The Untimely Death of Jimmy Gums Read Free

to subside.
    The man on the ground was motionless, a heavy, broken husk of his former legend. He had been stomped effectively into oblivion.
    Tommy spit on the body, grinning like a madman. While catching his breath, he realized that the man would have to be again loaded back into the car’s trunk. He looked back at William. Out like a light, he knew, and not likely to awaken until well into the morning. This was looking like a one-man job. And he needed to be quick about it.
    He grabbed an ankle out of the crumpled heap and heaved. The body of Jimmy Gums dragged behind him with the sound of heavy grit sandpaper as skin-embedded pebbles ground at the pavement in resistance. In a few moments, Tommy sat at the rear of the car, looking with disdain at the disgusting pile of bubbled flesh at his feet.
    “Shit,” he said. Tommy was by no means a small man, but even at his own two-hundred and fifteen pounds, it was going to be a whore of a chore to stuff the tooth collector back into the trunk.
    Unfortunately for Tommy, the battered and burned corpse presented him with a new problem. Jimmy, chemically numbed and unrelenting, still continued to live, even despite a multitude of broken bones and ruptured organs. He reached out and clenched Tommy’s ankle with such ferocity that a squeal of painful surprise escaped the killer’s lips.
    With his head at an unnatural ninety-degree angle, Jimmy Gums glared up at his quarry. The ravaged and skinless left half of his face revealed a decayed rictus of chipped teeth and bone.
    Tommy struggled to wrench his foot free, but the grip on it was inhumanly strong, almost mechanical. He felt something snap and screamed aloud. In a jerking spasm, his head met the lid of the trunk. Black haze swallowed the left half of his vision and he lost the balance of his free foot. A bolt of pain surged up Tommy’s spine upon impact with the ground. But, he hardly noticed it. His foot was now alight with such pain that it blinded all other sensory input. Jimmy’s charred fingers forced themselves into the muscle of his leg with the force of pneumatic screws.
    Thanks to the aid of chemical assistance, Jimmy managed to make use of his other arm. He batted away Tommy’s protesting flails and reached intently for the man’s throat. The two large men remained locked together in stillness for the next few minutes. The lot was silent save for the crickets of the nearby copse of evergreens. Finally, one of them began to drag himself to his feet.
     
    William Zatel woke to the smell of vomit. The bitter stench of the vodka-tinged mess in his lap caused him to be sick again. He heaved until his chest hurt.
    “ Ohfuck,” he said, fumbling with the door lock mechanism. He would never be able to stop gagging. Not while he was covered with this shit. “Ohfugh—” He leaned across the gap between door and ground unsteadily to empty the remainder of his stomach’s contents.
    “Tommy,” William said. “We need… urp …home.” There was no reply. It took a moment for this to register in his pathetic state. “Tommy!”
    William looked around. They were still at the fucking titty bar! What if Nina saw him puking all over himself like some drunken high-schooler? He shouted for his brother again before stumbling from the car. The parking lot was empty except for a few cars. William was baffled. He had to lean against the car to steady himself, trying to make sense of his newfound predicament. He reached instinctively for the heavy bulge of his gun in its shoulder holster. Drunk and without Tommy in his direct line of sight, William felt vulnerable there in the dead of night. The presence of his shooting iron at least offered some bit of reassurance.
    And then it hit him. Tommy had gotten pissed at him for getting so drunk and must have decided to teach him a lesson. He laughed at the idea. Imagine that, he thought. It was like being attempted to be outwitted by a five-year-old. Shit, how long had Tommy been