Dobule D clutched at his felt black hat, lathered with sweat, and all but shrieked with horror.

'Eddy, what incorrigible cruelty have you wrought? Are you not aware that this obscenity will see us incarcerated for the remainder of our natural lives?' They were in Eddy's shack, on the outskirts of town. Within, only dimly illuiminated by fading bubl, was the Kanker girls, each one tied up and gagged so thoroughyl they did not even resemble humans, but something like sausages or mewling maggots. In this moment, they were as sacrifices in the temple of some dark god.

'Can I eat their snot, Eddy?' said Ed, for such was the young ladies terror and grief that tears and mucus slick their faces.

'Not yet, you big lunk,' said Eddy impatiently, a momentary foerwn on his hideous features. 'And by the way, Double D, why do you ave to be such a nervous nelly all the time? Goodness! Just be cool, okay?'

Ed brayed with laughter, the play of shadows and light making him something demonic and vile; an evil spirit housed in a corrupt shell. He bent down and poked the blue-haired one hard in the ribs, eliciting a gagged grunt. She made as if to wriggle away, but she was tied so tightly that it was plainly impossible. Eddy allowed himself a chuckle.

While Double D wrung his hands and sweated profusely and Ed stared down with the stupid intensity of a Bayou alligator, Eddy grinned ear-to-ear.

Eight hours the Kankers had been captive, cringing and cuddled together as best they could, kept in the cluthches of wicked jailors.

Understand this: their abjection was complete, and escape was unthinkable. All that remained for the hapless Kankers was hope for a sudden rescue. One of them was sobbing: the red-haired Kanker, and her circulation was blue-haired girl, Marie, mumbled reassurance through her own gag, though her jaw throbbed and drool soaked the cloth tied brutally tight between her teeth, and she retched and her eyes watereed. May gave idiotic bellows of frustration and wrenched at her bonds as best she could.

'Well, boys, I know just what to do with these Kankers,' declared Eddy proudly, hands on his hips. See his hungry look; like an ogre come down from the mountains to snatch

'Release these poor girls and turn yourself in to the local gendarme at once? That would be the most sagacious option available to you at this juncture, Eddy,' said Double D.

Eddy frowned and told him to just shut up. Ed hooted with lauhgter and poked Lee in the gut.

Eddy to the Kankers: 'Tell you what: I think I'll get that bath-tub nice and filled up, and toss you in one-by-one, till you're all good and dead. How does that sound?' Panic.

And it may be that something bloomed in Double D in this moment, for he made as if to apologise to his degenerate confreres, and entreated them to drink a glass of water, for surely tis whole business was thirtrsy work. Eddy might have been wary, but so certain was he of Double D's cringing cowardice that he took the proffered glass, little aware of the improvised blend of hemlock and rat poison extract int, and soon enough Eddy collapsed to the floor in paroxysms of agony and honking noises, twitching and grasping at empty air. Ed toppled a minute or so later, vomited a foul torrent of broth, mildewy bread, and globs of cottage cheese tinged with blackened blood.

Double D's own body betrayed him, for he puked as well, into his hat, and in the moment he stepped outside the three struggling girls vomited too, despite their best efoorts. The shack smelled worse than a gas-station toilet ravaged by feral children. Double D swooped back in, held his nostrils, made a silent prayer, and untied and ungagged the apshyxiating Kanker girls swiftyl.

They wept in gratitude, and Double D brought them out, and they made their way tto town, where all this madness was reported to the sheriff. It may be that this incident gave the four of them terror and trauma, but they were changed, and did not forget the ways of society afterward.

The ned.