“Where are we going?” Tyler asked.
“Somewhere quiet.”
Outside they walked along the road to where Havoc had parked his car, a hired Mercedes Coupe. He used his remote to unlock it and he opened the boot, and then he lobbed Lee into it. The burly chef only just fitted in, and Havoc had to press the lid of the boot down with all his weight to get it to shut fully.
“I knew it was a mistake getting this damned little coupe,” he said. “I shoulda got a 4 x 4 like I originally planned. Get in, Tyler. We’re going for a ride.”
Tyler climbed into the passenger side of the vehicle and Havoc drove down the street to a nearby shop which sold electrical supplies. He went in and bought a length of electric cable.
“What did you get that for?” Tyler asked.
“I wanted to get me some rope, but I didn’t see no shops selling rope, so I had to get me this instead,” Havoc replied.
He took them out of town and pulled up next to a tree which was near the bank of the mighty Potomac River. It was a location which would have made a fine venue for a necktie party in the good old days of the American Wild West.
Havoc took his length of electric flex and tied it around Lee’s ankles. He used it to string the chef up from a long branch of the tree about ten feet from the ground. It was a General Cable product, rated to 600 volts, and more than strong enough to bear even the considerable weight of the incapacitated chef, who swung back and forth gently. He spun one way and then the other, on his own axis. Angry noises could be heard from under the pan that covered his head. Cuss words, mostly. Then something else. Muffled threats.
“You think you’ve got the better of me don’t you? Well, you haven’t. Even if you take me out, you won’t win. There are too many of us, and we’re too well prepared. We’re keeping a low profile for now, but when we make our move, you’ll all be dead meat. Literally. One of us is going to eat you both. With seasoning.”
Havoc rapped the pan on Lee’s head with a rock until the chef went quiet.
“I do hope I’ve got yo’ attention Skipper,” he said, “because I’ve got a little surprise for you.”
He returned to the car and took a small attaché case from the back seat.
“What’s that?” Tyler asked.
“It’s my overnight bag. I have all my essential provisions in it.”
Havoc opened the case. Tyler shuddered when he saw the contents. It contained a powerful-looking handgun and a sinister knife with a curved blade. Havoc took out the knife.
“I reckon this here knife is sharp enough to cut a man’s head clean awf. What do you think, Tyler?”
Tyler nodded. He knew better than to contradict the lethal killing machine known as Macho Havoc. Havoc strode over to the tree. By then, Skipper Lee was wriggling like a maggot on the end of a fishing line.
Havoc took hold of the handle of the pan to steady Lee’s head and he put the vicious-looking blade of the knife to Lee’s throat.
Tyler winced as the blade cut into Lee’s flesh.
A foul smell erupted from the wound, closely followed by a viscous yellow liquid. Havoc cut through the chef’s neck with a sawing action. More puss-coloured liquid came out. It made a hissing noise and fizzed when it came into contact with the knife blade.
Havoc stopped cutting and pulled his knife from lee’s neck.
“Well, I’ll be,” he said. He held it up for Tyler to get a good look at it. Much of the blade had been dissolved, as if by a powerful acid.
The blobs of liquid that had fallen from Lee’s throat to the ground hissed and bubbled on the bare earth.
“I’m gonna have to try me a different approach,” said Havoc.
He had cut a good way through Lee’s neck before his knife had become useless. He now took hold of the burly chef’s body with one hand to keep it steady, and he took hold of the handle of the pan with the other.
His trademark evil smile played about his lips.
“This here story has a few more twists in it, Tyler,” he said.
And he was as good as his word, for he began to turn the pan clockwise by the handle, while holding Lee’s body still. He made steady progress, but eventually the pan refused to turn further, and Havoc had to stop and gather up all his strength before continuing. He made a mighty effort, and they heard a noise like the tearing of gristle and the crunching of bone. Then came a veritable Niagara of vile yellow puss from the hapless chef’s neck, before, with a crack that resembled the sound of a dry branch being torn from an ancient tree, his head came loose from his body, and Havoc held it triumphantly aloft in the cast-iron pan.
“One thing you forgot to tell me mistah Tyler,” he said, “What’s this job payin’?”
Tyler looked embarrassed. He’d been in such a hurry to get Havoc on the job that he hadn’t agreed the finer points of the assignment, such as pay, with President Doughnut.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Havoc,” he said. “I’m afraid I don’t know. The President didn’t tell me what he was thinking of paying you for this.”
The stone-cold killer’s smile of triumph immediately vanished, and was replaced by a menacing glare. He strode up to Tyler and thrust his face close up to that of the smaller man.
“You don’t know?” He asked. “YOU DON’T KNOW? You better be joshin’ with me boy, ’cause if you ain’t, I swear to God I’m gonna—”
He didn’t finish his sentence, because at that moment the branch of the tree holding Skipper lee’s headless body snapped, and body came crashing to the ground. Both men turned their heads to look at it.
That was when it happened.
CHAPTER 5
The body of the undead chef, with its arms and legs still trussed up, began to wriggle along the ground towards them like some sort of a demented giant worm wriggling with lethal intent through the pages of a Lovecraft-inspired horror story. Tyler looked on in terrified disbelief, transfixed. He was like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a large and very expensive car.
“Well, if that ain’t the dangdest thing I ever seen,” said Havoc, who was wearing his U.S. Speed Combat Boots with custom-built steel toe-protectors.
He ran over to the writhing thing of evil that the former chef known as Skipper Lee had become, and set about it with his feet, sinking kick after bludgeoning kick into it, booting it first here, and then there, sending it flying this way and that, until at last whatever vile energy was propelling it seemed to depart it for another realm. When it was all over, he wiped his brow with the back of his beefy black hand.
“Whatever yo’ boss was thinking of paying me, he better double it,” he said. “And then add some mo’. Now let’s get outa here.”
“But what about him?” Tyler asked.
“Who?”
“Skipper Lee.”
“Skipper Lee isn’t a him any mo’. He’s jest a dead hunk a meat gone off. But you’re right. We need to do something. But we can’t give him a decent Christian burial, ’cause my suspicion is, he wasn’t no Christian. And ’sides, we ain’t got no shovels. Tell you what, Tyler, we’ll throw him in the Potomac River.”
Havoc weighted the body down with stones then he grabbed it by the shoulders.
“You take the feet, Tyler,” he said.
Together they carried it to the bank of the Potomac which was only a few yards away.
“All right, get ready now. We’re goin’ to swing this thing three times then throw it on three. One, two, three!”
The body flew through the air then landed with a splash, and quickly disappeared under the waves.