Annie gathered her strength, pushing her body off the floor. Her muscles cried for relief, but it wouldn’t come. She had to push through. In a way, it felt like being in labor, readying her body to let loose a screaming pink baby out of her birth canal. Even though she’d ended up with a C-Section, she went through enough contractions to know the feeling of a purist test of endurance.
A sticky suction sound made her cringe as she pushed herself into an elevated pushup position. She didn’t dare to assess the damage for fear that it would take away the gusto inside of her.
An echo released inside of her: Paulie.
Paulie.
Paulie was that gusto, riveting her into action.
The Midget Man still snored as Annie came up on to her knees, staring him down. If looks could kill, he might have spontaneously incinerated right then and there. And that thought gave Annie what she needed to attack.
Reaching next to the fire, huddled over like a shell that had just learned to walk, Annie picked up the fire poker and then stuck it into the fire, slowly so as not to stir up the quietude. They always said that the embers and coals at the bottom of a fire pit were the hottest part of the fire, so Annie heeded that advice and jammed the curved tip into it directly, holding it in place for more than a minute. She still stared at her hateful Rapist Number One, pondering where she would stick the hot poker when it was ready.
The poker soon gave off a pulsing glow and Annie knew that the time had come.
She turned towards The Midget Man, careful of her silent footsteps. He still snoozed, deeper than ever. He surely dreamed of something inanely macho; high-fiving his sports heroes or eating a bloody steak off the barbecue, but soon he would be dreaming of something different.
Soon he’d be dreaming of whatever heathen god he worshipped.
Before she could gather her consciousness, to understand the gravity of what she was about to do, she lunged forward with the poker, sinking it deep into The Midget Man’s tender throat. It gave a hot sizzle as it punctured right beneath his Adam’s apple, sinking deeper and reaching the back of his neck. She could feel it push against the top of his backbone. His eyes popped open. His jaw widened as big as an unhinged snake and the tendons in his neck stretched long and tight. The Midget Man tried to say something, but the sound was drowned out by the violent simmer of the skin and tendons on his neck.
“How does it feel?” she asked, nonplussed by the instantaneous feeling of bliss that the kill gave her. It was something she had yearned for all her life, though she knew not the words to express it until now. It was better than sex, remorselessly to exterminate this Lilliputian bug without any remorse. He had taken something pleasant and dreamy away from her. The Midget Man had turned her into a twisted witch, but part of her sort of liked it. Sure, she’d judge herself when the time was right and tranquility overtook her again, when the shit stopped hitting the fan, but in the here and now… she felt like a fucking vamp, like a goddamned rock star.
She asked, “How does it feel to get something nasty stuck inside of you?”
His only response was a gasp, as his head hung low, staring down at the crotch that had invaded her only a few hours earlier. His wheeze made way for a silence that felt golden, like the lull that came over her house when Paulie finally went down for his afternoon nap after a morning of tantrums.
She snapped out of her short-lived euphoria and searched his body. Annie found a revolver stuck inside of his grimy sweatpants, right near his butt crack. Annie wasn’t sure how to shoot the bloody thing, but she’d learn if she had to.
With a long string of moments that seemed like a writhing eternity, Annie stood from her prone position, shifting her weight around as she managed to regain a balance she lost back when Tony was still breathing and plotting, before they’d dragged his empty vessel off to his final resting place.
The front door that they had once pushed through seemed a mile away, but she made it there, one foot in front of the other, stopping along the way to grab a half-eaten plate of steak and potatoes from their slovenly dining table, shoving it into the pocket of Tony’s down jacket that he’d draped near the entrance. Putting the jacket on, she forced herself through the door.
The blindness of the snow overwhelmed her. It was even worse than when they had stopped a day earlier. She could barely lift her legs above the snowdrifts, to position herself for a better view. In all likelihood, she was trapped, even though she’d thwarted her guardian, The Midget Man.
Something caught her eye, just beyond the snowy bluffs that had built up around The Purple Cat. Two rubbery handles stuck out of the snow, like Groucho Marx’s eyebrows, unhindered by the insanity of the icy grip of the world.
It was a snowmobile.
Most likely The Midget Man’s snowmobile and it was the most beautiful, hopeful thing she’d ever seen. Suddenly, she didn’t feel quite so raped and broken. Suddenly, she knew she’d survive.
God… please protect me if you’re listening, thought Annie, as she summoned all of her strength, fighting back on the rifling pains and blood that circled around her lacerated womanhood.
As she trudged through the waist deep snow, she could only think of Paulie.
Paulie. Paulie. Mommy’s coming home.
Part III- EDGAR
Snow’s picking up. Ain’t it a bitch? I don’t mind the snow so much… I don’t gripe about the weather like most people do, but I’ve gotta admit that I’m freezing my balls off. They feel like they’re smaller than snow peas right about now.
Fuckin’ aye, it’s cold.
I came into town the same way I left the last one; five sheets to the wind and looking for something fun to poke at with my Matterhorn. If there’s some fun to be had, I’ll sniff it out. I don’t mind being crude about it either. The nastier, the better. Warm vodka and a sleepy hooker, that’ll get my love-motor runnin’ as much as any pretty cheerleader and a wine cooler. Perky tits, saggy tits. Tight puss, loose puss, it all feels the same when you’ve got a nice buzz going.
I need a break from movin’ and groovin’. Time to settle in and settle up, that’s what my dear old Daddy used to tell me when he came back from one of his nasty benders where we wouldn’t see him for weeks at a time. It’s been a pretty shitty week on the mean ol’ road, I’ve gotta say.
Time to settle in and settle up.
My shit luck started out when I hitched a ride from some hippy looking motherfucker with bad breath and a lazy eye. Wouldn’t you know it—smelled like he’d been suckin’ on garlic cloves all morning, and I told him so, with my meanest look. I asked him if he usually ate dick with his eyes open or closed. I’m not the type of fellow to pussy foot around people when they offend me. I’m sure I offend plenty of folks myself, so I don’t mind it, tit for tat and all that noise. Of course, if you do go too far and end up offending me, I’ll pull your testicles out through your nostrils.
I kid. I kid.
But not really. I left that garlic-chompin’ son of a cunt on the side of the road. I didn’t kill him, but I put the hurt on. My fists got a mind of their own when I get all worked up, and that odor of his did the trick. Don’t get me wrong, I could have killed him, and probably should have. But I didn’t. I haven’t had any cops on my ass for some time, and I’d like to keep it that way. When the chance presents itself, I’ll take care of that messy business the right way, but not with this dude.