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Chapter 9

(I)

Veronica awoke at daybreak, frowning at her recollection of the most hideous nightmare.
Abducted by rednecks,
she thought with a shudder but then she looked around to find herself in a reeking sleeping bag with one wrist handcuffed to a metal table in the back compartment of a large truck. The sound inside was akin to that of a bear cave, her three “hosts” snoring like machines. Micky-Mack and Dumar each lay on the floor in their own sleeping bags while Helton slept sitting upright in the corner.

Veronica choked back tears upon the eventual recognition that none of this was a nightmare. It was all real.

Just a few days before Christmas…and here I am…

Dim morning light flowed from the front windshield through the shower curtain.

The snoring went on an on.

Oh, for goodness sake!
her thoughts shrilled. She had to urinate. Her nose crinkled at the sleeping bag’s stink as she clumsily crawled out. She took the empty bean can, frowned hard at it, then, with great awkwardness, pulled her pants and panties down, squatted, then began to void in the can. Her nose crinkled again, for her urine smelled like Veggie Chips.

The nearly musical chime of the stream hitting the can woke the others at once.

“Well, hey there, Veronnerka,” Helton greeted and stretched his great arms. “Havin’ yerself a pee, huh? I’se’ll tell ya. First pee’a the day’s a saturs-fyin’ thing indeed, ain’t it?”

Veronica couldn’t fathom a response.

Dumar shrugged out of his bag. “‘Mornin’ Veronnerka! And hows are you doin’ today?”

Veronica, still in the awkward squat, glared. “I’m peeing!”

“Ya sleep well, I’se hope?”

How could I possibly have slept WELL?

Micky-Mack was awake too, and looked right at her with eyes abloom. “Hot
dang!
I’se
love
seein’ a gal with a purdy pussy takin’ a pee!” He was obviously rubbing his crotch. “Puts some lead in
my
pencil, yessir!”

Veronica finished, frustrated to tears, and pulled her pants back up. When she tried to sit down—

clang!

“Oh NO!”

—the awkward movement caused her to knock the bean can over with her elbow, and all that warm urine flowed right beneath her.

The men all laughed.

“It’s NOT FUNNY!” she screamed. “My pants are DRENCHED!”

“Ain’t nothin’ but a li’l pee,” Dumar said.

Helton chuckled. “Gals shore do get bitchy ’bout the littlest things.”

Micky-Mack was grinning, sniffing the air. “Ya know? There’s sumpthin’ ’bout the smell of a purdy gal’s pee gits my dick dribblin’.”

Helton and Dumar nodded in assent.

Madness, madness, madness!
Veronica thought as her pants soaked up the urine. She began to blubber. “Helton! Would you
please
let me go!”

“Don’t be all cryin’ and such, hon. See, the way feuds work is, see, they ain’t over till the fella yer feudin’ with up’n cries uncle. Ya know? He’s gotta give up, and, well”—Helton shook his head—“when Paulie calt last night after seein’ our movin’ picture, it didn’t sound like he were gonna do that.”

Dumar stood now at the truck’s open door, urinating loudly. The cool air caused the void’s arch to steam. “Shee-it, Paw. That Paulie, he’s all talk. Once he watched our movie, he know full well he’s messin’ with the best.”

“Paulie ain’t got the balls to try’n hit us again,” Micky-Mack said. He cocked a buttock and farted. “And even if he wanted to, what could he do?”

Helton seemed to consider this but suddenly—

They all froze.

The cellphone was ringing.

“Gee,” Veronica said with some sarcasm. “Why do I think that’s Paulie?”

“Ya gonna answer it, Paw?”

Helton peered with annoyance at the little phone. “Here, Veronnerka. Why’n you answer it? Sumpin’ ’bout these little magic phones git my goat.”

Veronica snatched the phone from him and answered.

“Hello?”

A steely, Jersey accent snapped back, “Who’s this? This Tuckton’s whore?”

“I beg your pardon!” Veronica half-yelled and half-sobbed.

“This is
Paulie!
” the man on the other end barked. “You tell that white-trash Gomer Pyle
fuck
that he’s got an email!” and then the line went dead.

“Well?” the others all seemed to say simultaneously.

“Paulie sent you an email,” she told them. “And, gee! Why do I think he’s attached a
movie
to it?”

“Dang, Paw! Ya reckon he done sumpin’ back ta us alls-ready?”

“But what the
hail
could he do?” Micky-Mack said in disbelief.

“There’s only one way to find out,” Veronica snapped. “I have to go online.”

“On
what?
”Dumar asked. “Like a
clothes
line? Paw, what she talkin’ ’bout?”

“I think,” Helton perceived, “that it’s the same magic
phone
line like what she used last night to send Paulie
our
movin’ picture. Am I right, hon?”

“Yes, and if you want to see what he sent you, you’ll have to give me my laptop.”

“Oh, ya mean yer fancy ‘puter?”

“Yes,” she sighed, slumping in her own piss. “My fancy ‘
puter.
”

Helton brought the laptop, and in minutes, Veronica was downloading the file sent to the new eddress she’d created last night.

“Is it…,” Helton began with a dry dread in his voice.

“It’s a digital video file,” she told them. She opened it through her media player, then passed the laptop to Helton. “Here. Whatever it is, I don’t want to see it.”

“Probably fer the best, hon…” He set the unit on the metal table. “Come on, boys. We needs ta watch this.”

“Just hit the enter button,” Veronica said, then sulked in her corner.

With some difficulty, Helton did so, and then…

They watched.

««—»»

It’s nighttime, though there’s an icy glare from some mode of auxiliary lighting. The camera pans across leafless trees, then the forms of three men are waving at the camera: men with the most curious rubber masks. The husky man wears the face of Abraham Lincoln, while a slimmer man wears Mr. Spock. A third, who carries the air of ringleader, looks back with the face of Richard M. Nixon. The masks look very old but remain quite flexible. The men wave for quite awhile. Then the scene cuts to—

A roaring fire.

It’s an elaborate yet quite ramshackle dwelling made of wood planks and what appears to be hand-hewn cedar shingles. Sound that is somehow grainy accommodates the image: the crackling of abundant flames. In only minutes, the wooden edifice is consumed, collapsing in a minor mushroom cloud of smoke and sparks. There’s something almost awesome about the fire’s voracity, as well as the promptitude of its reducing the shack to a pile of raving embers.

Nixon steps into the foreground and says in an undeniable Jersey accent: “See that pile of shit house,
Helton?
I’ll bet it looks familiar, don’t it?” and there several robust off-screen laughs are heard. “But that’s just for starters…,” and the scene cuts again to—

A wooden plank sticking in the ground. The camera zooms in, for there seems to be crude
writing
 on that plank.

The writing reads:

MARY BETH TUCKTON

WIFE OF DUMAR TUCKTON

DAWTER OF CLONNER MARTIN

NEECE OF JAKE MARTIN

LUVING WIFE & MOTHER

B. Apr. 30, 1977

D. Dec. 13, 2010

The camera pulls back wider amid an erratic, gritty sound that is soon revealed to be the sound of
shovels
digging into the crude grave. Wider and wider, the lens retreats and at last the grave-diggers are shown: Spock and Lincoln.

Again, the scene cuts to—

The grave now fully opened. It’s only several feet deep and the shrouded form within indicates that no liner or coffin was available for the interred.

“There’s our bitch,” Nixon relates off-screen. “Good job, guys.”

Hands reach into the shallow pit and haul out the long, shrouded bundle. A
tearing sound
is heard, while—closer—two sets of hands
rip
the shroud open. The glare of moonlight reveals the form of a shapely female corpse: light hair that’s probably blond, a face that would’ve been pretty in life. The corpse has been dressed in a simple cotton nightgown with some unidentifiable floral print; then this, too, is
riiiiiiiiiiiiiipped
open. The globes of large, firm breasts fill the screen: frost-white, with large, oblong nipples puckered in death and tinted the faintest blue.

“Damn,” an off-screen voice comments. “Not a bad set of tits for a stiff.”

“I ain’t never tit-fucked a corpse before but”—a chuckle—“there’s always a first time.”

Brusk laughter.

“Doc. Go up and down the whole body.”

“Of course, sir.”

The camera tracks down over the flat stomach, curvaceous hips, plush thighs. It is a conspiracy of visual elements that collide now: the crisp December night, the crisp radiance of moonlight, and the crisp white skin. They all seem to contribute to an overall image of death-perversity and, somehow, death-beauty. The thighs are parted to afford the camera a more concise vision: the furred pubis, and the plump slit beneath the hair.

More off-screen voices deliberate…

“How ya like that? This is one dynamite-lookin’ dead redneck tramp.”

“Yeah. Drop-dead gorgeous.”

Laughter.

“She don’t even stink. Says on the marker she’s been dead, what, ten days?”

“Nine, sir.”

“Then how come she don’t stink? Wouldn’t her cunt and mouth and all be full of worms?”

“Actually, no, sir. The cool temperatures of the December climate have essentially kept the corpus refrigerated, forestalling most, if not all, putrefaction. There will be evidence of post-mortal lividity, of course, and some visual venosity contrasting with the death-pallor. Rigor has passed, though. She’s quite well preserved…”

A rough cut, then—

A vigorous
slapping
sound as the screen is now full of a hairy, pumping male buttocks. The dead woman’s parted thighs jostle aside.