“Hold on slow down,” commanded Arthur Kill from the passenger seat, loaded down with weapons of not so mass destruction and thus unable to drive. Instead Ken of Cable Isle’s Junk Yard and Mechanic Shop acted as his chauffeur, having been spared for a bit more to do this job after he successfully fixed the old ’57 Chevy just minutes before the 11 PM deadline, dead being the operative word here. Afterwards, however, we anticipate his story will end the same as his former partner Bobby’s: planted in the same paltry town cemetery as Arthur Kill rose from just day before yesterday’s tomorrow thanks to Wheeler Wilson and her wicked witchy ways. They may even just reuse the wooden coffin Harry or Harold the Gnome made specifically for Kill, which long Ken could fill out pretty nicely as well, they might determine. There’s also admittedly a racist angle to this possible reuse since both were black men. We need not go into the town’s sordid history here and the gnomes’ strong involvement with it. Arthur Kill’s corrupted morals have nothing to do with ethnicity. White Wheeler Wilson, for instance, is just as bad in many ways, perhaps even worse in some. And Ken is as innocent as the driven snow in all this.
“Wait here,” he further ordered to Ken, and got out of the car to inspect shoes laid out on the stairs of the small house, flip flops more specifically, 8 in number, a suspicious number indeed given what he was looking for.
I’ll go in and try to get information from these stick hicks one by one, he thinks, killing them as I count them off. Could be 4 regular human beings, but, dare he dream it, could be *one* thing. “Keep the engine going,” he barked at Ken, not caring if the people inside (if they were people) heard him or not.
Turns out it was 4 humans to his disappointment. He popped them off 1 2 3 4. The 2nd and 3rd were too scared even to talk. The 1st just screamed — Kill put an end to that quickly. The 4th was interesting. “Dog gonnit, I know that name,” he said in a weary old voice to Arthur’s question, his mind obviously too gone to realize what was happening, and that 3 of his relatives or whatever (Kill assumed everyone was related to everyone else in this stick hick house) had perished and that he was in all likelihood next. “Dog…” he said, pausing before finishing with “gonnit.” “Dog,” he said again, and let it stand alone this time. “Dog!” he said, remembering. *POP*
“Thanks,” Arthur said, blowing smoke from the barrel of the just fired pistol as was his custom. Dog it is.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 