Chapter 7

The Gallows

Deputy Mark Sanders stood atop the makeshift gallows constructed on the courthouse lawn dressed in his prison stripes looking upon the crowd gathered to watch his execution. For the last twenty minutes he stood there in hand cuffs watching the crowd get larger and larger and the television crews setting up cameras atop the buildings that lined the square. To his left, guarding the only staircase to the ground, was the executioner, dressed in dark earth tones and a black hood standing with his arms folded in a sinister, yet defiant manner.

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The crowd, now numbering in the hundreds began to pack closer to the wooden platform and the noise from the mumbling and grumbling was getting almost loud enough to drown out the music playing over the speakers from the radio station remote set up to cover the event. It was 11:15 am and the execution was scheduled for noon and a phone was set up on the gallows in case a last minute stay of execution call came from the governor. So far the phone was silent.

Two hours earlier, at the Linda’s house.

Linda stepped out of her shower, grabbed a towel and began to dry off watching her lesbian lover Kathy Lane, the endocrinologist from her hospital brushing her teeth.

Kathy had been living in secret with Linda ever since she been tossed from Julies vehicle and disappeared the night of Julies death. No one knew that in reality, Linda was a lesbian and Julie was correct when she accused her of being one and made fun of her at the bar that night. Little did Julie know that Kathy was

Linda’s secret lover and that she had pissed her off with her anti lesbian comments at the bar. The reason why Julies truck veered off the road and into the ditch wasn’t completely because she was drunk, it was because Kathy beat her in the head after a smart ass remark about the deputy. Kathy was sick of Julie’s mouth and couldn’t take it any longer.

It wasn’t only Deputy Mark Sanders that had injected insulin into Julie that night of the crash, but also Kathy, an expert on hormone therapy and someone very familiar with insulin. It was her that suggested to Deputy Sanders he was using the wrong type of insulin, it was her that took the bottles from the Deputy and drew back and administered the multiple doses of Regular insulin that killed Julie.

After the injections were administered, Kathy and Mark agreed to never speak of killing Julie and Kathy ran off into the woods before the ambulance arrived and called Linda on her cell phone to pick her up. Now Mark Sanders stood alone on the gallows to face death for the crime he only partially committed. Gary, the diabetic vampire had arrived too late to witness the fatal dosage, and could only testify that he saw Mark at the scene of the accident. Although the prosecution could not positively connect Sanders with the actual injection, they thought they had enough evidence to convict and now Sanders was two hours from his death. Funny story though, and you’ll get a kick out of this, the whole time the deputy was on trial, Kathy Lane sat in the gallery of the courtroom dressed in dark sunglasses with her hair tucked into a ball cap. She sat and watched the whole trial without anyone knowing it was her in fact who was the guilty party. With the exception of Rita, the Schizophrenic troll. During the trail, Rita, in her paranoid state would stare at Kathy for hours and mumble to herself. She made poor eye contact so Kathy was never really sure what she was doing, but it gave her the creeps, especially since Rita didn’t wear any clothes and her boobs sagged like an old ladies.

“Do you have a yeast infection?” Kathy asked Linda.

“What? Why do you ask?” Linda replied.

“You had a funny taste last night, you might want to get that looked at.”

“You’re the doctor, can’t you just tell with your tongue exam?” Linda laughed.

“The white discharge is a pretty big clue, you better get some Monostat, you can get it over the counter.”

“No duh,” Linda replied. “I’ve been down the feminine isle before. Had crotch rot before.”

“Anyway, hurry up, we got to get downtown before they hang Mark.”

“Aren’t you afraid someone will see you and recognize you?”

“They haven’t yet, people around here are so blind and stupid. I’ve lived in this town for six years and I’m the doctor that went missing and my picture is up all over the place and for a month I’ve been able to shop and go to the gym with only a ball cap and sunglasses and no one has figured out who I am.”

“That’s not exactly correct you know?” Linda said as sort of a question.

“What do you mean?” Kathy replied.

“The accident sort of fucked you up a bit, I mean, you used to have more teeth than that and your nose wasn’t so broken.”

Kathy, trying to act like nothing ever happened replied, “I don’t look that much different,” and continued to put on her make up and false teeth.

“Personally, I think you could walk down town and no one would know who you were. And that’s not a bad thing considering your situation.” Linda dropped her towel and exposed her large pendulous breasts and shapely female hips to Kathy and put her arms around her and pushed her to the bathroom wall and kissed her passionately on the lips. “You want a quicky before we go watch them hang Mark?” she asked.

Kathy, a little shocked at Linda’s aggressiveness, yet aroused by her kiss put her hands on Linda’s large ass and squeezed her nails into them till Linda cringed a little. “What time is it?” Kathy asked.

“I don’t wear a fucking watch in the shower,” Linda replied. “We have enough time, I’m horny and in the mood to go crotch diving. Do you have a yeast infection?” She asked.

“I eat yogurt everyday, you should too. I am clean as can be and if you are offering, I got a few minutes.

The two women walked from the bathroom to the bedroom and Linda, the leader of the duo sat on the bed arranging Kathy so that she stood in front of her. Kathy, who had already had her shower and was dressed in a pair of shorts, let Linda unbutton her shorts and pull them off her hips and let them fall to the floor along with her panties.

Linda, with a smile on her face looked up to Kathy who was looking down at her and said, “This is going to be fun,” and pulled Kathy down on top of her allowing Kathy to kick off her shorts and panties and let them fall to the ground.

The women spent the next twenty minutes engaged in intense girl on girl lesbian sex that you can imagine for yourself because I’m not going to spend the next half hour writing it for you. You can look up lesbian porn on the internet if you are that interested.

Back to the Gallows, present time

It was now seven minutes from noon and Mark stood shaking in fear of his life. He had one ace up his sleeve and knew that now or never he was going to have to play his ace if he wanted to survive this, or at least stay off his execution for a while. It was then he noticed down to his left at the base of the stairs, Rita, the formally schizophrenic troll was slowly walking up to the top of the gallows to where the executioner was standing guard.

The guard stood still as Rita approached and then stopped at the top step waiting for executioner to step aside. He did not and Rita looked down to Ury who was standing in the crowd for advice. Ury shrugged her shoulders and Rita turned around and grabbed the guard by his belt and tossed him off the gallows like a sack of popped popcorn into the crowd. Rita was very strong.

Rita stepped up onto the gallows and like a pig on two legs, walked over and stood about four feet from Mark and then sat back on her ass taking a rest. She blinked a few times, jutted her head like a rooster, and turned her head looking at the people all around down on the ground and started mumbling to herself, “What’s up?” Mark asked.

Rita wasn’t the most vocal between her and Ury, but Mark knew she could speak. She did spent a little time talking to a branch the last time they met. Rita looked at Mark and said,” You know what? People think I’m really fucked up. But in reality, I’m pretty fucking normal. I mean, am I the only person, I mean troll that noticed that woman in the courtroom with the ball cap and sunglasses? What a shitty costume, I knew who it was the second I saw her. It was that missing doctor that nobody else could find for the last few months.”

“I didn’t realize you were so well spoken,” Mark replied.

“If I acted like I was smart, Ury would never fuck me. I play dumb for a reason,” Rita replied. “Ury is too much of a control freak and there is no way we both could be in control so I talk to trees once and a while and the next thing you know I have a fish up my crotch. I couldn’t ask for a better arrangement.” Rita replied.

“Fish up your crotch?” Mark asked noting the time on the bank clock across the street.

“We tried using some toys that we bought at the adult bookstore here in town, but human women have very small poonies and regular dildo’s do nothing for me. So one day Ury caught a catfish and I had an idea and viola an idea was born.”

“Do you kill the catfish first?” Mark asked.

“What do you think?” Rita asked sarcastically.

“Well,” Mark replied. “It could be considered animal abuse if you used it while it was still alive, but then on the other hand it would be much more animated if you used it alive and would be more stimulating for you. So really, I don’t know what you would do.”

“Would you put a dead fish in your hole?” Rita asked in a superior tone.

“I wouldn’t put a live or dead fish in any part of me. Well, unless it was cooked then I’d eat it.”

“You humans are so much of a waste of space. I long for the days when trolls ruled the Earth and you could find one anywhere you looked.” Rita stated.

“That never happened,” Mark replied. “Trolls never reached a population of more than fifty thousand world wide ever. You are decisional.”

“Maybe that’s why I put live fish in my pussy,” Rita said with a grin.

“Would explain the smell,” Mark said wrinkling his nose. Do you two ever bathe?

A short pause, then Rita replied is a whisper, “That doctor in the shitty costume, she has something to do with this doesn’t she?”

“Yes,” Mark replied.

“Then speak up or forever hold your peace, I mean you are minutes from death.”

“It’s a long story Rita,” Mark said shaking his head. “But I do have a part in this and calling her out will only put two of us on the slab instead of one.”

“But doesn’t that piss you off? I mean you get whacked for your part and she gets off Scott free? I’d be pissed, take her down with you.”

***

The courthouse clock rang twelve times for the noon hour and the crowd quieted down.

The executioner had made his way back up the stairs but stood on the top step afraid to walk onto the gallows platform. From the stairs below, the sheriff and the other deputies, dressed in riot gear ran up onto the platform, pushed the executioner aside, and pointed their automatic rifles at Rita. The crowd gasped in shock.

“You are interfering in an official government execution ” the sheriff yelled to Rita. “Stand down or I will be forced to shoot.”

Rita, in her smug bitchy way replied, “Your human laws don’t apply to trolls.”

“They don’t apply to dogs either, but we shoot those too,” the sheriff stated.

“Touche’” Rita replied, “Well I guess you win,” she replied and started hobbling away from Mark towards the officers on her way to the stairs.

“Stop ” the sheriff yelled.

“I’m trying to get my fat ass off this thing so you will have to move jackass ” Rita yelled back. She paused for a moment to gauge the sheriffs response and took another step.

In less than a second the sheriff fired a round into Rita’s top right skull and with a pop, a chunk of her scull, some leathery skin and a tennis ball sized piece of her brain flew out of her head and landed on the wooden platform at her feet. Some blood did spray the crowd and this amused Rita as she bent over and scooped up the parts of her head lying at her feet. She picked the bones and skin out from the handful of mush and pushed the brains back into her head. She then placed the pieces of skull over the brain trying to fill in as much as she could before putting the skin back on over the top and pressing down hard to get it all to stay in one spot.

Once the mass of bones, brains and flesh was back in place, Rita gently turned her head back and forth to see if it would stay in place. A few more pokes and prods with her finger and she was satisfied that it would stay until healed and again began to walk towards the sheriff who had lowered his gun in amazement. Once Rita walked to the midpoint of the gallows where the hangman nooses was swaying in the breeze, she reached up as high as she could and grabbed the bottom of the loop and yanked down hard enough to snap the rope in two. She tossed the noose end into the crowd and said to the sheriff, “He’s a friend of mine, if you’re going to do this, I am not going to make it easy for you,” and continued to walk past the officers, down the steps and back into the crowd.

Chapter 8

The Newspaper Office, Again

The following week, Rita and Ury walked from their bridge down to the newspaper office. They had found a copy of the paper at the roadside, with a story covering the execution of Deputy Mark Sanders and they wanted to speak to the editor and publisher. It was a long four mile walk for the couple, and they usually didn’t stay up during the day, but they had a mission and needed to get something off their chests. At the office, they politely asked the clerk to see Frank the editor, and the lady at the desk used the intercom to ask Frank to come up to the front counter.

Frank approached the counter and to his disgust, two trolls were standing there to greet him. “What can I do for you?” he asked in a smug yet friendly tone. Rita slammed down the front page of the paper and pointed to the picture of Mark hanging from the noose. “Is this what you call journalism?” Rita asked in a loud yelling tone.

“Yes ma’am”, Frank replied. “That is the biggest story to hit this town in years. Of course it’s news.”

“This is sensationalism at it’s worst. This sort of thing belongs on the same page with the speeding tickets and court fines, not on the front page. This is trash and your paper is a rag.”

Frank shook his head in defiance. “Every paper around here including the regional ones had a similar picture on the front page, if you think I wasn’t going to have a photo of the body, you are more insane than everyone in town thinks you are.”

“You are an asshole,” Rita said in firm pursed lip tone. “What if this was your son, or father?”

“I can’t draw those distinctions,” Frank replied. “I run a business of selling information and this qualifies as information. You can demonize me all you want, but this is how the world works and if you want to stop the press from covering the news, you should run for congress and get the first amendment repealed. Until then, good day ”

“You’re not getting away with that so easy ” Rita yelled. Ury grabbed her by the arm and said, “Let’s go, you won’t win this battle.”

Rita pulled her arm away and moved in a little closer to the counter.

“You know what Mr. Paperman?” she asked in a mocking tone. “You run a very interesting paper here yes you do.” Rita held the paper up to her nose and took a long loud sniff, loud enough for all the office personnel to take notice. “Do you use soy ink?” Rita asked.

“Yes we do, it’s environmentally safe,” Frank replied.

“I bet, pretty expensive too I suppose?” She asked.

“What are you getting at?” Frank asked back.

“Maybe we should talk in private about the additives I smell on your paper. I think you use more than just soy ink to print your paper. I think you may...”

“Hold on ” Frank said looking around to see who was looking. “In my office,” he stated motioning the two female trolls back around the counter down the long hall back to his office.

The hallway was filled with framed copies of the paper from years ago when things were a lot different than they are now. Different cars, different buildings and pictures of people who have long since died. Even the font on the paper was different. They past offices on both sides of the hall until they came to the last office on the left where Frank held out his hand motioning for the two to enter. He was polite, but visibly shaken.

The trolls entered the office and Frank followed pointing to the only other chair besides his huge leather office chair and motioned for Ury to sit down. Rita would have to stand in the center of the room, smack center of the trap door.

“What do you want from me?” Frank asked as he sat in his luxury chair.

Rita looked around at all the crap he had gathered over the years and hung on his wall.

Photo’s of Frank with local business people, pictures of his kids, pictures of his boat and pictures of his ex wife with her new husband on his desk.

“I want to kick your ass,” Rita stated. “It’s too late now, you printed this crap and it’s all over town.”

“”Kick my ass?” Frank replied jokingly. “I have been threatened by better than you. I have had my gas tank sugared, my windows broke, my building spray painted with profanities, my life threatened and you want to kick my ass?”

Rita bit her lip and thought for a second. Before we discuss your ass kicking, I want you to tell me why I smell human blood all over your paper? It’s like it’s mixed in the ink.”

“Is there anyway to kill a troll?” Frank asked flatly. “I saw you take a bullet to the brain and it didn’t phase you.”

“Sure it did, I wasn’t going to let the crowd know that,” Rita replied.

“I didn’t get out of bed for two days after I got back to the bridge. It hurt like Hell and I was sure I had a stroke, but thank goodness I came out of it.” Rita put her clawed finger up to her head and pushed on the spot where the skull had been shot off and said, “See, almost as good as new. Why do you ask?”

“For starters, I had no idea you were fucking blood hounds. I had a pretty good operation here for years and now you ugly fuckers found out my dirty little secret.”

“Where do you get the blood to put in your paper?,” Ury asked from the chair.

Frank looked over to Ury and back to Rita. “I get it from assholes like you,” he said and the floor dropped out from under Rita and she fell to the room below. Ury stood up and waddled over to the open trapdoor and looked down at her girlfriend lying on the mattress below. Frank reached over and grabbed Ury by the hair on the top of her head and pushed her off balance, and then towards the open pit. She fell in and landed on top of Rita who was trying to find the piece of skull that dislodged when she hit bottom.

With muscle memory, Frank grabbed the rope to the trap door and pulled it back up locking it in place. The room below was now dark.

Below in the locked room, Ury and Rita could see fine, they lived at night and had the best night vision possible. The room, large enough for a small storage space was lined with empty shelves and the walls were cracked and broken cement that covered a brick interior. It smelled musty and nothing seemed to be new, it was a building built for an earlier age and it had seen better days.

Then the smell of exhaust filled the room and the hiss from a vent above let them know where it was coming from. “He’s trying to gas us?” Rita said like it was some sort of joke. “Who the Hell does he think he’s dealing with here?” she grinned and with one swift motion kicked down the locked door that sealed them inside. Before her, hanging from hooks, was the body of a woman with her hands cut off allowing her blood to drain into a bucket. Next to her was a fifty five gallon container of black ink and a siphon hose.

“Now I get it,” Rita said smugly. This is some sort of processing space he uses to do his dirty work. But why the Hell does he put blood in the ink in the first place?” she asked aloud.

Ury, looking for a door said, “Let’s get out of here, the gas is making my sinuses hurt.”

Nine hours later at Troll bridge

10:30 pm and the bridge is covered in a medium fog lit up by the full moon casting harsh shadows of the bridge onto the river below. On one side the bridge a car pulls up and quickly the headlights turn off, on the other side, Gary, the diabetic vampire sits upon his power chair, now with one less leg, due to an amputation below the knee, a complication of his diabetes. Gary sipped on an energy drink and watched two men exit the vehicle, walk around the back and pop the trunk. Moments later the men reach in and pull out a 223 rifle and a Glock 40mm pistol and head around the car over the bridge and towards Gary who sits quietly awaiting their arrival.

The men approach, “What are you doing here?” Frank, the newspaper publisher asks.

“I was going to ask the same question,” Gary replied to Frank and Mitch, the pressman.

“Do you guys usually go hunting this late at night?” Gary said with a grin.

“Why don’t you put that in high and scoot on down the road?” Frank asked in a sarcastic tone.

“I don’t think so,” Gary replied. “Night is my time and I’m out doing my rounds.”

Frank and Mitch looked at each other and then at Gary who looked blankly back at them acting like he knew nothing was going on and why the two men were on the bridge in the first place. Frank stepped closer to the edge of the bridge and looked down at the slow moving river below and though for a second about tossing Gary over the side, but then realized that he and Mitch together would have a difficult time lifting a man over four hundred pounds over a rail.

“I’m not a witch,” Gary said. “I don’t melt with water,” he said with a grin. “I feel a little tension here between us. Is there something going on I should know about?” Gary asked.

“How long are you going to be here?” Mitch asked.

“Aren’t you that fucker that was boning the now deceased deputies wife?” Gary asked.

“How the fuck did you know?” Mitch asked back.

“Small town, plus I practically live in the bar and all we do is drink and talk all night. I hear you got a little pecker.”

Mitch stepped up and pointed the Glock at Gary’s face. “Normally little dick jokes don’t bother me, but coming from a fat bastard like you really pisses me off.

What right do you have to judge me?”

“The same right that allows you to judge me I suppose.” Gary quipped back. “You don’t like fat people?”

“I don’t like fat people, I don’t like queers, I don’t like Asians, blacks or Mexicans either, you have a problem with that?” Mitch asked.

“You realize I’m immortal dumbass,” Gary stated as a matter of fact. “You shoot me and I don’t fall down and go boom. I regenerate and then I kick your ass.”

Mitch Patrickled and looked at Gary on his power chair. “Kick my ass? You fat fuck, it would take you ten minutes to get off your chair and another three to walk over to me.

By that time I could have sat down, smoked a joint and jerked off.”

“Point taken,” Gary stated. “But there is one thing you didn’t think about.”

“What’s that?” Mitch asked.

“I may be the fattest fuck you know, but I am probably the most popular fattest fuck you know as well and I have a lot of friends who would laterally give their shirts off their backs to help me out.” Gary stated, and then looked around in the dark fog as if giving a sign to anyone watching.

Mitch put the gun down and stepped back. Frank took a deep breath and said, “Maybe we should head back to the car.”

“We came to kill those fucking trolls,” Mitch said. “I’m not leaving till I have troll hide to take back to my baby momma for a diaper dispenser.

“He’s bluffing,” Mitch said, “Their aren’t anyone else out here but him you and me, and those two fucking trolls hanging under this bridge waiting for us to fill them with holes.”

Gary sipped on his power drink and watched the two men bicker.

“He has a lot of really fucked up friends,” Frank stated. “For all we know, he has an army of zombies out in the woods waiting to take us out one by one.”

“Excuse me,” Gary said politely, “Zombies don’t exist. They are the red shirts of the fantasy world and are a cheap and easy bad guy, almost as bad as vampires so let’s move on.”

Frank leaned back over the rail and looked to see if he could see the trolls down below on the river bank. If they were, it would be an easy kill and they could be on their way.

Troll killing isn’t a crime under human law so it wouldn’t be any different than shooting a skunk or naked mole rat. Frank saw nothing but the river, the river bank and trees below. He knew the trolls could be sneaky fuckers and hard to find, especially in the dark.

“Seems we are at an impasse,” Frank said. “You may have someone or something hiding out there waiting to jump us as soon as we start looking for the trolls, and you may be jerking us off playing a game of bluff. Problem is, do we chance it or not?” Frank sat down on the cement rail and laid his rifle across his thighs while he thought. Mitch stood by and Gary continued to sit on his power chair and all three men listened to the crickets and water from below the bridge.

Then, from the fog the silhouette of a woman appeared walking towards the three men almost in silence. Her figure was familiar, but she almost seemed to glide across the ground like a ghost blowing in the breeze. As she approached her features became clear, and in a moment, Julie Jones, the formerly murdered wife of Gary Jones the diabetic vampire stood next to the power chair, skin pale like the moon light, with a scar across her forehead from the barbed wire that pinned her to her seat when she died.

“What the Hell?” Frank asked with his mouth open in disbelief. “You’re dead.”

“You’re a smart fucker,” Gary said with a belly laugh. “You were at the trial covering it weren’t you?” Gary asked Frank. You know I was at the scene after the accident. It was her, her so called friend Kathy Lane, me and the deputy.”

“Yeah, but you testified that you didn’t see anything,” Frank stated

“That is correct, I didn’t see who gave the insulin shot, but I did stick around long enough to bite my wife and turn her into a vampire before she died from an overdose. She may be the biggest piece of shit there is, but I still love her and I wasn’t about to let her die.”

“What about the deputy? Why didn’t you kill him? He is the one who tried to kill her first, it was all on the recording on the patrol car camera.” Frank asked.

“Julie deserves everything she gets and I am surprised I haven’t had to turn her way before this. I don’t blame the deputy, actually I would have done the same thing in his place, but I still couldn’t let my little Julie here just roll over and die. In some odd way, she makes me happy.”

“She seems to have turned over a new lief from the sound of things. It’s been five minutes and she hasn’t said one bitchy thing.” Frank said.

“She can’t,” Gary said. “When I turned her I accidently bit into her vocal chords and now she’s mute.”

Mitch, anxious and jittery began to shuffle on the gravel laid across the cement bridge.

“Well, it’s nice that we have a family reunion, but we came here to waste some trolls so they don’t tell our little secret,” Mitch said.

“The blood in the ink secret?” Gary asked. “Who doesn’t know about that?”

“What do you mean?” Mitch asked.

“People talk and they talk all the time about crap like this. It starts off as a rumor and then builds into facts in peoples minds. Do you know when blood oxidizes it turns black, and not the same black as ink. It is more of a muddy charcoal consistency. I picked that out years ago reading that rag you put out. I could tell when you were killing and when things were slow. I used to joke about it at the bar all the time. Frank the serial killer is on a slump the headline reads in the blood of his last victim who happens to be a dog because he can’t find any new victims.”

“No one believed you?” Frank asked. “I hid it very well, my operation was genius.”

“In every rumor there is a grain of truth and my friends knew I knew things they would never and could never know. I think it’s safe to say the cops were checking you out pretty good most of the time and you were probably under surveillance more than you know. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a gps tracker on your car right now and that the cops aren’t watching you now. Not for this shitty fog though, probably makes their job a bit harder, unless they are using infrared cameras and have someone with a microphone on them recording your every word.”

“Like who?” Frank asked.

Gary pointed to the small round metal object taped to the handle bar of his power chair.

“Like that dumbass,” Gary said with a smirk. “Congratulations Frank, you’re on Candid Camera ” he yelled with a huge belly laugh.

***

Frank and Mitch swung from the gallows six months later after their trial as the most prolific serial killers in the county. They happened to be the only serial killers in the county ever, but it made for good headlines. Deputy Mark Sanders continued to be dead, and his whore wife continued to fuck every guy in town that would give her the time of day.

 To be continued...