Free Deadside in Bug City by Randy Chandler

the lane it should’ve been in, but it was too late to avert the collision.
    In the final seconds before the crash, James heard the ice cream truck’s bell jangling wildly.
    * * *
    She was completely naked now, her piss-stained panties lying in a small pink heap near her feet. The man called Shades had pushed his dark glasses up on top of his shaved head, and his dark eyes seemed to smolder with a demented passion Candace didn’t want to think about. The sloppy-fat Woofer showed his teeth in what was probably supposed to be a grin, but looked more like the snarl of a feral animal, a hissing possum. He picked up her panties and sniffed them.
    “She pissed herself,” Woofer said with a mirthless chuckle.
    “Pregnant cunts can’t hold their pee,” said Shades as he pulled a bundle of black and white cloth from the burlap bag. “Here, put this on her.” He handed the bundle to Woofer, who unfolded it with his stubby fingers.
    When she saw what it was, Candace allowed herself a fleeting moment of hope, but that hope was quickly supplanted by hopeless despair as she remembered that they had referred to her as the unholy mother.
    Woofer lifted her head off the cellar floor and put the nun’s wimple on her, then smoothed out its folds. The headdress smelled of stale cigarette smoke, mildew and unburned incense—sandalwood.
    Candace wanted to plead for her captors to spare her the pain and mutilation of the insane crucifixion, but the duct tape prevented such pleading. Tears rolled down her cheeks.
    “Okay, stretch her out,” said Shades. He had a spike in one hand and the hammer in the other. He bent close to her face and said, “If you fight, I’ll whack your head with the hammer. Got me?”
    She nodded. Then she shook her head as if to deny what they were about to do to her. She glanced down at the pale dome of her swollen belly and thought, I’m sorry, baby.
    Woofer spread her legs wide, then moved behind her and pinned her shoulders to the hardwood floor. Shades positioned the spike against the instep of her left foot and lined up the hammer for the first blow.
    Candace urgently shook her head and moaned against the duct tape.
    “Hold still, titty mama,” Woofer cooed close to her ear. “Don’t move your legs or we’ll go ahead and kill you and your baby.”
    She froze. Closed her eyes.
    The ringing bang of metal on metal accompanied devastating pain in her foot as the spike drove into flesh and bone. Before the second blow landed, she had passed out.
    * * *
    Suzie Shrimpton raised her frozen margarita from the table, tilted the frosty glass and said, “Cheers.”
    Joe Carr lifted his scotch-on-the-rocks and echoed her sardonic toast. “Cheers.”
    They sipped their drinks. Joe opened the pack of cigarettes he’d bought from the vending machine by the rest rooms in the rear of Bill’s Bar, shook one out for Suzie and one for himself, then lit them both with a match. The scent of sulfur mixed with tobacco smoke.
    “Ah, that’s good,” said Suzie, exhaling as she spoke. She propped her elbow on the tabletop and held the cigarette high between two fingers.
    Though he’d never been able to figure out why, the sight of an attractive woman holding a cigarette never failed to send a jolt of sexual excitement through him. “Yeah,” he agreed.
    The jukebox in the corner fell silent, and over the buzz of conversation in the bar they heard the faint tolling of the bell on Holy Cross Hill.
    “Is that damn thing gonna ring all night?” she asked with a weary sigh.
    Joe felt compelled to answer the rhetorical question. “Sure as hell seems like it.”
    “I’ll bet Gary’s head’s ringing like a bell from that punch you gave him,” she said with a tense laugh.
    “I hope I didn’t kill him.”
    “Nah, he’s tough. Bastard gets in a lot of fights. He usually comes out on top though.” She smiled at him with obvious admiration. “He’s not used to having his clock cleaned.”
    Joe shrugged