Concrete may have
Joe's Bar and Gril
Quietly, Quiggly s
That turned dark q
Quitetly, Quiggly
Once considered th
Joe's Bar and Gril
But first, you and
That turned dark q
Once considered th

But first, you and
Quietly, Quiggly s
Tiffany, you reall
Quitetly, Quiggly
Ships were lost du
Chris! I told you
But first, you and
FTL is not possibl
Chris! I told you
We've recently dis
<<      >>
Quitetly, Quiggly stepped into the darkness as he stealthily approached and steeled himself to the smell that always followed him. The odor wafted down the narrow passageway. The aroma of the dead, stank in the air. His eyes grew wide and his mouth watered. Quiggly gagged a couple of times. Stinkin! The pungent odor of rotting bodies overwhelmed him as he walked up to the gated opening. His nose had never reacted so quickly, nor had his stomach churned as quickly. "Uhh!" The stink of death hit him as he peered into the open area of the pen. The stench turned his stomach. Quiggly vomited as his stomach wrenched and wiggled. He stumbled back, holding on to the wall for balance, and vomited again. "Uhh...uuhh! Uuuhh!" "What's going on in here? I could'a sworn I heard somethin." The sound of boots approached as the prison guard approached from the other side of the wall, which had been built to separate the victims from the criminals. "I didn't do nothing. I swear. It was the stink, ya know. Ugh!" Quiggly tried to keep his dinner from escaping. The dark figure stepped closer, his face lit up with an evil grin. "I see you tried to escape. It's hard to escape when the only door is a stone wall. You're bound to get the stomach flu with no end of vomit to clean up." "Uhhh, heh," was the only thing Quiggly could mutter. "You're not going to make it out of here," the inmate gloated as he reached over and shoved Quiggly backward. "Ahhh!" He stumbled and fell backward, landing on his butt on the stone floor. "Geez! Heh, heh, heh." The jailer chuckled as he reached down with his left hand, grabbed Quiggly's jacket with a gloved hand, and pulled him up, twisting his arm behind his back. "Let's go!" the jailer's guttural voice sounded. "Move!" Quiggly turned to fight back, but the cold metal of a syringe glinted in the light of the dim bulb. Quiggly gasped and flinched as the cold liquid forced its way into his bloodstream. He squirmed and tried to pull away as the prison guard cinched a shackle around his ankle and the chain around his waist as he dragged him down the hallway. The guard's face never turned to see Quiggly's horrified expression and fearful gaze at the floor, where hundreds of bloody footprints were scattered. "Ahhh!" Quiggly let out a pained scream when the guard took his arm and pressed it up against the wall, bending his wrist back, crushing his thumb. "Ahhh!" The guard released Quiggly's arm, lifted his shirt, and took his knife out. He drew a curved blade across Quiggly's stomach, cutting from right to left, and then down across his back. He pulled a blade, which was used as a shiv. The prisoner wailed and thrashed, but the guard held him in place with his other arm as he continued slicing his way across his stomach and back. Quiggly screamed for a long time before the prisoner slumped to the floor. He was unconscious. "That's how it's done," the jailer muttered. "You don't want any trouble. You'll get a knife stuck through you. You do and you'll get sent straight to the gas chamber. Don't cross me." A loud bang echoed down the hallway, then another, and then a fourth. "That's the last one," the jailer whispered. "That'll be the end for him." He chuckled as he dragged Quiggly's body into the other room. * * * "No, not the head. Please, God, not the head!" a woman cried from the alley. The sounds of dogs growling and barking filled the air as she stood in front of three large dogs. Her hands raised and covered her eyes as she backed up. "No. Please, God, no." "This isn't going to be easy," Quiggly mumbled as he stepped closer to the woman and looked down at her body. He stared at the back of her head. Her hair was matted with blood, her face was blackened, and there were bloody gashes along her arms and neck. Quiggly looked at the woman's feet. It was so dark that the bloodied stains covered her shoes. She had blood smeared around her mouth. There were big gashes on her face. She had been in the alley. "Please, God," he mumbled and continued to stare at her wounds, as tears streamed down his face and plopped on the concrete. "No. No. No." "Well, no one's going to be around here for quite a while," the jailer said. "He probably won't wake up. I'll have to throw the body out. We can't keep the prisoners alive forever. I've used enough supplies for now. I don't know how many more." "Yeah, I guess. Hey, you gonna check these bodies?" The jailer lifted up his leg and held the syringe in his open hand. "You never know if someone injected with this will be dead or not. Ain't that right, little boy?" "Well, it is." The jailer turned to the younger man and looked into the shadows. "You're awake." He lowered his leg. "Get over here. They're going to start rotting and stinking up the place. Make sure they're dead. I don't want no living prisoners and I don't want 'em to start smelling up the place." "Okay," the man mumbled. "Bring the boy." The boy jumped to his feet and went to the other room. "He'll be out soon," the jailer said. "The last time I had to kill a prisoner this young, he'd been bitten." The jailer pushed him into the open pen and leaned down. "You're dead, boy. It's time to rot. You stink. I'm going to have to hose you down to get rid of that smell." * * * Hazel watched the old woman walk out of her apartment and head to her bus stop. It was early. He had taken a nap at his place and then watched TV until he dozed off. She wasn't due back home from work for another hour, but he was glad he had given in to the urge to nap and watch TV. The dogs that started barking and howling after she left was what woke him up, but they weren't like before. The first one began barking, then the second, and then the third. He looked at the TV. Nothing but static. He looked back to the front door as he put his feet on the floor. The dogs started barking and howling like they were in the backyard. He walked to the front door, turned off the TV, and closed the front door behind him as he walked back down the hallway to the kitchen. His mother was sound asleep on the sofa with a sleeping pill in her hand. He watched her sleep, the deep breathing causing her chin to jiggle as she breathed in and out. The barking started again and he looked at the open front door. The dogs were yapping and barking as if someone had locked them out of the back. His mother's eyes started opening as she began to sniffle, and he jumped to the kitchen. "You all right?" he asked. She looked at him and his heart broke as she looked at him with her wet eyes. "I had a bad dream." He placed his hand on her shoulder as she shivered in his arm. "What was it about?" "I don't know." She sniffled and wiped the back of her hand over her eyes. "It was so real." "Can't help, but to make you feel that way." He rubbed her arm and let it go. "Just a bad dream." He left the kitchen and watched her fall back to sleep. He took off his shoes and went down the hallway to his bedroom. He turned the television on to see the news. The news lady said they found a woman's body in an alley. They said she was shot, and some old guy with a boy around fourteen was trying to save her. He looked at the TV and laughed as he realized he was right. It was the same guy he was in the alley a couple of nights ago. And, it had to be the same woman. The story had to have been made up and the woman didn't have no body. No old man lived in the alley. She had shot herself. He laughed. It was all right there. There was no one named Allyson, or whatever her name was, and there was no father with her. It was all a lie. There was no girl from the bar.