Pay Up and Die Read Free Page A

Street and Hillcrest. The small car jumped the yellow curb and crashed into a large landscaping bed with a huge ornamental grass in the middle. Before he could comprehend what he just saw, Michael witnessed a large black pickup truck without its headlights on slamming on its brakes. It skidded to a stop just in time to avoid jumping the same curb. The pickup truck looked sinister as it was lifted higher than the factory issued package, and its tricked out grill resembled a big black maw about to devour whatever stood before it.
    Just as quickly an extremely large man in a black and red flannel shirt and faded blue jeans hopped down from the truck. He left the door open and walked over to the driver’s side of the crashed hatchback. The large man smashed his fist through the window and yanked out the much smaller bald man by his throat.
    “What are you doing, you lunatic?” Michael yelled at the large man as he dashed across the park. It seemed excessive behavior for an obvious incident of road rage. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He tried to wrap his arms around the large man as he approached from behind. The man was so big and muscular that Michael felt like a rag doll dangling off the brute’s back.
    While choking the bald driver, the large man swung his messy-haired head backwards, smashing Michael nose. Michael immediately let go and thumped to the ground in a spray of his own blood. Now he was seeing his own set of stars. This wasn’t what he originally had in mind. The pain was excruciating and his eyes were totally watered over, blood continuing to poor out of his nose. Michael tried to look up at the monstrous being and as his eyes strained to focus he realized a huge boot was coming at his temple. It connected and all the lights went out for Michael. He was face down in a pool of his own blood and unconscious.
    Realizing that the “hero” was out cold the huge man re-focused his attention on the bald driver, who was still struggling to breathe through the massive fingers that clamped his windpipe shut. Spittle was flying. The beast reached his right hand to the back pocket of his blue jeans and removed a folding knife. With one hand, he deftly clawed the saw-toothed blade open. With his rock-hard forearm, he pinned the bald man against the side of the hatchback, continuing to choke him with only his left fist. The flannelled attacker spiked the knife into the temple of the bald man, instantly killing him. As brains bubbled up from the wound, the man wriggled the knife back and forth until it freed from the dead man’s head with a slurping sound. He wanted this scalp. He worked his knife down the horseshoed hairline. Maybe it would make a good prop for Halloween this year, he thought. The flap of flesh flopped down over the bald man’s face. A heinous skein of bloody meat. The large man ripped the scalp from the final threads of skin while the body crumbled at his feet. The exposed skull smacked the mulched landscaping with a squishy sound like a boot stepping into a muddy swamp. He inspected the scalp closely, turning it at different angles. Some of the ends retained hairs from the horseshoe shape, creating a gruesome curtain-like effect which pleased him. So he plopped the bloody flesh upon his head. He admired his faint reflection in the hatchback’s backseat window, like a woman trying on a dress in a fitting room.
    Pleased with his horrifying image, the large man turned his gaze upon the bonus body. He chuckled to himself that there was always a hero and the hero never survived. He wondered if they would remain so heroic knowing what their chances were against him. As a battler of ill-fated “heroes” the large man was still undefeated. A champion over righteous do-gooders. He spat and then crouched over Michael’s unconscious body. The lumberjack’s head titled to the side as he scrolled through his inventory of terror, trying to decide which brutality to inflict on the unconscious