Free Skarzy by Shane Jeffery Page B

the way.
    Skarzy touched
it dangling over his chin, and felt the loose strings of flesh still attached
all the way back to the remainder in his mouth. He gave a hollow choke and a
faint bleating noise as he yanked it out.
    Serious
chuckled.
    Skarzy turned
the limp excrement over in his palm, tears rolling down his cheeks fluently. He
stared at Lucy with white rage.
    She finally
stumbled.
    “Hfff…” Skarzy
whispered. “Hfff…”
    It was just
air.
    “That’s what
you get,” Lucy muttered, and Vostle shoved her into the corner.
    He turned to
Skarzy, careful like, biting his lip.
    “We just want
the money.”
    Skarzy pounded
the floor halfheartedly.
    “Do you have
it? Where is it?”
    Skarzy shook
his head softly.
    “Search him,”
Serious said.           
    “She just
did,” Vostle replied.
    “All of it,”
Serious continued. “Take his clothes off.”
    Skarzy looked
over to him, his posture tilting, on the verge of madness.
    “You don’t
scare me,” Serious said wielding the bat. “Come on.”
    Skarzy stood
and Serious belted him in the stomach. He fell to his knees.
    “Your jumper.
Off we get.”
    Skarzy tore it
off and flung it at him.
    “Easy now.”
    He shook the
jumper and nothing came out.
    “He probably
doesn’t have it, man,” Vostle mumbled.
    “Shut up,”
Serious replied.
    Lucy stepped
off the back wall and went over to Skarzy’s discarded smokes. She lit one and
put it to her mouth.
    “All of it,”
Serious said to Skarzy. “Don’t fuck around.”
    By the time
they were finished Skarzy was left alone cowering in nothing but his socks.
    Serious took his time with Skarzy’s clothes.
When nothing turned up, he threw them across the ground in a rage and moved
onto the cubicle Skarzy had been hiding in.
    Vostle stood
guard at the exit, checking his watch every moment or so.
    Serious
finally addressed Lucy. “He must have dropped it.”
    Lucy looked
down at Skarzy, without sympathy.
    “I’ll see you
at your house,” she said. “Five am. I want my three grand. Get it. Get it. Get
it.”
    Outside he
heard the speaker phone: “The next train to depart from platform one will be
departing now …”
    And the train
was pulling up.
    Vostle held
the door open accordingly. “Are we getting that?”
    Lucy silently
followed him out. She had taken his wallet and phone too.
    Serious stood
grinning at Skarzy. He motioned to the first cubicle.
    Then he briskly
gathered up Skarzy’s clothes. 
    He dropped
them in the toilet bowl with the turds and pressed flush.
    “Have a nice
day,” Serious murmured poking him with the bat as he exited.
    Skarzy
painfully lifted himself up from the wall and staggered over to the cubicle.
    The smell was
unbearable.
    He stuck his
hand inside and pulled out his saturated shirt. A few murky drops scorched his
body like acid as it rang out dripping.
    He opened his
mouth.
    “Hfff … Hfff…”
    Outside he
could hear the train leaving.
     

 
    3
     
    There was one good roll left in the
dunny. Wasn’t the best kind of toilet paper. Single ply. Unscented. Little
rough. Skarzy could scarcely imagine someone using it to wipe their ass with.
    See, could be
worse off okay?
    He took the
paper and carefully rolled it around the open gash of his naked leg, reapplying
the ripped up bandage. That was easy enough. He stood by the far mirror where
there was enough light to make out a reflection.
    Not looking
good.
    Even with his
mouth closed the blood still found a way to trickle out.
    He opened it
and spat out the gunk. It ran dark red sinkhole. 
    Uughsst.
    It wasn’t
gonna be fun trying to keep that down.
    He turned the
toilet roll over in his hand.
    The bottom
edge of it was covered in a layer of moist condensation – hiccup – just
the usual disease ridden shit you might find in the puddles of a public
outhouse…
    Skarzy
grimaced and did his best to rip and tear as much of the bad shit out; though
in this light –
    Don’t think.
Don’t think. Just get it