shit, grab it!” Chantal jumped to her feet and hauled on the rope again. Liza joined her, and they had him in the air once more. Why’s it taking so long for this heavy bastard to die? Chantal looked around, desperate to find something that would help gain leverage. She spotted a heavy chunk of broken concrete, an iron reinforcement bar protruding from it.
“Liza. Help me pull this rope over there.” She nodded towards the cement chunk. “Maybe we can tie it off.”
Liza said nothing, only grunted and nodded, eyes wide with fear and exertion. The two pulled as hard as they could, leaning back on the rope so their combined weight would drag the bum higher into the air.
Like a fish on a line, he swung and arched, fighting for breath and making those horrible gagging noises. They almost dropped him again before finally making it to the hunk of concrete. Chantal wound the rope around the rebar, anchoring her weight to allow Liza to do the tying. Neither spoke, their faces red and sweaty as they strained to finish the chore. When it was tied, they stepped back with uncertainty, ready for the block to shift, but it held.
“Sweet Jesus Jumping Christ!” Chantal wiped her arm across her brow, still huffing for breath.
“I know, right?” Liza staggered over to the block and plopped down on it. With elbows resting on knees, she put her face in her hands and moaned.
Chantal gave her an awkward pat on the back, then walked over to where the wino still hung. He was no longer putting up a fight; his hands had fallen to his sides where he swung gently from the beam. She walked around to face him, taking a quick step back and covering her mouth with her hands when she saw his face. His eyes bulged from mottled, purple flesh, the rope barely visible where it cut into his swollen neck. A stiff tongue protruded obscenely from his mouth. He smelled like shit, but she wasn’t sure whether he had crapped himself before or after the hanging. He hung about two feet off the ground, his crotch just below eye level. Chantal shuddered.
“Um, Liza?”
“Yeah?”
“I think he’s dead.”
“God, I hope so.” Liza stood and walked over to Chantal, grimacing in distaste when she saw him.
“So when’s this angel lust supposed to happen?” She reached out to touch him, pulling her hand back at the last second.
“I don’t know. I guess probably right away.” Chantal said.
“Well?”
“Well what?”
“You gonna check or what?” Liza clasped her hands behind her back, clearly not intending to.
“Fuck. Whatever!” Chantal reached out, roughly grabbed the front of his pants, and pulled the zipper down, struggling with the button on the jeans for a moment before it gave. She pulled them down to his knees, taking his boxers with them.
“No hard-on, but it looks like he had a nasty case of something.” Chantal wiped her hands on her pants in disgust.
“Do you think it’s cuz we dropped him?”
“Christ, I don’t know.”
“So now what do we do? All that and it doesn’t even fucking work. Nice!”
“We try again tomorrow night, I guess. I’ll look and see what other deaths cause it. I know it has to be violent.”
“Are you shitting me? You want to do this again?”
Chantal looked at the dead man swinging from the beam, his blistered penis limp against his furry thigh. If they were lucky, the cops might think it was a suicide, but she wasn’t too confident in their luck. She looked Liza in the eye, her own gaze cold and determined.
“Might as well go for it. We’re already murderers.”
***
Liza knelt before the man in the dirt, trying hard to ignore his body odor. It was hard to do when he kept shoving her head down and mashing her nose into his matted pubic hair. She gagged as her mouth was assaulted by the taste of his bitter sweat, and he laughed.
“Come on now, girlie. I thought you was a pro?” He laughed again, swigging from a bottle of gin, then grabbed her head and gave her face a big, upward thrust. She tried to pull away, but he still held her by the hair. “Not so fast now. You and your little girlfriend made me some promises.”
“Yes, we did.” Chantal said from behind him, pressing a throw pillow to the back of his head with an ugly- looking revolver jammed against it. The shot was muffled, but it still seemed too loud in the