I’m about to pass out when the stopwatch around Kenneth’s neck begins to beep. He tosses me to the ground where I try to spit up some of the blood and glass clogging my windpipe, but it’s no use. My insides are tearing to shreds, and each breath feels like I’m swallowing hot coals.
“Ten minutes already. I guess La Tomatina is officially over,” he says. “Again, thanks so much for the great idea, Simon. We’ll have to do this again next year. Well, the rest of us, anyway.”
He disappears down the side of the dune, leaving me to gasp for air that never comes. That’s when I slump over, landing face first into a patch of red sand.
And all I can taste is tomato.
SOUTHERN FRIED CRUELTY
by Matt Kurtz
Trench pulled the white cargo van into an area of the factory’s parking lot that wasn’t consumed by weeds.
“We’re here, gentlemen,” he said, staring into the review mirror.
Silence.
Only the full moon above and the van’s headlights pierced the darkness of the dilapidated textile plant. Trench climbed from the vehicle and moved to its rear, gravel crunching underfoot. He swung the doors open and stared inside. A smile spread across his face.
Three men lay unconscious on the scuffed metal floor. Their wrists were handcuffed behind their backs, ankles heavily duct-taped, and mouths gagged with cloth. Their various attires ranged from a wife-beater and jeans to a trucker’s ball cap and shorts to only a ratty pair of underwear briefs (soiled with a shit-stain). All lay next to one another, their heads just shy of the open door.
Trench couldn’t help but think how easy it would be to slide the unconscious men forward and hang their heads over the bumper…then just slam the doors with all his might. He didn’t think it would decapitate them but he knew it would, at the very least, crack their heads open like ripe melons.
No, that’d be too simple. Granted, he had a strict schedule with plenty of jobs throughout the day, but he absolutely refused to do any of them half-assed, especially the first one of the bunch. Besides, it had been made very clear to Trench that these gentlemen needed to be fully aware of what was happening to them (much like their victims, who had been completely conscious).
Trench retrieved an ammonia inhalant from his pocket, cracked it, and waved it under their noses. “Rise and shine.”
The men sprung awake, grimacing from the pungent smell. Their bloodshot eyes widened even more upon the realization that they were bound and gagged. They stared at one another then up at their captor.
Trench grabbed Wife-Beater and pulled him out, letting him drop to the ground unaided. With arms bound behind his back, the man landed on his collar bone and let out a muffled cry. He rolled over and stared up with a look that read: Why would you do that?
“Oh, I’m sorry, hoss,” Trench said. “Am I treatin’ ya…inhumanely?”
Wife-Beater’s eyes bulged from their sockets over Trench’s choice of words.
Trench shot him a wink then turned back to the van. “C’mon, fellas. Out ya go.” He grabbed Trucker-Cap and dumped him like a bag of trash.
Shit-Stain was the last out, hitting the gravel where he trembled uncontrollably. It might have been from the man’s lack of clothing on such a chilly night or the mere fact that Shit-Stain was scared shitless. Whatever the case, Trench couldn’t give a rat’s ass as to why the guy was vibrating. He had a job to do.
Trench hooked a hand under Shit-Stain’s armpit and dragged the man toward a cement wall built to protect a power transformer at the far end of the lot. His bare kneecaps scraped across the rough gravel which elicited screams of pain. Then the man really wailed passing over the broken beer bottle that Trench seemed to make a beeline for. He slid him to the wall, propping him upright in a seated position.
“Now you make sure you stay against this here wall. Don’t go wandering off. Understand?”
The man nodded with tears streaming down his face and blood down his dirt-caked legs.
Trench returned to the other two men and got them into position. Trucker-Cap was seated against an old oak in one of the lot’s crumbling tree boxes, his arms stretched backwards and manacled behind its thick trunk. A long heavy chain was looped around his neck and padlocked between two of its links, forming a steel noose. The other end of it was coiled into a neat pile on the ground beside him. Trench made sure the man’s sweat-stained cap was on tight by pulling its bill down and giving it a good shake.
Wife-Beater was left lying on his stomach in the middle of the gravel lot. Only now he had a thick steel chain threaded under his armpits and padlocked around his neck. And just like his buddy, the other end of his metal noose was arranged on the ground in a neat circular pile at the rear of the van.
Trench stepped dead center of the imaginary triangle formed by the placement of his prisoners.
“Now y’all are probably itchin’ to know why I pulled ya outta your homes at this time of night. Obviously if ya got half a brain in your head, you’d consider present company and what today’s date is as of midnight.” Trench paused and waited for a response.
They eyeballed one another then looked back at him in equal parts fear and confusion.
Trench exhaled. “Okay, fellas. Don’t it seem like an odd coincidence that we’re having ourselves a Woodson Poultry Plant employee reunion on World Animal Day?” He smiled and raised his arms. “Hell, we’re out here to celebrate the chicken!”
The men suddenly grew real fidgety, shaking their heads and mumbling behind their gags.
Trench held up his hand and they fell silent. “I know you all got shit canned after that video was leaked. Some might say that losing your job was punishment enough. Unfortunately for y’all, the people that hired me, who prefer to remain anonymous, don’t think so. But all that’s in the statement they provided.”
He unfolded a piece of paper and a pair of reading glasses, both removed from his interior coat pocket. “Sorry,” Trench said, appearing slightly embarrassed over the need for specs. “Can’t read shit without my cheaters.” He placed the glasses on the end of his nose and cleared his throat.
“Gentlemen…” He began to read the letter with very little inflection. “The August 15th videotape released to the press from an undercover investigation showed evidence of you three completely failing to recognize that chickens are living sentient beings capable of feeling pain and distress.” Trench guffawed and looked up at the men. “Kinda funny this whole thing’s over a few maltreated yard birds, huh?”
They failed to see the humor in any of the proceedings.
Trench shrugged and continued reading. “This videotape depicts scenes of the worst cruelty we have ever witnessed against animals and it is extremely difficult to accept that this is occurring in the United States of America. These heinous acts that you perpetrated during shifts at the poultry plant included stomping on chickens, kicking them, and violently slamming them against floors and walls. Ripping the animals’ beaks off, twisting their heads off, spitting tobacco into their eyes and mouths, spray-painting their faces, and squeezing their bodies so hard that the birds expelled feces—all while the chickens were still alive. Although your employment with Woodson Poultry Plant was rightfully terminated, we feel justice has not been truly served. After deliberation between various groups, we, acting as judge and jury, hereby sentence you to a proper punishment as yet to be determined by your executioner…”
Trench paused and thumbed his chest. “That’d be me,” then continued, “…ahhh…where was I…? Oh…hereby sentence…proper punishment as yet to be determined by your executioner. We grant him complete creative freedom in his choice of retribution, as long as it takes into account the particular act of cruelty that you engaged.” Trench carefully folded the glasses and paper, returning both to his jacket pocket.