Alpacca Bites: This was written for the "1,001 Deaths of Tom Sloane" thread on the PPMB. I happened to like it more than my other entries (all two of em) so decided, what the hell? I'll share :D Not very well written, but hey. I have a headache. Like it or hate it, here it is.
Death Number 106:
Ode to El Kabong
Tom stared, wide-eyed, at the man above him. His green eyes held a pleading most would consider pathetic, while others might say repugnant. But the sharp obsidian eyes which until now had been narrowed in concentration took in the pitiable expression and reached out a long-fingered hand to remove the strip of duct tape obstructing Tom's speech and, to some small extent, his breathing. Something on that hand flashed in the moonlight like a shooting star and Tom was for a moment distracted. Then the lingering, if dull, pain associated with the slow removal of his gag brought Tom back to his present, lamentable position.
A small drop of blood rolled down his chin from a dry, chapped lip as Tom worked his jaw experimentally. There was pain in the right side of his face from the blow which initialized this terrifying star-lit rendezvous and Tom wondered briefly how it was possible his jaw wasn't altogether broken after taking an acoustic to the face.
Voice bland but impatient, the query came.
"Well?"
His intention had to be calm, perhaps try to reason with his impromptu bondsman and negotiate some means of his release. But when he spoke, Tom's voice was elicited in a shrill, desperate cry.
"Why, Trent? For god's sake, why?!"
The cigarette dangling from his thin lips lit Trent Lane's face in a nightmarish illumination, all sharp angles and hard planes. His eyes shone hard and cold, like flint struck in absolute darkness. He seemed to carefully consider his captive's inquiry and blew a double plume of smoke from his nostrils as, at length, he replied. Husky voice replete with contrasting emotion, the four simple words froze Tom's heart and tore from him any hope of mercy.
"You made Janey cry."
The immobilized Sloane struggled vainly against his restraints as Trent hefted a rather large, jagged stone in one hand and looked down into his victim's horror-filled gaze.
"No chances, right?" And he dropped the stone on Tom's right knee. As the first screams rang out, hefted another, similar stone, and dropped it on Tom's left. The screams died down slightly while Trent was busy unwinding something from his right hand and glanced to his left as movement in that direction caught his eye. "Time to get to work." He held up a guitar string, the high E, and Jesse Moreno nodded.
"Yeah." He stared, unmoved, as Tom's feeble struggles renewed. "That was wrong, what you did to Jane." He shrugged his beefy shoulders and crouched beside Tom's right leg. The stone Trent had applied would do most of the work for him, but it was still smart to hold the calf in place, just in case; pain had a way of lending one strength. "She was my girl once." His benign green eyes hardened. "You deserve this."
Before Tom could begin to form a defense to this witty repartee, Trent had finished wrapping the steel string around his bare ankle, just below the duct tape that bound it to the ground. Slowly and deliberately, he began to pull first with his left hand, then his right as steadily the string sawed through the yielding flesh and started on the bone.
High, mournful screams echoed through the old quarry just outside of Lawndale. Few heard them and those who did grimaced, affronted by the possibility the Harpies might again have reunited.
An hour later, Trent wiped the sweat from his brow and turned to Jesse with an exasperated frown.
"Man, I should've taken up piano."