Free Bad Games by Jeff Menapace Page B

nothing this man was saying made any sense. His head ached at its base from where he had been struck upon entering his home, and the more he thought, the more it ached. He went to speak against the wadded cloth that was taped inside his mouth, but only panicked, muffled words escaped.
    “Your license, genius,” the man with the welt said. “It was sticking out of your wallet like a hard-on. Meatheads like you are so fucking predictable. I knew you’d eventually start trouble with us tonight. I guess you can say I like to plan ahead.”
    The large man’s eyes stopped blinking. He understood now. He struggled again for a brief moment—more a show of bravado than any attempt at escape—and then stopped. He tried another muffled shout, but its futility was heightened more by the pain the effort was causing his head. He resigned entirely and his shoulders slumped, a long strained sigh flapped out of his nose like a snore.
    “Now,” the man with the welt said. “How ’bout we get a look at that ring of yours? I mean it’s such a cool ring after all. A skull. It’s just so rebellious and dangerous. Scary even. You must be a real outlaw to wear a ring like that, yeah?”
    The man with the welt’s accomplice, a stocky man with black eyes and a shaved head, stepped forward, past the man with the welt. He squatted down into a catcher’s stance so he could study the ring on the big man’s hand that was strapped to the arm of the chair. “This is cool,” the man with the shaved head said as he fingered the ring. He looked over his shoulder at the man with the welt. “ Very scary.”
    “Well I can’t see it too well from back here,” the man with the welt said. “Can you bring it over to me?”
    “I can try. ” The man with the shaved head put on a melodramatic display as he grunted and groaned, trying (but not trying) to remove the ring from the man’s thick fingers. “Won’t budge, bro,” he said. “It’s stuck fast.”
    The man with the welt continued in the vein of his friend’s theatrics with an exaggerated frown and sigh. Taking a few steps forward, he squatted down next to the man with the shaved head. “Let me have a try,” he said.
    The man with the welt took hold of the large man’s ring finger and violently jerked it to its left. There was an exceptional crack like a branch being snapped in two. The large man cried out through his gag, the cloth muffling the sound but not the intensity.
    “Did that get it?” the man with the shaved head asked.
    “Nope. Still on there,” the man with the welt replied.
    “Better try again.”
    The man with the welt took hold of the broken finger and now jerked it to its right. No crack this time, just a grinding noise like popcorn kernels being munched. The large man’s cries were long drawn-out moans now, the pain shockingly worse than before.
    “Anything?” the man with the shaved head asked.
    “ Still nothing,” the man with the welt complained.
    The man with the shaved head huffed, stood up, and exited the room. He returned moments later carrying a large kitchen knife, a good portion of it coated in dark, wet red. The big man’s eyes widened when he saw the bloodied knife.
    “Ah, don’t worry about her, big fella,” the man with the shaved head said. He looked at the knife as he spoke, rotating it back and forth in his hand, studying it. “We made it fairly quick. Still, a pig like that’s gonna take a lot of sticking before she eventually stops squealing, yeah?” He laughed and shook his head without a trace of sympathy. “Poor fat slut was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
    The man with the shaved head handed the kitchen knife down to the man with the welt who was still squatting in front of the big man, his calm, almost lazy eyes never leaving the big man’s panicked, unblinking pair. His confident smirk never waning. The same confident smirk he’d flashed at the large man before exiting the bar after the fight. Admittedly,