I’m talking to you.” William spun the wheel, directing them up the road toward the Battlebrook waste dump.
“Yeah, sorry,” Tommy said nervously. “The teeth, right?”
“Yeah,” William said. “All those dirty little teeth on that necklace of his…”
Tommy fingered the bulge in his pocket gently, getting a bad feeling that his brother might be angry if he knew he’d stolen the macabre piece of jewelry as a trophy from the dead man’s neck.
“Those are the teeth from guys he’s taken out. Now, you gotta figure…this guy’s been at it as a freelancer for almost fifteen years. That’s some collection he’s got there. Rumor has it that half of them are from Bert Dupont’s old gang. Crazy fuck took all them guys down one at a time with a pair of garden shears.”
Tommy swallowed hard, letting his fingers trace the prickly outline of his pocket’s pilfered contents. “Wow,” was all he could manage to string together. Outside, the last of the passing street lights marked the end of their trip by vehicle.
“That man was a goddam terror, Tommy. It ain’t nothing to be too proud of, but we’re lucky we caught him on the can,” William added. “Not saying it’s any great accomplishment on our part, but hey, you and I are both still breathing.” He threw the shifter into park and sighed. “Let’s get this shit over with. I’ve gotta get some puss tonight.”
Neither of them spoke again through the events of the following minutes. They heaved Jimmy Gums out of the car and tossed his plastic-wrapped body into the depths of a bottomless mound of garbage. Security at Battlebrook wasn’t exactly a concern. Their employer, Paul Geffert, owned the entirety of the property, as well as the waste management business that operated upon it.
In the past twenty years, an unknown number of bodies had been disposed of in such a manner on the filthy premises. And even though some of his hired help might have considered it risky, Paul Geffert ran a very tight operation. He was a man who valued his privacy and kept up payments to the right people to prevent any unnecessary snooping. And, being a good businessman, he even allowed some of the larger local industrialists to dump some of their nastier—and more toxic—byproducts there that would otherwise have cost quite a pretty penny to get rid of in far more legal (and environmentally sound) ways.
Jimmy Gums landed in a crumpled heap at the base of a garbage pit. One of his own shoes stepped on his face. Ten feet above, his executioner swiftly kicked a pile of trash that produced an avalanche of sludge. Jimmy, still grasping to the finest threads of unconscious life, wheezed as the air was crushed from his lungs and replaced with something far worse. Irradiated liquid waste bathed his entire body, entering his nose, ears, and mouth. His skin sizzled upon contact with the swirl of noxious chemicals.
An unbearable pain tore through Jimmy’s ravaged body, pulling him back to the land of consciousness. His senses were overloaded with the sinister burn that filled his face, hands, and lungs. And then his nerves simply stopped sending signals, switched off at the source by noxious liquids. Hours passed while he drifted between life and death, his body corroding in the foul, slimy pit. Exposed by blazing ichor, many of Jimmy’s muscles began to twitch and jerk with immense force.
As his body convulsed, the faces of the Zatel brothers swam to him out of the blackness. One smirked stupidly in his rumpled suit; the other sucked a thin cigarette and smiled in relieved triumph. Jimmy watched the fat one grin while tensing at the last moment, expecting the recoil of the trigger. The man had good teeth, Jimmy thought. Great teeth. He could not recall either of their names, but that was no matter. Thanks to a stray nerve misfire, a flash of his former self’s memory told him where to find them.
Jimmy opened his single unburned eye and started to climb.
Tommy
“Yeah, sorry,” Tommy said nervously. “The teeth, right?”
“Yeah,” William said. “All those dirty little teeth on that necklace of his…”
Tommy fingered the bulge in his pocket gently, getting a bad feeling that his brother might be angry if he knew he’d stolen the macabre piece of jewelry as a trophy from the dead man’s neck.
“Those are the teeth from guys he’s taken out. Now, you gotta figure…this guy’s been at it as a freelancer for almost fifteen years. That’s some collection he’s got there. Rumor has it that half of them are from Bert Dupont’s old gang. Crazy fuck took all them guys down one at a time with a pair of garden shears.”
Tommy swallowed hard, letting his fingers trace the prickly outline of his pocket’s pilfered contents. “Wow,” was all he could manage to string together. Outside, the last of the passing street lights marked the end of their trip by vehicle.
“That man was a goddam terror, Tommy. It ain’t nothing to be too proud of, but we’re lucky we caught him on the can,” William added. “Not saying it’s any great accomplishment on our part, but hey, you and I are both still breathing.” He threw the shifter into park and sighed. “Let’s get this shit over with. I’ve gotta get some puss tonight.”
Neither of them spoke again through the events of the following minutes. They heaved Jimmy Gums out of the car and tossed his plastic-wrapped body into the depths of a bottomless mound of garbage. Security at Battlebrook wasn’t exactly a concern. Their employer, Paul Geffert, owned the entirety of the property, as well as the waste management business that operated upon it.
In the past twenty years, an unknown number of bodies had been disposed of in such a manner on the filthy premises. And even though some of his hired help might have considered it risky, Paul Geffert ran a very tight operation. He was a man who valued his privacy and kept up payments to the right people to prevent any unnecessary snooping. And, being a good businessman, he even allowed some of the larger local industrialists to dump some of their nastier—and more toxic—byproducts there that would otherwise have cost quite a pretty penny to get rid of in far more legal (and environmentally sound) ways.
Jimmy Gums landed in a crumpled heap at the base of a garbage pit. One of his own shoes stepped on his face. Ten feet above, his executioner swiftly kicked a pile of trash that produced an avalanche of sludge. Jimmy, still grasping to the finest threads of unconscious life, wheezed as the air was crushed from his lungs and replaced with something far worse. Irradiated liquid waste bathed his entire body, entering his nose, ears, and mouth. His skin sizzled upon contact with the swirl of noxious chemicals.
An unbearable pain tore through Jimmy’s ravaged body, pulling him back to the land of consciousness. His senses were overloaded with the sinister burn that filled his face, hands, and lungs. And then his nerves simply stopped sending signals, switched off at the source by noxious liquids. Hours passed while he drifted between life and death, his body corroding in the foul, slimy pit. Exposed by blazing ichor, many of Jimmy’s muscles began to twitch and jerk with immense force.
As his body convulsed, the faces of the Zatel brothers swam to him out of the blackness. One smirked stupidly in his rumpled suit; the other sucked a thin cigarette and smiled in relieved triumph. Jimmy watched the fat one grin while tensing at the last moment, expecting the recoil of the trigger. The man had good teeth, Jimmy thought. Great teeth. He could not recall either of their names, but that was no matter. Thanks to a stray nerve misfire, a flash of his former self’s memory told him where to find them.
Jimmy opened his single unburned eye and started to climb.
Tommy
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