A Hacked-Up Holiday Massacre: Halloween Is Going to Be Jealous (18 page)

This whole thing has gone from dangerous to completely fucked, and I regret ever mentioning that it existed. Spain has managed to pull off this event for over sixty years without incident, and SunVerge has chalked up at least one casualty in about five minutes.

When our investors told us to innovate on established concepts, this probably isn’t what they had in mind.

I’m about to make a break for my car when I see someone else approaching, her huge rack bouncing in time with each step. Tomato juice or not, I’d know that body regardless of what it was covered in.

It’s “Christmas Party” Christine, and she’s headed straight for Tommy’s body, running faster than I can process the potential danger of the tomatoes he’d scattered only seconds earlier.

“Wait, stop!” I shout, but it’s too late. Christine, barefoot and unaware, stomps down on one of the beefsteak tomatoes. A patch of sewing needles sprout through the top of her foot, squirting blood in all directions.

“Fuck!” she shrieks, raising her foot off the ground to inspect the wound. “My fucking foot! What did you do!”

“It was Tommy,” I say, motioning in his general direction. “He dropped them all just before—” Once again, I stifle the urge to vomit. The smell of scorched meat is stronger than ever. “Just try not to move, okay? You’ll drive them in further.”

Christine hops to maintain her balance, careful not to land on another whole tomato. “Well, did he say anything to you?” she asks through gritted teeth. “Like who did this to him?”

“No, nothing,” I say, taking a step back. “He just ran up here and collapsed.”

“Well, I’m sorry you had to see him like this,” she says, slowly reaching into her bag. “Poor Tommy. If only he could have kept his mouth shut.”

I catch a glimmer of reflected glass from the tomato in her hand, and my instinct takes over. In one swift motion, I reach inside my bag, grab one of the rock-filled tomatoes, and hurl it toward Christine’s head. It catches her in the jaw and sends her crashing to the ground, where she sprawls across no less than a half-dozen loaded tomatoes. She screams and flops onto her stomach, clawing desperately at the patches of needles that have sank deep inside her leg, her ass, her shoulder. After a few moments of useless flailing, Christine props herself up on both knees and clutches at her throat, retching and heaving until she coughs up a gob of blood onto the sand. She studies it for a moment, then reaches down and lifts a pile of red-soaked needles out of the splatter. It’s only now that I realize there’s a tomato skin pinned to the side of her neck, held in place by hundreds of tiny pinpoints.

Christine turns toward me and attempts to speak, but her voice is little more than a wet gargle. She holds up the pile of needles between her fingers, waving them at me as blood pours out of her mouth and down her chest, dyeing a path through the chunks of tomato still clinging to her skin. She coughs once more before her body slumps to the side and goes limp. Her eyes flutter for the briefest of moments, then close permanently.

I drop my bag and stare at the two dead bodies sprawled across the sand, covered in blood and tomato juice. Down the beach, people are still laughing and screaming, red shapes dancing in a sea of carnage.

Are there any more co-worker-stalking psychos out there? How many others are injured—or worse—and being overlooked by people like me? I look towards the stage, at the microphone stand positioned near the center. I can put a stop to this, call off the fight a few minutes early, before it gets any worse.

Heart pounding in my ears, I bolt for the stage and reach the bottom stair when I hear a voice call, “Simon, is that you?” I swivel around to see Kenneth’s stained head peering over the lip of a sand dune wall. “The microphone doesn’t work, I’ve tried,” he says, motioning me towards the embankment. “They’ll run out of tomatoes eventually. Get up here, we can wait this out together.”

I run towards the dune, using whatever momentum I can manage to propel myself up the side. Kenneth grabs my hand, hauling me over the top and into the crater, where I collapse onto my back and gulp for air.

We both sit in silence, listening to the distant sounds of La Tomatina. “Is everything okay?” Kenneth says, after I’ve managed to catch my breath. “You seem pretty upset. Not enjoying the game anymore?”

I freeze, then realize he probably didn’t see what just happened from his position up here. This is my chance to get out clean.

“No, sir. Some of the other employees are throwing more than just tomatoes. I think some people are getting hurt.”

Kenneth raises an eyebrow. “That’s a major accusation, Simon.” “It’s the truth, honest,” I say. “Philip Barnes, Tommy Hayes, Christine Dawson. All three of them are out for blood, and who knows how many other people are in on it.”

“Those three? I should have guessed,” Kenneth says. “They’ve been a powder keg ever since Philip caught Christine and Tommy fooling around at last year’s Christmas party.”

His frankness catches me off guard. “Really? I didn’t know that.”

“Not many people do,” he says, sliding over beside me. “I met with them a few months back. We all agreed that as long as the matter was kept secret, they were allowed to keep working for SunVerge. Not to mention, I would have three permanent members of the event planning committee.”

I force a smile, then lean back and rest my head against the sandy bank. Up here, it feels like the insanity on the beach is a million miles away.

“So how do you think they found out about La Tomatina?” I say, staring off into the bright blue sky. “Wasn’t it supposed to be a surprise?”

“Oh, that’s easy. They knew because I told them,” he says, reaching into his bag. “After all, I’m going to need a good alibi.”

As I’m about to speak, Kenneth grabs a golf ball-sized tomato and forces it inside my mouth, then clamps his arms around my head, covering my nose and holding my jaw shut.

“Did you honestly think I didn’t know you were up to something?” he whispers, tightening his grip. “I saw what you just did to Christine. Was that tomato meant for me, by chance?”

I swing my fists wildly but I’m beginning to feel lightheaded. Flecks of light dance in front of my eyes.

“Although I have to admit, you’re a pretty smart guy. It’s no wonder why they’re looking at you to be my replacement. Talking with corporate behind my back, warning them I’d give you a poor review if I felt that my position was being threatened. Well, guess what? You nailed it, and now they want me out of here.”

My lungs scream for air, so I bite down on the tomato and start to chew. At once, hundreds of tiny glass fragments fill my mouth, and it feels like a rusty box grater is being dragged across my gums. Some of the fragments burrow through the insides of my cheeks, while others slice through the lingual vein underneath my tongue. Citric acid floods the cuts, stinging so bad that I scream through my closed mouth, but that only sends more of the glass fragments and acid tumbling down my throat, ripping and burning as they go.

“This job means everything to me, Simon. I wasn’t just pandering in my speech. And if I can’t have it, they sure as hell won’t be giving it to you.”

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

T
rench 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 15
^th
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…”