of several factories that pumped noxious smoke into the air, adding cancerous spice to the falling snow.             

Tommy Pingpong sat in his car with the engine running. Jake should’ve been out ten minutes ago. What the hell’s taking him so long? Tommy knew he was taking a risk idling in front of the building like that. Sure, the cops didn’t patrol often but when they did, they were a bitch to get rid of. Despite that worry, he stayed, looking at his watch every thirty seconds and glancing up to see if Jake was on his way.

Fifteen minutes. Shit, where the hell is he?

Finally, through the snow flurries, he saw Jake run out of the building, almost tripping over his own feet. Opening the passenger door with a frantic pull, Jake plopped down in the seat, out of breath. “Just drive,” he coughed.

Tommy put the car into gear and stepped on the gas. The car’s tires lost traction for two seconds but then regained control and moved quickly down the block. Jake turned his head and kept his eyes on the back windshield. A thin blanket of snow covered most of the window. “I can’t see a thing.”

“What happened? Who’s following us?” Tommy’s voice was calm though inside he was as frantic as his friend. He knew that he had to balance out Jake’s emotional outbursts with a good amount of composure.

Jake kept looking though he could barely see through the snow. “I don’t know. Everything got fucked up. It wasn’t my fault, no fucking way.”

“Yeah, okay, calm down. What happened?”

Turning to the front, Jake moved the rearview so he could keep an eye out. “Everything was going great. I was telling Aaron the whole plan and he seemed into it or at least that’s what I thought just by the way he was acting. But then Peachy walked in and everything got fucked up.”

“Christ almighty,” Tommy whispered. Okay, I’m not going to freak out. I know damn well Jake’s a paranoid motherfucker. Stay calm…stay calm.

“How the fuck was I supposed to know Peachy would be out already? He was supposed to do at least half of his time.”

Tommy nodded his head. “Yeah, well, apparently he got out early. So go on, what else?”

“I was nervous to begin with, then he walks in and just stares at me, fucking smiling at me. I lost it. I don’t even remember what the fuck I said. I just ran out.” He ran his hands through his hair.

“What’d Aaron do?”

“He looked at Peachy and then he said something like ‘I’ll have to think about it’. That was it. They smiled at each other and I just fucking ran out.”

Tommy threw his hands up. The car jerked to the right. He put his hands back on the wheel. “And you RAN out? Jesus Christ…”

“I’ve been in those situations before, I know what that fucking means. I’m not a complete idiot, you know. Trust me on this, will ya?” Jake looked at  Tommy, waiting for an acknowledgement. Tommy kept his eyes on the road, careful not to get into an accident on the snowy, congested streets.

“Jake, I trust you.” As it came out of his mouth, he realized that his tone betrayed the message even though he believed that statement whole-heartedly. “All I’m saying is that you might have, MIGHT HAVE, over-reacted. Look, is Peachy a back-stabbing prick? Yes, but that still doesn’t mean that he’ll cause problems at every step of the way. You could’ve stayed cool, kept talking to Aaron. Now they both know you’re fucking freaked out. There’s no doubt now that someone’s coming after us. Even if it’s just to ask why the fuck you ran out.”

Jake sighed. “I don’t know, man. You know that creepy sonovabitch better than I do. Doesn’t he still blame one of us for that shit?”

A year and a half ago Tommy and Jake worked a job for Peachy. The job went south and the two of them got pinched. By sheer luck, they were let go because the witness couldn’t, with one-hundred percent confidence, identify Tommy and Jake as the culprits. They were released soon after.

However, someone had left a dirty diaper behind at one of the job sites and a dirty diaper at a crime scene meant only one thing to the Thompson Police Department: Peachy was behind the whole thing. With as much diligence as they could muster on a weekend, the cops cornered Peachy at the local pool hall where he was showing his fellow patrons how far he could stick the pool cue in his ear without damaging a single brain cell. He was arrested without incident but had squealed on Tommy and Jake as soon as he was taken into the station. Since they had already released those two and didn’t want to make it appear that they had made a mistake, the cops ignored Peachy’s accusations and charged him for the whole thing.

In Tommy’s opinion, the two of them had every right to be pissed at Peachy and not the other way around. They could have ratted him out but choose not to do so simply because snitching could ruin your reputation fast. Peachy, on the other hand, betrayed whatever trust they had between the three of them. To Tommy, however, all was forgiven. He never liked holding a grudge; it got in the way of executing a successful job.

Jake got more frantic. “When I was running out, I totally got the feeling that they’d be coming after me. I really think Peachy’s gonna come after us.”

“Yeah, probably, after you ran out of the room like a goddamn rat off a sinking ship.”

“Whatever. You always blame this shit on me. I’m sick of it.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “Jesus Christ. I just don’t want any fucking trouble, that’s all. Sometimes you overreact, okay? That’s it. Doesn’t make you a bad person or anything and it doesn’t mean I don’t take you seriously. Now, is there anything else I need to know? Before Peachy came into the room, did Aaron say anything else?”

“No, he just nodded. He looked like he was into it. Until Peachy walked in. Then there was some weird vibe, I’m telling you.”

Though Tommy was doing his best to restrain himself and act like the calm half of the partnership, he felt himself falling deeper and deeper into a whirlpool of aggravation. “Fuck!” He slammed his fists on the steering wheel. If Peachy was again in Aaron’s good graces, even more so than Tommy and Jake were, then the two of them were fucked pretty good.

Jake got defensive. “Why’d you make me go in there by myself, anyway? If you were so afraid I’d fuck things up, why didn’t you do it your goddamn self, huh?”

“I did the last meeting. If Aaron was normal and let us both in, we wouldn’t have this problem but when we deal with him we have to alternate.” Tommy wasn’t too crazy about Aaron’s eccentricities. He never allowed a meeting with more than one person who didn’t belong to his organization. The fact that Peachy was there in the room with Aaron and Jake also gave Tommy some worry.

Their relationship with Aaron Jeffords was strictly business related. Because of that, there was always the chance that there would be a falling out. No personal attachments meant no assurance that Aaron would think twice before putting a bullet into both of their skulls. Now with Peachy involved, Tommy was worried that everything might turn to shit.

“What’re we gonna do, man? What?” Jake trembled, partly from the cold (the car’s heater hadn’t worked since Tommy got the car ten years ago) and partly from the stress.

“Okay, listen. We’ll stop at a payphone and I’ll call Aaron, try to test the waters, see what his reaction is. I’ll explain that you overreacted and hopefully I’ll be able to smooth things over.”

Jake’s eyes widened. “What good will that do? I told you, it wasn’t an outright threat. It was sneaky the way they looked at each other. He’ll just lie to you, tell you everything’s okay and that he was shocked when I ran out, whatever, but really he’ll just be bullshitting you. Next thing we know, both of us are in the river swimming with the Thompson squid.”

“I’m going to have to take that chance. I’ll make it clear how we feel about Peachy, don’t worry. There’ll be no confusion about that. This way, if he is bullshitting me, he’ll know that we’re fully aware of things and that we’ll be on our toes since we know Peachy’s somewhat involved.”

Tommy slowed the car down easy, not wanting to skid into a telephone pole or one of the many pedestrians on the sidewalk. As he parked the car in front of an alley, he looked to his right to see if he was close enough to the curb. His eyes caught something in the alley.

“Christ almighty, what the hell is that?”

Jake looked over. “What? Where?” He followed Tommy’s finger.

“Looks like a longhead but what the hell is he doing?” Tommy asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer. Ever since the war ended, he was made uneasy by the fact that a small fraction of the troops came back looking like that. Their skulls were vertically elongated, the skin stretched close to its breaking point to where it was translucent and one can see straight to their skull. One of the odd things about the whole situation was that all the longheads ended up moving to Thompson, forming a small ghetto at the south side of town. They took up with desperate prostitutes and had children who came out looking like even more sinister versions of their fathers.

The longhead in the alley was dressed in a cowboy costume and standing on a soapbox. In his arms was a strange contraption that looked like a combination of a manual meat grinder and cappuccino maker. His right hand furiously twisted a lever while his left held it tightly to his chest. Out of the top of the machine came spurting long, curly strips of what looked to Tommy like pasta.

“Tommy?”

“Yeah, Jake?”

“Is that longhead making…pasta?”

“Yeah, Jake, I think so.”

They stared at him for five minutes totally forgetting about Aaron and Peachy. Watching the pasta drop to the snowy ground made Tommy think of footage he once saw from the war of a troop getting disemboweled by a guerrilla fighter who used only a set of sewing needles. The troop’s entrails fell to the ground with the same wet clunk as the pasta.

“Tommy?”

“Yeah, Jake?”

“Can we go to another payphone?”

“Yeah, Jake, I think we can.”

They drove off, Tommy keeping his eyes on the road and Jake keeping his eyes on the alleyway, hoping to God that he would not see that longhead again.

 

CHAPTER 2

Aaron grinned at Peachy. “What the fuck was that about?”

“What’re looking at me for? I didn’t do anything. The bastard got scared, what’s that gotta do with me? You’re the one who said I could sit in on this one.”

“Yeah, I wanted you to sit in so you can patch things up with those two assholes.”

“So why didn’t you invite both assholes?”

“I didn’t want things to get crowded in here. You know how I feel about that. Things get too crowded, I start to get jumpy.” Aaron took a cigar out of his front pocket and lit it. “Why do you look so bulky?” He pointed at Peachy’s pants.

“Diaper.”

Aaron stifled a laugh. “Oh yeah, I forgot.”

Peachy blushed and had a seat in the chair across from the desk. Motherfucker didn’t forget. He knows I shit my pants. At least I don’t have a squid fetish.. He leaned forward, cupping his hands as if to tell his boss that he was ready to get down to brass tacks. “So, what are we going to do about this?”

He could tell Aaron wasn’t listening. His boss was too busy looking at the cigar smoke, his eyes a heavily sedated green haze of preoccupation. He ignored Peachy’s question and instead asked his own.

“Peachy, do you know why I really invited you to the meeting?”

“No….”

“I had a dream last night.” Aaron got up from his chair and came around to the front of the desk. He leaned on it like he felt a real boss was supposed to do while he looked down at Peachy, his long-time employee. “I had a dream that changed my life. For better or for worse, I don’t know. It was about my stint in the war. I told you about that, right?”

“Yes, you’ve talked about it a little.”

“Well, I probably didn’t tell you the bulk of it for fear of having you think of me as a coward or an asshole or something. Anyway, I had a dream about it again last night. I actually have these dreams quite often, but most of the time half of my body is a squid while the other half is completely covered in sunburn. So yeah, I have these war dreams a lot, you know, in between the ones where I’m screwing Chesty Morgan and that one about taking a nap in a fruit stand but anyway, let me go on.” He puffed at his cigar. “I was in battle, the rest of my fellow troops having gone deep into the shit, fighting their little patriotic asses off while I stood there, watching the sun in the sky as it turned into the face of Barbara Stanwyck. You know Barbara Stanwyck, right? I’m not that old, am I?”

“I don’t think I know her, no.”

“She was an actress from when I was a kid. Beautiful, beautiful woman. I was looking straight at the sun, being blinded by her face but also by the rays of sunlight. I swear I even felt the heat in this dream, like my skin was going to burn off. Then my troops came back, half of them were blown to bits, being brought in on wheelbarrows, donkeys, and I think even an elephant. Their eyes were falling out of their faces and their cheekbones were all busted up. But the ones that weren’t wounded were even more disfigured. They were the longheads. That’s one thing I never told you about my tour of duty. I was there when that shit happened. I’ve felt guilty about that every day since. I should’ve been one of those longheads. I choose not to go in there and all those boys came out looking like….that.” He made a face of disgust.

Peachy’s eyes bugged out of his head in shock. He never gave much attention to what he considered just mutated freaks of war. In fact, he never gave much thought to politics in general and for all he cared, the country could blow itself up along with the rest of the world. But to think his boss was intimately involved; that was incredible. I guess there’s more to Aaron than just money and squid-smelling. Peachy nodded his head and listened as his boss went on.

“And so I realized this morning as I shook myself out of the dream that not a single thing I do can make a difference. Whether I was a longhead or just a short head, nothing really matters, not a goddamn thing. I might as well be a longhead. Get it? Do you get what I’m saying? I was looking at the sun, at Barbara and the men came back. So even in the sunlight, where everything is lit up, illuminated or whatever, I still was blind to the fact that I was pretty much the same thing as them. What I was doing and what they were doing were the same. But still, I still feel that gnawing guilt, you know? The feeling that my life deviated from its predestined path. But now, I don’t know.”

Aaron sucked on his cigar and exhaled. A few puffs of cigar smoke enveloped Peachy’s face and he coughed.

Peachy felt uncomfortable. He knew he had to act sensitively but it was something he wasn’t used to. “I’m…sorry…about everything. But what’s this got to do with anything? I mean, business-wise.”

“What I’m trying to tell you is that whatever you choose to do, it’ll be done. What’s done is finished. That path I’ve always thought was there in front of me, it doesn’t exist. Everything is done, over with. So with those two assholes,” he rubbed his cigar in the squid-shaped ashtray, “you can do what you like.”

Peachy contemplated this. Not many people can say that they have received philosophical lectures from their boss. Still, though, he didn’t feel like it was something he would like to hear on a daily basis. After all, the more time one spends with Aaron Jeffords, the more one becomes used to all of his habits and routines. He couldn’t count the number of times he had to sniff Aaron’s squid collection or ride the albino pony that was kept locked up in a large closet in the office. If it wasn’t for the large sums of cash, Peachy would have left years ago.

He still wasn’t sure though. “Are you serious? I can take those fuckers out?”

“Yes.” Aaron opened his drawer and took out his pony harness. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

With a smile, Peachy got up, adjusted his diaper, and left the room.

 

CHAPTER 3

A few blocks from where Tommy and Jake were scouting for a new payphone, a man clad in a trench coat, black leather gloves, and a fedora hat stood outside of a go-go bar. He had been standing in the snow for an hour, waiting for Ms. Isabella Martino who was known mostly by her stage name, Sweetie Martini.

Despite the warnings from her coworkers, Isabella left the bar without an escort and started to trot her way to the bus stop. Her car was in the shop and it was only a ten minute bus ride home even with one stop before hers. She couldn’t wait to get home and curl up next to the window with a good book, with complete view of the snow-covered streets. Having worked a five hour shift most of which was spent on her feet, dancing and gyrating, she was more than simply exhausted. Isabella wanted to spend as much time lying down as possible.

Isabella never planned on becoming a stripper but she knew perfectly well that no one does. Little girls don’t dance around in their rooms to bad rock music, pretending to be on stage in front of sweaty old men or obnoxious frat boys. When she was a child, Isabella was like many girls her age; she dreamt of getting married, having a huge wedding, and perhaps pursuing a career in a myriad of fields.

She learned quickly, however, that life doesn’t always work out as planned and sometimes people have to do things that they aren’t proud of simply so they can eat and pay the rent. Her father’s brutal murder at the hands of Terry Silver (war veteran, millionaire, and organized crime boss) left her with little faith and even smaller hopes for herself.

 As she was walking past the alleyway next to the club, the man who had patiently waited for her all of that time grabbed her hand. He whispered something into her ear and led her to the alley.

“So you knew my father, then?” She smiled, recognizing the handsome face of the man who wore black gloves.

He answered in a frantic whisper as if it pained him to get the sound out. From inside his jacket he pulled out a straight razor, opening it like he had practiced so many times before, although in those instances he had been nude and standing in front of a full-length mirror.

There was a quick horizontal whoosh of his arm and Isabella’s throat exploded in a fountain of deep red squirting that stained the snow both on the ground and in the air. Crimson snowflakes sparkled like tiny rubies in front of the man who was now breathing heavily and whispering bittersweet verbal abuse.

Isabelle’s body fell to the ground, landing in the soft snow like a stuffed animal on a shag carpet. The man looked down the alleyway and saw that everyone who walked by was distracted with their own lives, be it business or pleasure, and didn’t as much as glance down the alley. Grunting with joy, he turned Isabella on her stomach and ripped her jacket and dress off, revealing her pale, bare back.

He dropped the razor and took out a black permanent magic marker. With delight similar to that of a child in art class, he meticulously sketched a comic strip across the back and upper buttocks of Sweetie Martini. The comic wasn’t an original idea; the man had memorized it from a book he had found, a book he had stolen after he killed its original owner, Terry Silver.

Two strips of five panels in black marker, colored in only by the hues of stripper skin. In this grim adventure, Fauntleroy Le Roux was on the bloody trail of Little Bing Bong, the Apocalypse donkey. Even with assistance from his stalwart side-kick (ex-boxer Mushy Nebuchadnezzer), Le Roux ultimately fails and in the tenth panel, the world is brought to its knees by Little Bing Bong.

The man looked down at his work and was satisfied that it was an exact copy of the original. He capped the marker and put it back in his jacket pocket. Through the whole ordeal, the man’s fedora hat had stayed on and he could now feel a puddle of sweat forming on the top of his head. He felt like an infant with a warm, soft spot in its skull.

He dragged Isabella against the wall and positioned her so that anyone walking down the alley would have full view of the comic strip. They would therefore be able to admire his artwork not only for its esthetic value but also for its soon-to-be historical significance. He looked at his work once more, memorizing the image, and then ran off with his mouth open, catching snowflakes on his tongue.

 

CHAPTER 4

“I think we’ll stop here, see if Red Henry is around,” Tommy said, pulling the car over to the right, nabbing a spot right in front of Kreese’s Bar and Packaged Goods. It was a place well-frequented by people just like Tommy and Jake, citizens of Thompson who wanted to keep a low profile but still be able to get what they needed when they needed it.

Red Henry Hooper was their firearm supplier. If there was a clean gun somewhere, Red Henry could get it, though often it was attached to a ridiculous price. Still, Tommy knew he could rely on him to keep quiet even under the most pressing of circumstances. Not to mention the fact that Red Henry had helped save Tommy from an unfortunate fate at the hands of some very angry haberdashers.

“Do you even know if he’s there?” Jake asked, “Why don’t we just stop at the barn, pick up a couple of shotguns.”

Tommy shook his head. “That’s in the complete opposite direction and Peachy knows about that place anyway. If you’re so worried about him, the barn should be the last place you wanna go. I want to get a drink and use the phone. I’d rather sort this shit out with Aaron before running ourselves out of town for no good goddamn reason.”

“Okay, let’s go then.” Jake opened the car door even before the car stopped moving. He jumped out onto the sidewalk, put his hands in his coat pockets, and waited at the doorway of Kreese’s, trying to stay out of the way of the barrage of snow flurries that twirled over the sidewalk. Once Tommy was out, Jake walked into bar.

As soon as he entered, they smelt the squid.

There weren’t many places in Thompson where you could get a one-dollar shot of whiskey with a squid chaser. Bits of the marine animal were blended together with egg yolk and extra virgin olive oil and then stuck in the freezer to make it ice cold. Among the regular patrons of the bar, it made a delicious first drink and an even more delicious last drink of the evening.

Those who have had the drink had often likened the experience to being beaten about the abdomen with a sac of warm jello. One patron even went so far as to call it “the most sexually arousing liquid seafood in the world” immediately before choking on an unblended piece of squid. That quote was now carved into a piece of wood and hung over the bar.

Tommy made eye contact with Kevin, the bartender, and mouthed the words “Is Henry around?” Kevin pointed to the back room. As Tommy and Jake made their way, they saw an amorous couple in one of the booths, sharing a huge pile of bacon cheese-fries. The man looked up at Jake and coughed. “You lookin’ at somethin’, son?” He took his hand off of his date’s ample breast, picked up a handful of bacon cheese-fries, and slowly covered the woman’s face with it, as if the grease was soap and the fries were a washcloth. The woman had no reaction.

Jake looked at his partner but Tommy just shook his head and pushed him into the backroom. “Just ignore that shit,” Tommy said as they made their way into Red Henry’s back office.

“Well, goddamn, if it isn’t Tom Pingpong and Jake Waite. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Red Henry talked stern and fast. His mouth seemed to move two steps ahead of his words.

“What’s happening, Red? How’s things?” Tommy extended his hand and Henry took it, providing a short but vigorous handshake. He gave the same to Jake.

“Can’t complain. Just came back from visiting my P.O. who is, I might add, a complete asshole. Tells me I gotta stop hanging out Kreese’s. Part of my parole, he says. Well, fuck him, that’s why I say. A man’s gotta eat, you know? A man’s gotta pay rent. What’s he think I should do? Flip burgers? Man’s a fucking idiot, thinks I’m gonna live a straight life so I could rot in some halfway house.”

Tommy nodded his head in agreement. “I hear you, man. There’s no disagreement there. Speaking of which, I was looking to buy a piece, nothing big, just something to get the job done.”

“Close range?”

“Nah, I’m not expecting it to get that intense. I don’t have much cash on me right now.”

“Well, how much do you have?”

“Only two hundred and change.”

Red Henry scratched his face. “Sorry to break this to you, buddy, but I’m almost completely sold out. Slim pickings, know what I mean? I only got a 9mm, about fifteen years old. Nothing fancy or anything but it’ll do the job at close range.”

“Last time we talked you had a pretty big inventory. You were practically begging me to help you unload it. What happened?”

“Ah, you know I keep my mouth shut about that sort of thing. That’s why I can stay in business, people know I’m not gonna name names.”

Tommy gave an open mouth smile. “You seriously going to pull that shit on us?”

The three of them laughed and Red Henry sat down at his well-worn, second-hand mahogany desk. “Okay, to tell you the truth, I don’t even know any names. I was honest to god cleaned out by a bunch of longheads. In a little over two weeks I must have sold thirty or forty pieces, all to those longhead bastards. The one I’m sellin’ you is just an old spare I keep around for myself.”

“That’s fucked up. You think anything’s going down?”

“Not that I heard. And usually I’m first or second on the grapevine so I wouldn’t worry about it. You know those guys are just paranoid war vets, anyway. Probably scared as all hell and hiding in their bunkers, waiting for the end of the world.”

Jake tapped in fingers impatiently. “So, let’s talk price.”

“Well, you said you have two-hundred. That’s a fair price.”

Jake shook his head. “Oh, no, that’s before we knew we’d be getting a piece of shit.” He turned to Tommy. “What do you think?”

“Jake’s right, Henry. I’ll give you one-twenty-five.”

The three sat in silence for a minute while Hooper chewed on his fingernail. Behind him was a window frosted with snowflakes. Still, Tommy could see clear enough to notice someone looking in from the building next door. It was a longhead, naked and standing on a velvet couch. He was holding a candle which he moved slowly from right to left, tipping it over just enough to let a few globs of wax falls to the floor with each movement.

“Jesus Christ.” Tommy got closer to the window and Jake then followed. Red Henry turned around in his chair.

“Well, would you look at that? Now he’s got a candle.” Red Henry chuckled.

Jake looked wide-eyed at him. “What do you mean? What did he have before?”

“A snapping turtle. Thing must have been a foot long. That guy was just holding it by its feet, dangling it over the floor. Felt bad for the turtle but I wasn’t just about to go knock on the door of some longhead. Especially not right after I sold him a gun.”

Tommy squinted. “What the hell is he looking at? Us? What the hell is wrong with him?”

“Who the fuck knows?” Red Henry leaned forward in his chair and opened up the desk drawer and pulled out a gun that looked as if it was dragged under a truck for at least three blocks.

“That’s an ugly piece of shit, you got there, Henry,” Tommy said.

“Take it or leave, Pingpong.” He put the gun on the desk and waited as Tommy took out the cash from his pocket.

After the quick transaction, Red Henry got up from the chair and ushered the two out of the room. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, gentlemen, I gotta go pick Susie up. She’s been out there all night and Christ knows she probably spent most of the money already. Boys, if you follow one piece of advice, let it be this: never marry a whore.”

Tommy gave a wry smile but Jake didn’t have a reaction. His mind was on Peachy.

As the door was shut behind them, they walked toward the bar to get a drink. Before they could reach it, however, a fat man in a raincoat blocked their path.

Tommy let loose the fakest smile he could muster. “Detective McMadigan, how nice to see you.”

“I’ll be a son of a bitch. You drink here, too? I had no idea.” The cop laughed and the sound that escaped his throat was filled with cigar-phlegm. He was a round man with a face full of dull, gray stubble. His shirt was stained with red wine and yellow spittle, combining to form tentacled shapes over his overwhelming gut.

“What can I do for you, Detective? You see, my friend and I here are in a rush to catch a movie.” Tommy, without realizing it until it was too late, felt his jacket pocket where he had put the gun. He was relieved to see that the detective didn’t notice. He was too busy eyeing up Jake.

“Who’s this goofy looking bastard?”

Jake started to sweat. He had heard about Detective McMadigan but never had the displeasure of running into him. From the stories that Tommy and others have told him, the cop was partial to a whole slew of odd behaviors. On any given day he may show up an ex-con’s apartment and force him to dig out his stash of girly magazines or ask the guy’s wife to strip while he played his harmonica. She’d then be subject to a wide range of mental abuse mostly involving being nude and forced to recite old Honeymooners routines. It’s well known even in the police department that Detective Shawn McMadigan is behind the prostitution ring that moved in downtown. It catered to those who liked to live on the wild side of Thompson. McMadigan made sure to provide customers with anything they desired be it born-again housewives addicted to prescription pain medication or bald hookers with dwarfism.

“This is Jake Waite.” Tommy turned to his partner. “Jake, this is Detective McMadigan. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him a time or two.”

McMadigan put his hand out and smiled, yellowish saliva sliding off his dull teeth. Jake reluctantly shook the cop’s hand and was pulled forward. The detective put his mouth close to Jake’s ear. “If you stick with this guy, then I know you’re looking for trouble, my kind of trouble. If I gotta teach you, that’s fine by me. Ever get gang-raped by a group of angry cops?”

The twinkle in the cop’s eye was disturbingly pornographic in nature. Jake looked into the speckled orbs and saw himself being torn apart by sheer force of McMadigan’s cannibalistic penis. He saw its teeth, its gaping mouth, and its mucus-filled nose. It was joined by three others, all belonging to members of the Thompson Police Department, their nightsticks being no match for their throbbing rods of power-drunk retribution.

Jake pulled away and headed for the door. The detective’s face turned angry and shouted. “Hey, I’m not done with you.”

Digging into his pocket, Tommy took out a twenty-dollar bill and discretely handed it to McMadigan. “We really have to catch that movie, detective.” He rushed out the door before the cop could do anything, though he knew that with a greased palm, Detective McMadigan would probably save his abuse for another day.

Once outside, Tommy ran to catch up to Jake who was walking down the sidewalk, away from their car.

“Christ, Tommy, that guy is a psycho.”

“Yes, I know. I told you about him. What the hell did he say to you?”

“What did he say to me? He fucking threatened me with a gang-rape! Thanks a lot for giving him my name, too, by the way. Real fucking smooth.”

“Shit, he’s a cop, man. Getting your name would be easy as fucking pie for him, anyway,” Tommy stopped walking. “Shit!”

Jake stopped two footsteps ahead and turned. “What?”

“Forgot to use the phone.”

As they both stood there cursing, Tommy felt a tug at his coat. He looked down to see a bald dwarf in a blue velvet coat. “Hey, baby, wanna date?” Even without a hair on her head, the woman was quite attractive with Russian facial features and a pierced nose that added a touch of feminine brutality to her allure.

“Uh, no thanks,” Tommy said, not finding the sight of the woman even the least bit surprising. Where there was Detective McMadigan, there was a dwarf hooker. From Tommy’s experience, that’s just the way it was.

“How about you, honey, thirty bucks, half and half.” She moved over to Jake and sucked on her finger. Her crude gesturing made Tommy so queasy that he knew that he’d vomit if she touched him.

“Maybe some other time,” Jake said. He made eye contact with his partner and shook his head slightly to the left. The woman saw this and stuck up her middle finger.

“Fuck you both, then.” She walked away and moved on down the sidewalk where she was accosted by a longhead dressed in an old moth-bitten business suit. The longhead looked at the dwarf, looked up at the sky, and then slapped the woman in the face before running off past Tommy and Jake, almost knocking them down.

“Jesus Christ, man. Tonight’s just getting worse and worse.” Jake took out a pack of cigarettes. “Hey, you know who McMadigan reminds me of?”

“Who?”

“Orson Welles in that movie Touch of Evil. Ever see it?”

“No, I don’t think I have. Any good?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty fucking good.” He took a drag and blew the smoke upwards, looking at the stars in the process. “Okay, well I’m still worried about Peachy. Do we go to a phone and call Aaron like you wanted? I think we should just get the hell out of town for a few days. Let things simmer down.”

“Despite the fact that I think you’re overreacting just a little bit, I guess I agree with you. Let’s go back to the car and get going.”

They walked back the other way, toward their car, passing another alleyway. If they had looked down that alley, they would have seen the longhead who had slapped the dwarf. They would have witnessed him sitting on a large snapping turtle and using one hand to shave his head with an electric razor, his hair falling off of his elongated skull like burnt wheat. If Tommy and Jake had looked down that alley, they also would have noticed that the longhead’s body was slowly shrinking to about the size of a dwarf.

 

Chapter 5

Peachy drove down Main Street blasting the radio. His head bopped to “She’s Lost Control” as he nearly skidded into a group of teens who ran across the street throwing snowballs at each other. He muttered a curse and then looked past the kids and saw Tommy and Jake getting into their car.

“Oh yes, you cocksuckers, I got you now.” He gripped the steering wheel and then felt his stomach bubble. His bowels exploded, letting loose a storm of diarrhea into his diaper. The deluge was far more than the diaper could hold, so much of it leaked out down his legs. “Oh, Christ, not now!”

He looked down at his lap to make sure he wasn’t leaking shit onto his car seats and didn’t see the ice patch that was clearly evident on the road. The car slid horizontally into a parked car that had been parked behind Tommy and Jake’s.

A fat man came running out of the bar. “Son of a bitch! Get the fuck out of the car!”

Peachy opened his glove compartment and pulled out his handgun that had been carved from an elephant’s tusk. It had been a gift from his great uncle who was a world traveler and was known within the underworld as Bootlicker Benny in reference to his tendency to steal the shoes of his rivals’ wives. His uncle had never endorsed the nickname but he had never rejected it either.

Peachy gripped the gun in his hand but hid it in his sleeve as he stepped out of the car.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Peachy said, smiling and trying to sound like a remorseful driver. Then he saw who the fat man was and the smile quickly dropped into a frown.

Detective McMadigan smiled sinisterly. “Well, if it isn’t Mr. Keen. You’re in a world of shit, now, aren’t you?” He put his hands on his hips and nodded his head. Oh, I’m gonna have a whole lot of fun with this motherfucker, he thought, and after I’m done with him, he’s gonna need more than a diaper.

With one slick motion, Peachy swung his arm up and unloaded three shots, hitting McMadigan twice in the torso and once in the neck. The detective fell backward, barely able to register what was happening. His last living thoughts were of an elephant with diarrhea spearing him repeatedly with its tusks.

Screams echoed through the streets as the terrified pedestrians ran to take cover. Peachy ignored them and went back into his car. His mood quickly darkened as he realized that more shit had leaked out of his diaper and had formed a trail along the street.

After getting back into the car and pulling  away, he ejected the Joy Division cassette from the car stereo and continued the ride in silence. In honor of his great uncle, he kissed his warm, ivory gun and pretended it was a boot.

 

Chapter 6

“Hey, Tommy, how about we stop home?” After being threatened with a law enforcement gang-bang, he was less worried about Peachy.

“First you want to get out of town, then you want to go home? If Aaron’s got someone after us, first place they’ll look is our place. Then the barn. We’ll stick with the original plan.”

Jake leaned back. “Okay.”

The car swerved to the right and Jake grabbed the dashboard. Tommy groaned and slammed on the brakes. “Would you look at that shit?”
            Walking across the street, through the slush and ice was a longhead.

“It’s another longhead. Yeah, he’s walking his dog. So what?”

Tommy pointed. “That’s not a dog.”

The longhead was walking a snapping turtle on a leash. The animal was wearing snow boots that were obviously made for an infant. While Tommy and Jake watched, the longhead stopped at the sidewalk, unzipped his pants, and proceeded to urinate on a parking meter. The passersby ignored him as they do whenever they see a longhead. To acknowledge them was to bring thoughts of war, guilt, and consequences.

“Just drive, man, just drive,” Jake said, making himself look away from the scene. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the snapping turtle take a step into the stream of piss. It splashed off of its shell in large droplets that mixed with the downpour of snowflakes.

Tommy pulled away and went one more block. He slowed down in front of the movie theatre. “I have an idea.” He pulled into a side street and parked the car. “Let’s see a movie.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nah, listen, we’ll hold up here, keep our eyes on the door, and see if anyone’s following us. What’s a better hide-out than a big, dark room?”

“I don’t know. A big, dark room out of town, maybe?”

“I’m just saying, if we go out of town and Aaron gets wind of it, it’ll look like we got something to hide which isn’t the case, am I right? So, this way we’re not doing anything but watching a movie.”

Jake nodded his head reluctantly. “Okay, fine.”

They walked around the corner and up to the ticket booth. Tommy looked up at the marquee. “Hey, which movie do you want to see?”

“What’s the difference? We’re not actually here to see a movie.”

“Oh, whatever, just pick one.”

Glancing up at the titles, Jake was surprised to see that they were all old movies. “Let’s see…Ball of Fire, um,  Remember the Night… Flesh and Fantasy….Never heard of these.” He directed his statement toward the ticket seller.

“We’re running a marathon. All Barbara Stanwyck pictures. We’re also showing Clash by Night.” The ticket seller was a lanky bearded teenager who, Jake thought, looked happier than he should’ve been to be working on such a cold night in an unheated ticket booth.

Tommy took out the remaining money from his pocket. “Two tickets, then.”

“For an extra five dollars, would you each like a Barbara Stanwyck Halloween mask?”

Jake made a face. “Are you serious?”

The teenager smiled, revealing a bright overbite. “Yes, very.”

“No thanks, no masks.” Tommy handed over the cash and took the tickets.

As they walked away, he heard the ticket seller mocking them, speaking in a faux-Spanish accent, “Masks? We don’t need no stinkin’ masks!”

Tommy and Jake stepped into the theatre but not without taking one last look out onto the street to see if anything looked amiss. From what they saw, the Thompson night was close to a normal one.

The theatre lobby was large; it reminded Tommy of a church foyer, albeit one with movie posters and a floor sprinkled with popcorn. He stepped up to the snack bar and turned to Jake. “Want something? I got a few dollars left.”

“Just popcorn, I guess.”

The girl behind the counter had both her hands in the popcorn machine. She was making hand-washing motions, sticking her arms deep into the popcorn. Tommy caught her eyes. “Can I have large popcorn, please?”

She looked at him, eyes grey and blank. “We have no popcorn.”

Jake and Tommy looked at each other. “What’re talking about? There’s popcorn right there!” Jake pointed.

“We have no popcorn, sir.” She continued washing her hands with the warm kernels.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jake’s voice echoed through the lobby. Tommy grabbed his arm.

“Let’s just go into the movie. Forget about it.”

Jake slammed his knuckles into the popcorn machine and pointed to it with his middle finger. “Crazy bitch.”

He followed Tommy towards the theatre. As they walked, something caught Tommy’s eye. A small group of men walked past them and made their way to a small hallway off to the side where only the employees were allowed.

“Oh, shit, I forgot about this place.” Tommy gestured toward the men. “Totally forgot. This place is fucking loaded.”

He led Jake toward the hallway and heard the popcorn girl shout.

“You can’t go in there, sir.”

Tommy held his hand up. “Really?” He kept walking. Once they got to the door, they could hear the low thump of music, like a rapid heartbeat through the walls.

“What the fuck’s in here?” Jake asked.

“Gambling. Been here once, years ago with Joe Gurney. It’s pretty wild.”

He opened the door and walked slowly in, cigarette smoke confronting them like a cloud. Through the smoke, they saw five tables set up in a circle each with a different casino game being played. In the middle of the circle was a small stage where tall, skinny women gyrated. All of the dancers were dressed in cowgirl outfits and wore Barbara Stanwyck masks, obviously the same ones that Jake and Tommy passed up at the ticket booth.

The music was a noisy cacophony of metallic clanging and bowel-churning bass. A syrupy voice oozed out of the speakers. “It’s the smiles that keep us going, don’t you think?”

“Neat place,” Jake said sarcastically.

“It’s actually not that bad. Let’s have a seat.” As soon as he started walking, a short man dressed in a tuxedo approached them.

“You don’t belong here, assholes.”

Tommy smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ve been here before.”

“I’ve never seen you, so get the hell outta here. Hit the bricks.” He stuck a thumb out and made a backwards motion with it.

Jake took a step back. “Okay, okay, we’re leaving.” He walked out the door and realized that Tommy wasn’t following him but instead was looking past the short man over to the stage where a new dance was starting. The women took off their masks and began rolling around on the ground like worms. As they writhed, they violently caressed their exposed breasts.

“Tommy, come on!” Jake was relieved when he finally saw his partner turn around and walk in his direction.

They walked past the popcorn girl who was now smearing a melted chocolate bar on her hands. “I told you. You can’t go in there,” she said, not looking up from her hands.

Tommy and Jake ignored her and went into their theatre. As soon as they walked in, they were shocked by how cold it was. Though it was freezing outside, there was no heat in the theatre. Goosebumps appeared immediately on their skin even under their coats.

“Fucking cold as hell, man.” Jake stated the obvious and Tommy just nodded, looking at the screen as Barbara Stanwyck smiled. The film flickered for a moment and between Stanwyck’s lips, Tommy saw the shape of a longhead as if it was climbing out of her throat. It morphed into something that looked like a furry inkblot with four legs.

Barbara’s forehead was a huge, blank slate on which Tommy envisioned a plethora of grotesque geometric shapes that moved with every utterance of dialogue.

Jake tapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s get a seat with a good view of the door.” He started walking to the corner of the room, where they could see the entrance easily and have a clear path to the emergency exit.

Tommy was still looking at the screen, entranced, as if Barbara Stanwyck herself was performing a bizarre point-of-view seduction for him and him only. She licked her lips. She touched her forehead, forcing the kaleidoscopic forms into a whirlpool of silent violence.

Jake slapped him on the back of the head. “Tommy! What’re you doing?”

“I don’t think I wanna stay here,” Tommy put his hands up to his face. “Let’s just go.” He turned around and headed out of the theatre.

Jake followed him out and they walked past the snack bar attendant who was picking her nose with her wet, brown index finger.

“Tommy, what’s the matter?”

“I’m just really fucking confused right now.”

“About what?”

They reached the door to go outside. Jake looked out and noticed that there were more people than he expected there to be considering the weather and the near certainty of frostbite and car accidents. Thompson wasn’t exactly a substantial metropolitan city. It was caught in a limbo that was not uncommon in New Jersey. Too small to really be called a city, but too impersonal and urbanized to be called a town. Suburban streets were cut in half by strip malls, factories, and the occasional run-down park.

As soon as Tommy opened the door, a gust of wind combined with a wall of frosty daggers attacked their faces. Jake closed his eyes and for a split second imagined that he was in a sandstorm, lugging his body through a desert as if his brain was simply a corpse-mover, delivering flesh and bone to a destination that was clear across the treacherous landscape.

Tommy walked out and then leaned against a parking meter. He coughed and looked at the sky. White streaks were now flashing across the pinkish hue beyond the hill. Through the noise of voices and car engines, he heard the almost-subliminal sound of the factory down the street. The rumbling ambience made him mindful of the fact that he indeed could be in much danger and that he was only a fragile sentient form standing in the cold, waiting for something that was beyond his present knowledge.

Jake put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder, shaking him out of his quasi-meditative state. “Come on, let’s go.”

They walked back to the car. Nearby, a longhead wearing a Barbara Stanwyck mask was sitting on the roof of a 1966 Plymouth Barracuda. He held a match in his right hand and staring straight ahead, he made it disappear and appear over and over, performing wintry sleight-of-hand for an audience of snow flakes and car-exhaust-stained slush.

 

Chapter 7

Several blocks from where Tommy and Jake were getting into their car, a woman was answering a quiet knock at her door. Dressed in a robe under which she wore a brand new negligee, the woman looked through the peephole and saw that it was her lover, Willie Packard.

She opened the door and ushered him in. “My husband will be out all night. He’s working a double,” said Mrs. Sara McMadigan.

Willie planted a short but wet kiss on her lips. “I still feel weird, though, doing it in your house. Why couldn’t we stay at my place?”

“Because it’s too cold and I didn’t feel like going out. You wouldn’t want your little sweetie to get sick, would you?” Mrs. McMadigan wrapped her arms around Willie and returned his kiss.

Sara had met Willie when she was a secretary for Dynatox Industries. He had been a fisherman for most of his life but when his wife went missing (she was believed to be abducted by either squid or octopi), he gave it up to work with computers. As soon as they met, there was an obvious mental-sexual connection and the affair began when he bought her a lunch of tuna salad and oysters. They’ve been screwing ever since.

Sara and Willie walked together into the living room and sat on the couch. Sara had set down two glasses of scotch. Willie grabbed one glass, handed it to her, and went to pick his up. When he did so, he glanced up out the window and saw something in the window of the neighbor’s house. He dropped his glass and the scotch spurted out of it all at once, silently splattering the carpet.

“Shit! Sorry!” Willie looked around for a napkin.

Sara giggled. “Don’t you worry about it. I don’t mind stains on the carpet. They remind me of blood, makes me remember when I was a teenager.”

Willie made a face. “What do you mean? Why?”

“You know I used to work on a boat, helping bring the squid in. Almost every day someone would cut themselves open because they weren’t paying attention, just slicing open the suckers and their own hand in the process. The floor of the boat had splotch after splotch of blood and squid guts or whatever it is that squids have inside of ‘em. I remember this one sleazy guy who used to always try to get me to bend over in front of him. Ray! That’s what his name was. Anyway, one time he cut his hand open and there was this HUGE blood stain on the floor of the boat.” Sara took out a cigarette from the pack on the table and lit it. She took three drags before she began talking again.

“Well, he went right ahead and took out this turtle shell and started draining his blood in there. Then he went around asking us if we wanted our fortunes told. I couldn’t help noticing, too, that all the while he’s doing this, he has the biggest erection I’d ever seen.”

“He was naked?” Willie laughed.

“No, no, he was wearing pants but you couldn’t miss it, I’m telling you. After that, I just didn’t mind stains all that much. If I spill some juice or some wine on the carpet, I just stare at it and try to see my future or someone else’s.”

Willie pointed to the stain. “Well, what do you see here?” He kissed her neck. Sara tilted her head and looked at the carpet.

“That’s fucking weird.”

“What?”

“I just thought of my old neighbor from when I was growing up in Brooklyn. I haven’t thought of her in years. Barbara something. God, she was like a big sister to me.” She got down on her knees and put her face closer to the stain which was now fading, sinking deeper into the carpet fibers. “Yeah, I can almost see her face, her nose especially, she had a big nose.”

Willie looked down at Sara and then out the window again. The person he saw in the house next door was still there, standing on some sort of stool, waving a flag. While his married lover inspected her stain, Willie got up closer to the window. At that distance he could see that it was a longhead dressed in a Viking costume. Willie couldn’t see what sort of flag was being waved but he could see that it was being moved with fervor and passion as if the man on the stool was actually marching in a parade and not standing in his room alone.

“Honey, come look at this,” he said. Sara was still on her knees.

Wait, I see something else, I think. There’re some dog hairs in the carpet and they’re adding shapes to Barbara’s face. Come here, Willie, I want to know if you can see it, too.” She put her cigarette out in a squid-shaped ashtray.

Willie stared at the longhead for another few seconds and then walked back to Sara. “That guy Ray really did a number on you, huh? Having you stare at carpet stains. Shit.”

“Oh, who cares? Just come down here and look at this.”

Willie grabbed the bottom of Sara’s negligee and pulled it up. “I’d rather look at THIS.” He caressed the backs of her thighs. Sara stiffened and turned over. Willie fell into her and they made love on top of the Barbara-stain.

Afterwards, they leaned against the couch, smoking. Sara nuzzled into Willie’s neck. She pointed to the piano. “Can you play something for me?”

“Sure can, honeybunch. What would you like to hear?”

“I don’t know. Anything. I love anything you play.”

Willie got up and sat on the piano bench. “You make a wonderful audience, you know that?” He smiled, cracked his knuckles, and took a fake bow. “Ladies and gentlemen! Mr. William Henry Packard!”

Sara giggled and lay on her stomach facing Willie who was sitting naked in front of the piano.

Willie started pounding on the keys, his face contorted into humorous expressions. Then his face faded into seriousness.

The piano made no sound.

“What the hell is this?” He turned to her. “Sara, what happened to the piano?”

“Nothing, no one uses it but you. It hasn’t been played since the last time you tried teaching me how to play.”

Willie got up from the bench and opened the piano. He nearly fell backward when he saw that the inside of the piano was filled with long, wet strips of pasta. “Jesus Christ!”

“What?” Sara took a look inside. “Oh my God!” She fainted and fell sideways, hitting her head on the coffee table, dying instantly. Blood oozed out of her skull, covering the scotch stain with a fresh one.

Willie’s eyes bugged out of his head in shock and horror. “Sara? Sara?” After checking for a pulse and finding no signs of life, he quickly got dressed. As he scurried out of the apartment he took one more look out the window. Willie thought he saw the longhead pointing and laughing at Willie though he wasn’t so sure he was willing to trust his own eyes.

Before closing the apartment door, he saw Sara’s new stain on the rug and thought that it looked a lot like a turtle shell.

 

Chapter 8

“Stupid cop.” Peachy shook his head, still thinking about McMadigan but not necessarily regretting what he had done. The detective had made a pastime of screwing around with ex-cons and Peachy was fed up with having to supply the cop with impromptu urine and stool samples at the drop of a hat. That’s the last fucking time I take a shit for that asshole.

The car moved slowly down the street, windshield wipers barely moving fast enough to keep up with the snowflake assault. Peachy looked out the passenger window as he drove and his eyes caught the movie theatre marquee.

“Hey, watch out!” a voice called out just in time for Peachy to see five teenagers in the road with snowballs in their hands. He swerved to the left, sending the car straight into an empty fruit cart that sat in front of the Thompson Produce Shop.

Shards of wood and snow piles flew off of the cart as he hit the brakes. The car skidded and then stopped, hitting a brick wall. “Christ almighty,” Peachy said, stepping out of his car, praising every god that he could think of that he was wearing his seatbelt. He took a step out and yelled a few half-hearted curses to the kids who returned the sentiment. If there was one thing he had a soft spot for, it was kids. Ah, to be young and carefree. Lucky little bastards.

Then Peachy saw the body.

A middle-aged man dressed in a tattered suit and a long beard lay against the wall. He had been sleeping in the fruit cart and was killed on impact when the car hit. “Oh, you must be fuckin’ kiddin’ me!” Peachy looked around and saw people walking over to him to see if he was okay. He quickly grabbed hold of the body and dragged it a few feet away and covered it with the pieces of the cart.

“Are you alright?” one voice shouted. Peachy ignored him and went back to his car. He dug out his gun and then jogged down the street.

“I’m calling the cops!” another voice yelled.

Peachy kept going until he saw Scooter’s Go-Go-Rama. He hadn’t been in there since before being locked up and he was getting erotic stirrings despite the stress of the evening.

His stomach rumbled so clinched his ass cheeks, knowing what to expect. A wet squeak escaped followed by a spurt of liquid shit. Should of brought an extra fucking diaper, he thought. He walked down the alley next to the go-go bar and started to take down his pants when he saw the body.

At first his mind didn’t register it as a body because he saw the comic first. The drawings were so vivid, so bold, that Peachy couldn’t help but respect it as a piece of art and not just magic marker scribbling on the back of a corpse.

Pants down to his knees, his dirty diaper drooping with the weight of diarrhea, Peachy read the comic strip three times. He was no fan of comic strips, comic books, or art in general but this adventure of Fauntleroy LeRoux entranced him with a bittersweet vertigo. His head swam in an increasingly psychotic state, his brain cells screaming the apocalyptic hymns of Little Bing Bong.

Down the alley, a group of longheads watched intently. One of them grunted and Peachy looked at them. They laughed and continued pissing into empty wine bottles. Deep yellow urine filled each and every one. When the last longhead was done, they muttered words that Peachy could not hear and then as quick as it takes for one’s eye to register a snowflake falling to the ground, the urine in the bottles became deep red wine.

The longheads proceeded to get drunk while Peachy pulled up his pants, half mad with visions of jack-ass eschatology. He ran onto the sidewalk and then across the street, stumbling to the ticket booth of the movie theatre. The words Barbara Stanwyck Film Festival swirled off of the marquee and into his brain. He didn’t know what Stanwyck looked like but he sensed her as if she was a long-lost lover who was present in spirit only.

“How many tickets?” the teenage ticket seller asked. He gave a face, seeing the diaper sticking out of the top of Peachy’s pants.

“I don’t know…what are you….unveiling tonight?” Peachy slurred his speech and felt the sudden urge to wag his tail that is, if he possessed one.

The guy pointed to the sign in back of him. “A bunch of classic Barbara Stanwyck movies. Are you interested?”

“Give me a minute,” Peachy replied, wanting so much to take his elephant tusk gun and beat the ticket seller to a bloody pulp and then use those pieces of pulp in a display of snowy, blood-soaked divination.

He settled on buying a ticket.

“For an extra five dollars more, would you like a Barbara Stanwyck Halloween mask?” He held up the mask.

Peachy looked at the seductive features of the mask and felt his heart flutter a warning.

“Shove it up your ass!’ Peachy said. With a grunt and a curse, he fell backwards into the snow and crawled away from the theatre.

“You shove it up your ass!” the ticket seller laughed while he started rolling a joint.

Chapter 9

“Hey, pull over for a second,” Jake said. He tapped the window with his knuckles.

“What for?” Tommy slowed the car down.

“Just pull over.”

A parking spot opened up in front of the liquor store so Tommy pulled right in. “Okay. Now what?”

Jake gave a half smile. “I’m starting to think you might’ve been right.”

“About what?”

“About this whole situation. I mean, why are we running? It’s like we turned into a bunch of paranoid assholes all of a sudden.”

Tommy stared Jake. “What the hell is this? I told you that you were overreacting from the get-go. Christ Almight. I can’t believe this shit.”

“I know. It’s my fault, I’m sorry. I’ve just been on edge for a few days.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I have no fucking clue.” Jake ran his hands through his hair. “It’s this town, it’s messing with my head or something.”

“I know what you mean.” Tommy didn’t elaborate but instead looked out his window.

Jake shouted. “Oh my god, isn’t that…?” He pointed to the sidewalk where a man was pulling his hair out of his head, ranting and raving. His skin was blotched partly from the cold and partly from years of hygiene neglect.

“Holy shit, it’s Pastor Timothy. I haven’t seen him since he threw that rock through the window of the soup kitchen.” Tommy laughed. “That fucker is crazy.”

“Yeah, was he that nuts when he was preaching? I can’t imagine any church would put up with that shit.”

“My parents used to just say he had a nervous condition or something. Anytime he’d do something fucked-up, they’d tell me that we have to forgive him because God forgave him. I just think he’s a hateful son of a bitch.”

“Are pastors even allowed to hate anything?”

“Apparently.”

“I thought religion was supposed to make you nice.” A flash of memory illuminated Jake’s mind. He remembered a kind uncle from his childhood who used to point to the grass and say “That’s God” and then point to the sky and say “That’s God”. Before Jake could ask any questions, the man would point to a stray cat and say “That’s God, too.” Jake would then be treated to an ice cream cone which was, much to Jake’s surprise and delight, God as well.

“I don’t know. I guess for some people it’s something to make them nice and compassionate. I think Pastor Timothy just hates a lot of things, figures God wants him to. Figures if they don’t believe the same things as he does, they aren’t worth giving two shits about. He’s just miserable and thinks that he might as well be since he’s going to heaven to live in paradise.”

“That’s one of the most fucked up things I’ve ever heard.” Jake thought again of that compassionate uncle who spent most of his free time helping feed the homeless, mentoring orphans, and helping nurse sick animals back to health. All of this without having gone to church. His good deeds had outshined his lack of religious showboating.

That all ended, however, when the uncle was eaten alive by squid after being thrown into the Raritan River by an angry mob of religious conservatives. They thought that his time would best be spent raising funds for the church rather than helping the needy. After all, Jake’s uncle was the mayor and what else should a politician do but support the church?

Tommy and Jake watched as the disheveled man screamed while lighting a book of matches on fire. “The Lord your God is a devouring fire, a jealous God!” 

Jake scoffed. He remembered his uncle reciting a scripture from the bible….Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude…

Pastor Timothy spit onto a woman’s face, a woman he suspected of being a homosexual and, even worse, a democrat. Witnessing this, Jake thought again of his uncle… For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son.

“Ah, I guess having a son coming home a longhead doesn’t help either.” Tommy reasoned. “That’s gotta do some psychological damage to a man.”

Jake felt a tang of compassion. “Shit, I guess that explains some of it. But still, what’s the point of religion if it ain’t gonna help you deal with shit?”

Pastor Timothy was scratching the skin off of his face, throwing the flakes of flesh into the air like confetti. “Hear what the Lord thy God has spoken! If anyone comes to me and does not hate,” the pastor said, gritting his teeth, “his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple, says the Lor-“  Pastor Timothy was cut short by a snow shovel to the face wielded by an elderly drag queen.

“Ah, shut your pathetic little pie-hole. The hell I’m hatin’ my parents for any god!” the drag queen shouted as Pastor Timothy fell backward, his yellow teeth coming straight through his lower lip.

Tears started to stream from the pastor’s eyes. “My son, my son, the pagans killed my son,” he repeated over and over.

Jake looked at Tommy. “This town’s fucking weird, man.”

“No kidding. But it’s not as weird as Fisherville, let me tell you. That place is a fucking zoo.” He laughed and looked at his watch. “Shit, I feel calmer now that we’re not going fucking crazy running from nonexistent assassins.”

Jake laughed, reclined his seat, and continued to look at the scene out on the sidewalk. “Man, let’s just sit here and enjoy the show. But I do think we should give Aaron a call later, like you said.”

“Sounds good.” Tommy and Jake sat for a few minutes, watching Pastor Timothy and the drag queen arguing over who got to keep the shovel.

“You hit me with it, look at my lip, I’m a wreck, I should be able to keep the shovel!” The pastor was insistent about it in between mumbling about his son and how the pagans were destroying the country with all of their talk of peace.

The drag queen wasn’t having any of it. “Oh no, you don’t. It belongs to my girlfriend and the hell if I’m gonna let some impotent fire and brimstone cocksucker take it home so he could shovel heavy metal albums onto his little bonfire!”

Jake laughed at the drag queen’s argument and then dug in his pocket. “I’m going outside for a few minutes, have a smoke. Want one?”

“No thanks.”

Outside the car, Jake smoked and watched the crowd that was growing around the shovel debate. Inside, Tommy leaned his head to the side and stared at Jake. Man, he put on some weight. Should I tell him? Nah, he’ll get pissed. Maybe I’ll tell him we should join a gym together.

His eardrums crackled as a gunshot rang out. Instinctively his head went down and as he did so he saw that Jake did the same thing. Then he realized that Jake didn’t go down to protect himself. He had been shot.

 

Chapter 10

Tommy crawled over the seats and out the passenger side door. “Jake! Jake!” He could see that the shot wasn’t fatal. It had grazed the side of his stomach. Despite being scared and face-first in a slushy pile of what looked like snow, motor oil, and dog shit, Jake was okay.

“Can you move?” Tommy asked him, pulling him up.

“Yeah, I could. What the fuck was that? I knew someone was after us. Christ!”

Tommy held Jake and started him walking. “Let’s fucking go, NOW.” They started running, not bothering to look back at where exactly the bullet came from. They had an idea about who it was but weren’t in any sort of rush to confirm their suspicions.

Even with the snow and the screaming crowd on the sidewalk, they managed to make a good run for it. They made it to the corner and slipped up the side street.

Up the street Peachy stood clad only in his dirty diaper, brandishing his ivory gun. His thoughts alternated between thinking about those two assholes and creating new adventures of Fauntleroy LeRoux. Peachy created an alternate ending of the comic strip, one in which Little Bing Bong does not usher in the apocalypse and mankind does not have to learn the ultimate truth about their existence. Peachy loved ignorance and he didn’t want to know any more than he had to.

Through his quickening madness he heard Pastor Timothy and started to agree with the man. Maybe this life was a shithole. Maybe he should just put his faith in God so that he can spend an eternity in paradise. Who would want to be happy here and now on earth when you could be happy forever in the ambiguous heaven of God? “Damn straight, pastor, you have a point.” Peachy sniffed the muzzle of his gun. “I’m livin’ this life for my soul and my soul only. God damn everyone else.” He giggled.

Pastor Timothy looked over at Peachy. “Oh yeah, son, you smell that? Smells like the burning flesh of sinners, don’t it? Sweet smell, it is.” He looked at Peachy’s diaper. “Does your momma know you’re out here in the cold?”

Though his mother had been dead for over twenty years, Peachy said “Yes, she does,” and then walked down the street toward Tommy and Jake. He thought he heard police sirens but realized it was only the humming of the Dynatox factory down the street.

The snow got heavier and blinded him for a minute. Every snowflake became a weak hand of resistance that pushed him away from his goal. Tiny white hands, cold with rebellion, slapped Peachy across the face, across the stomach, across the legs. It melted against his skin and soothed his diaper rash.

Meanwhile, Tommy and Jake stood against a brick wall. Tommy took out his gun, opened it up and thanked God that it was loaded as he had never checked after buying it from Red Henry. With a deep breath, he cocked his gun and turned the corner.

Through the blinding snow, Peachy was stumbling toward him in the middle of the snow-covered street. Tommy quickly aimed and pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped into Peachy’s kneecap and it exploded like a piece of oversized ravioli. Despite the wound, he didn’t go down but instead used his good leg to stay standing like a scarecrow.

Tommy turned to Jake. “Get up! Get the fuck up! We gotta go!”

Jake was pale and mumbling.

“The bullet barely hit you, Jake. Come on, you’re alright. You’ll be fine. We gotta go NOW!”

With a cough, Jake motioned for him to get closer. Once Tommy was in earshot, he started talking in a gargled voice. “You know, my dad was in the war. He wasn’t supposed to have another tour of duty but he wanted to go. He was patriotic, you know?”

“I didn’t know that, Jake.” Tommy didn’t like where this was headed. Besides, they didn’t have the time to go into all of this.

“He came back alive. Mom and I were happy he didn’t come back a longhead, you know, but the thing is, he just wasn’t the same. He didn’t have that spark that we loved, didn’t care so much about life, about living things. It was like he became an inanimate object during his tour or something.” He coughed up blood and wiped his mouth.

“Oh shit, Jake, shit, man..” Tommy whispered, using his own jacket to wipe away the blood. Tears gathered in his eyes. “Fuck, man, let’s go.” He couldn’t hold it in any longer; he started crying.

Jake smiled. “After three months, dad died. Doctors told me and mom they didn’t really know why. Said he just gave up. Never heard of that before, you know, someone just giving up and their body listens. My dad didn’t believe in heaven even though he went to church every week. I was there when he died and know what he told me? Know what his last words were?”

Tommy thought it was a rhetorical question but Jake stared straight at him as if expecting an answer.

“I don’t know, Jake, what were they?”

“He said to me ‘Son, none of this is real. Not a goddamn thing. We’re all the fucking same. All just ants waiting to be burnt by the sun.’ That was it and then he closed his eyes like he was going to sleep but there was no snoring, no fidgeting. He was just gone.”

Tommy turned his head and sobbed into his hands. He’d heard many stories about Jake’s father but never this one. He knew Jake’s father was a dependable, loving father who always provided for his family. Even though he was disappointed in Jake’s criminal path in life, he had never turned his back on his son.

Jake’s head fell back. Tommy could see that the life was slowly leaking out of his body. He bent down and gave Jake a long, soft kiss on the lips that tasted like copper and salt. “I love you,” Tommy said, “Don’t go.”

A barely audible bubble of speech escaped from Jake. “I love you, too.” He coughed. “Thanks for the laughs.” And then, like a snowflake on a stove, he was gone

.

Chapter 11

Aaron Jeffords stood in his office looking out the window at the pink, snow filled sky. He shook his head when he saw the image of Barbara Stanwyck appear and noticed that her breasts were much larger than they were in her films. Her cleavage was a long, deep black lightning bolt across the sky. Aaron longed to smother himself in it, lapping up the breast-sweat. He imagined her drooling down her chest causing him to drown in her abundant saliva.

He leaned back, picked up his phone, and dialed his attorney.

“Hey, Bill, Aaron Jeffords here. Yes, remember what we were talking about earlier today?”

“Yes, of course I do. What about it?”

“Is everything in order?”

“Uh, yeah, Aaron, why? What’s the matter? Aaron!” Bill shouted.

Aaron hung up the phone. He opened up a desk drawer and took out a gun. He turned to face Barbara, mentally sinking in between her massive, fiery breasts. The sky behind her became a mixture of pink and black swirls. She lifted a foot and Aaron could see her wrinkled soles that were as large as a mountain. In an instant he could smell her foot stench through the windowpane.  Aaron sniffed up as much of the smell as possible and then put the gun to his head.

Lord, I’m on my way.

He pulled the trigger with no hesitation. Blood spurted and pieces of brain fell like dice onto his desk. His skull, however, stayed connected to his body in one piece albeit a bit disfigured. He now resembled a longhead. The gun dropped to the floor, smashing a spider that had come out to witness the sight of Barbara Stanwyck outside. Aaron’s body fell forward and was held up against the window by his misshapen forehead.

 

Chapter 12

Pete and Randy dragged their sleds up the hill, laughing the whole way up. They were quite grateful that this early snowfall had come. School would surely be cancelled the following day and that would mean more sledding and more snowball fights.

When they reached the top, Pete saw something that nearly made him faint. A dead donkey, stiff yet bubbling from corpse-gas, was lying in the snow.

“Holy shit! A pony!” Pete yelled.

“It’s not a pony, jack-ass, it’s a donkey!” Randy was quick to correct his friend.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Duh, it’s dead.” Randy walked closer to it, still holding onto his sled. His eyes flickered with adolescent creativity. “Let’s put it on your sled and send him down the hill.”

“Why my sled? Let’s use yours!”

“Mine’s brand new. Your sister gave you that piece of shit so who cares what happens to it?”

“Fine,” Pete gave in, knowing that arguing was futile when talking to Randy. He brought his sled over to the donkey and the two of them held their breaths and heaved the donkey onto it. “We’re gonna get in so much trouble. Man, I don’t want to be grounded on a snow day.”

“Oh, don’t be such a pussy. No one will find out. Trust me.”

They positioned the sled so that the donkey would be sent down flying down a path that ended just to the left of Main Street.

Randy took a deep breath. “On three, okay? One..two…”

 

Chapter 13

Even with his kneecap blow off, Peachy was able to stagger down the street toward Tommy. I hit one of them, I know I did. He saw the two of them run away and felt his self-esteem lower just a bit. I used to have better aim.

From around the corner, Tommy stuck his gun out and sent three shots in Peachy’s direction. Two of the bullets missed but one hit him in the other kneecap, sending him to his shredded knees. With the diaper on, it made Peachy resemble an ugly infant playing in the snow. He dropped his gun.

Tommy looked at Jake one last time and then came out onto Main Street. He aimed his gun and was ready to finish Peachy off when he heard a ruckus down the street. Through the thick snowflakes he saw a small army of longheads stomping up the street, shooting the guns that Red Henry had sold them. One by one, they slaughtered the citizens of Thompson in a macabre parade.

After seeing this, he knew that Peachy was the least of his worries. Then he saw the bastard pick up his gun. Before Tommy could react with his own firearm, a brown and red blur sped past him and into smashed into Peachy, slicing him in two.

“What the fuck…” Tommy questioned as he now realized that the blur that had turned Peachy into a quivering mess of flesh and diaper was a dead donkey on a sled. You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.

Tommy took another look toward the oncoming assault of the longheads and decided his best bet was to go over the hill into Fisherville. He would have liked to take Jake’s body with him but knew that he didn’t have the time. Besides, he knew that whatever consciousness or soul that had been Jake was now far away from his corpse.

As he raced upwards, slipping and sliding in six inches of snow, he looked up and saw the shimmering image of Barbara Stanwyck in the sky above. Tommy froze. His testicles retracted and his heart skipped a beat. Barbara winked and jiggled her breasts which appeared to be three sizes to large for her body. Her nipples were dots of pink fire and her teeth were glistening bubbles of starlight.

He continued running and when he reached the top of the hill, Tommy fell down to his knees. He chuckled, realizing that this was exactly the position Peachy was in when a speeding donkey on a sled killed him. This thought made him cut short his rest and sent him down the other side of the hill. I hope Joe Gurney still has that shack in the clay pits, he thought. His friend Joe used the shack for bootlegging and it would be, in Tommy’s opinion, a great place to hide out for a while.

Thinking back to his childhood, Tommy decided on a better way to go down the hill.  He ran a few feet and then jumped onto his belly, sliding down the rest of the way. The freezing cold seeped through his jacket and shirt. He smiled and thought that Jake would have found all of this extremely hilarious.

 

Chapter 14

Inside Laruso’s Italian Eatery, the killer in black gloves sat at a table, his magic marker sitting beside a bowl of pasta. His mind was divided between the pleasurable taste of the food and the fracas outside on the street. Also in his mind, in a small corner that had always been reserved for obsession, was the remembrance of the musky stench of Sweetie Martini’s armpit sweat as he tore off her clothes.

The man eating pasta stared out the window, watching as a group of longheads came to the door of the restaurant. He shouted to Dan, the owner and cook. “You better leave now,” he said. Dan nodded and went to hide.

A group of four longheads came through the door. The one standing in front was dressed in a wrinkled military uniform. He walked up to the table where the man was eating pasta.

Instead of the frenzied manner in which they attacked outside, the longheads calmly took the man to the floor and proceeded to beat his arms and legs to a pulp with the butts of their guns. The man did not fight, did not say a word.

A living torso with crushed bones and flesh for appendages, he flapped around a little bit and then stared at the ceiling remembering his years spent in the military.

“General Entwistle, you awake?” one of the longheads asked. He looked around and saw his attackers gathered around him. His mind flashed jagged slivers of light and memory.

Now, General Entwistle remembered everything. He had brought the troops to the city and ordered them to attack. Meanwhile, he stayed back, out of harm’s way, with his good friends Sgt. Aaron Jeffords and Sgt. Dario Martino. They played cards and ate pasta while their men fought a fierce battle.

Many hours later, the troops came back. The walked their own trail of tears, gnashing their teeth and dragging snapping turtles that had attached themselves to the soldiers’ hands and feet.

The turtles were the least of their problems, however, for the men came back with freakish elongated skulls which made them resemble pale clones of Frankenstein’s monster. It was as if the soldiers were crystal clear reflections of a funhouse mirror.

General Entwistle scolded the men for not winning the battle and forced them into the worst hospital tents he could find. There they sat for weeks, being fed stale rations and being shown the same three Barbara Stanwyck films over and over. The men requested new movies, ones that were current but General Entwistle reserved those for himself. After viewing the same films for weeks, all of the longheads had memorized the dialogue. They chanted it like scripture, reworking it into their own stories of existential revelations and horrific revenge.

So now, he found himself on the floor, unable to move, finally facing the cruel, elongated arm of fate. One of the longheads took out a bizarre contraption and strapped his head into it.

General Entwistle felt a strap and a buckle being closed around his skull and felt metal rods being forced against his temples. He stared at a painting on the wall of the restaurant: a vibrant mural of modern Venice. He wanted so much to visit there. Even without arms and legs, he thought, it would be rather pleasant. I could hire someone to carry me around. Maybe a nice big, Amazonian woman with huge tits. I can sit on top of them and she can walk me around the city.

The longheads cranked the contraption that they had attached to the general’s head. It took five whole minutes of vigorous cranking until finally they had made him into something even more grotesque than themselves.

Entwistle spent the last fifteen minutes of his life thinking about snapping turtles and how nice it would have been to be able to visit Venice with his good friends Aaron and Dario. A minute before he died, the face of Barbara Stanwyck appeared over the wall and he watched her swim in the canals of Venice while her breasts bobbed in the water like oversized cantaloupes.

The longheads watched as General Entwistle expired and when it was all over, they started to convulse. The veins on their heads bulged like raging underground rivers which then exploded in a spurting display of biological apokalypsis. Floating rivers of blood shot through the air like ketchup angrily squeezed from bottles. The longheads dropped dead on the floor.

Dan Laruso came out of the kitchen closet where he had been hiding and took a look at the scene in his restaurant.

“This is gonna be a real pain in the ass to clean up,” he said, grabbing the mop and bucket.

 

Chapter 15

The donkey corpse still lay on the sled, Peachy’s entrails dragging close behind. The falling snow had covered it with a thick layer of glistening whiteness that reflected the streetlights.

A wet bubbling sound erupted from the donkey’s stomach along with a rip that echoed down the street, tickling the ears of each and every longhead. Out of the corpse of the hairy sled-rider came a baby donkey, half-dead with fright but with a resolve that was above and beyond that of any trauma victim.

It took only a few seconds for Little Bing Bong to get his bearings and when he did, he stood on all four legs and let out a hee-haw that shattered windows and brought goose bumps to everyone within a half mile radius. The sound even made the remnants of Peachy’s kneecaps slide into the gutter where they were eaten by a three-legged stray cat.

Little Bing Bong made his way down the street, ignoring the longheads and the slaughter of the citizens of Thompson. He started up the hill and when he reached the top, he looked into the eyes of Barbara Stanwyck. His donkey consciousness debated the idea of jumping off of the hill and into her cleavage but his reasoning skills told him that he’d never make it. Instead, he settled on bowing his head, mentally supplicating for a boon of some kind.

After ten minutes, Barbara responded favorably to the donkey’s petition and lifted her feet up and let loose a fierce brevibacterial wind of snow and sole dirt. Little Bing Bong closed his eyes and inhaled through his large donkey nose, filling his lungs with the revelation and blessing of Barbara Stanwyck.

At the bottom of the hill, a large crowd of longheads gathered, staring up at the animal on the hill. They were silent, focusing their minds on every snippet of dialogue from the Barbara Stanwyck movies they had watched. Every line was not only recited mentally but was studied and meditated upon.

Barbara’s foot brought another gust of wind and the longheads watched as each and every snowflake now reflected a different scene from the very films they were thinking about. The sky before them became a holographic universe of black and white memories, a seemingly infinite array of twinkling Barbara-clones encased in frost.

Little Bing Bong shook the snow from his fur and snorted in donkey-laughter. He looked down and saw a cardboard Halloween mask. Lacking the appropriate appendages to pick it up, he kicked it instead and watched it flip up into the air and get carried by the stink-wind that was still emanating from Barbara’s feet.

And so Little Bing Bong, the Apocalypse donkey, stood on top of the hill that rose above Thompson, New Jersey, and for the first time in his young life, felt a tinge of bittersweet sorrow. He knew that something was going to happen to the world, something so massively absurd that it would erase any semblance of normality that had previously existed in any form whatsoever.

And so he watched and waited.

And waited.

Little Bing Bong was finally sucked up through the air and into Barbara Stanwyck’s mouth where he swam in her yellowish, gelatinous drool.

 

Chapter 16

Willie Packard ran out of Sara McMadigan’s apartment building and stumbled down the steps. While dressing, he neglected to pull up his zipper and now cold rush of air enveloped his penis, tickling it with icy fingertips. Though the feeling wasn’t unpleasant, he zipped his pants.

The street was quiet except for the always existent hum of the Dynatox Factory that reverberated through the town like an inexhaustible gong. Willie took a look down on end of the street and then the other.

No people.

He started walking until he got to Main Street and stopped when he saw all of the corpses.

“Whoa. What the fuck happened here?”

He walked slowly, careful not to step on anyone as he took a look at each person. Some people he recognized. Mike Barnes from the hardware store. Jessica Andrews from the pottery shop. John Lawrence, Willie’s mailman. Even Officer Freddy Fernandez was lying in the snowy gutter, his torso riddled with bullets. Willie shook his head. “Goddamn.”

His stomach growled so he walked farther down the street and saw that the lights were on in Laruso’s. Willie walked in and saw that Dan was mopping the floor which had streaks of gore across it. “Jesus, Dan. What the hell happened?”

“The hell if I know, Willie.”

“I hope it’s no trouble but you mind if I sit down? Maybe have something to eat?”

Dan gestured to the empty tables. “Sure thing, have a seat. What can I get ya?”

“Hmm,” Willie wondered. He knew the fettuccine alfredo was delicious but he’d also heard good things about the insalata di polpo. Not being able to make up his mind, he asked for both. “Can I have a glass of your house red wine, too?”

Dan nodded and went into the kitchen to prepare the food. He grabbed a wine glass, picked up a bottle of wine and poured a full glass. Good thing some winos left these bottles outside, Dan thought, remembering the weird looking drunks who were hanging out in the alley next to the restaurant.

After Dan had cooked up the food, he walked into the dining room. He saw Willie sitting at the table and almost dropped the plates.

Willie Packard was sitting, hands folded, at the table wearing something on his face. Dan slowly walked closer and quietly placed the plates on the table.

“Are you okay?” Dan asked. 

Willie Packard laughed loudly through his Halloween mask.

 

THE END