The Bell Tolls for No One

  “All right, Vince . . . Then . . . ?”

  “Well, there was all this blood coming out. So they just held my brother up to keep the pickets from going in deeper. And they waited for help . . . ”

  “We could have dynamited him off . . . So then?”

  “My brother was crying and screaming. Finally, a bigshot doctor pulled up and said, ‘What we’ve got to do is get a welder or somebody to come and cut those spikes off. Then we can take him to a hospital and pull them out one at a time.’”

  “Listen,” said Captain Henderson, “I don’t understand this whole thing . . . ”

  “Go ahead, Vince.”

  “So they called in an iron-worker and he cut the spikes from the fence. They took my brother to the hospital and kept him there for the next fourteen months. They would take one spike out, bandage the hole, wait a few weeks before taking out the next one and then they’d pull that one. Finally, after more than a year of yanking the spikes out they put him in this place and held him for therapy . . . ”

  “Psychological therapy,” said Eddie. “Then what happened?”

  “They let him go. Two weeks later he killed himself with a shotgun.”

  There was silence. The plane went on toward New York City.

  Then Eddie spoke. “What we are going to do here is to rape ourselves a stewardess a piece. We like your stewardesses.”

  “You can’t get away with such a thing,” said Captain Henderson.

  “Either we do or we all die.”

  “Then what? Then what’s your plan?”

  “We’ve got a plan. Don’t worry about that.”

  “Look, you can get laid on the ground, you can get laid anywhere for 50 bucks.”

  “We don’t want those. We want your girls.”

  “You’re attempting a dangerously foolish thing.”

  “Let us worry about that. By the way, I’ve got the old suicide complex too. That’s why I’ve teamed up with Vince.”

  “Well,” said Vivian, “I’m not cooperating. You can blow us all to hell!”

  Eddie handed Vince the briefcase. “Careful . . . Don’t drop it! Stick your hand under the flap. Easy. Do you feel the switch, Vince?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t press down on that thing unless you feel that we’ve been crossed . . . ”

  “Do I wait until you tell me, Eddie?”

  “No, use your judgment.” Eddie turned toward Vivian.

  “To hell with you,” she said, “you don’t scare me, you goddamned freak!”

  Eddie punched her quickly in the belly and as she doubled over he punched her in the face. Vivian fell in the corner of the flight deck behind Captain Henderson’s seat. She was gasping and trembling. She began weeping in a hysterical fashion. Eddie rushed to her and pushed his handkerchief into her mouth.

  “Either of those guys move a move, Vince, you hit the trigger!”

  “O.K., Eddie . . . ”

  Eddie bent over Vivian and pulled her skirt up around her waist. She had on pantyhose and tried to turn on her side. Eddie pulled her straight.

  “Oh,” said Vince, “you’re right, Eddie, she’s got beautiful legs! I’m scared, I’m really scared but I’m getting a hard!”

  It was true, her legs were beautiful and full, packed, like ripe figs on a tree, culminated, perfect, almost to the point of bursting in the tight pantyhose. Vivian reached up and clawed and raked Eddie’s face with the fingernails of each hand. He hit her again, hard across the face, and her hands dropped. He unzipped and the thing was before him, mad and untended. He bent over her, grabbed her ass and pulled at it. Her eyes stared at him. They were wide and a deep brown. He remembered the old Marlon Brando movie and he reached down and tore her pantyhose in front, in between the legs. “I’m going to squirt it inside of you, you bitch!” He poked futilely, then reached his hand down and forced the head of it in. She was trembling and wiggling, a snake creature. Then it entered a bit more. And then he plunged it in, totally. He began to ram wildly, watching her head bob and bounce against the floor. There was no holding it back. He could feel the climax arriving and he thrust it wildly and deeply in, then it came. It seemed as if he had endless semen, it came out and out as he stared at her wide brown eyes. Then he was still. Eddie slowly got up, stood a moment transfixed, looking down at her. Then he put it back in, zipped up and turned to Vince.

  “O.k., your turn now. I’ll go get your stewardess.”

  “You guys can’t get away with this!” said Henderson.

  “You think not?”

  “How are you going to get away with it? How are you going to get out of here?”

  “Let us worry about that. Meanwhile, shut up a while!”

  Vivian rose from the floor, her skirt falling back into place, although rumpled. She swayed, and pulled the handkerchief out of her mouth.

  “How’d you like it, baby?” Eddie asked her.

  “You low-life swine,” she said, “you stank! If I could kill you, I would!”

  The flight door opened and the other stewardess entered, the tall one with the awry hair. “What’s going on here?” she asked. “I’ve been serving drinks out there all alone and everybody’s thirsty!”

  “Get out of here, Karen!” said Captain Henderson.

  “Just stay where you are, Karen!” said Eddie. He walked over and took the briefcase from Vince and slid his hand under the upper flap.

  “Vince, lock that door. We’ve got all the company we need.”

  Vince locked the flight door. Karen looked at Vivian. “Oh . . . what happened to you?”

  “I’ve just been raped . . . ”

  “And now it’s your turn, Karen,” said Eddie.

  “He’s got dynamite in the briefcase, Karen,” said Henderson.

  “What? That doesn’t mean I submit to this type of thing,” said Karen.

  “Karen, you’re next. My friend desires you. We have the TNT and we are prepared to use it. Remember you are to protect the plane, the crew, and the passengers in all moments of duress. I had a friend who worked in baggage once. He told me about the rule.”

  “To hell with the rule,” said Karen, “nobody’s raping me!”

  “Captain Henderson,” said Eddie, “are you ready to say our last prayers?”

  “Look, Karen,” said Henderson, “I believe these guys are crazy enough to do it.”

  “Captain Henderson,” said Marty the co-pilot, “Karen is my girlfriend.”

  “Think of the passengers,” said Henderson, “think of the aircraft.”

  “You’re just thinking of your own ass, Henderson.”

  “Go ahead, Vince,” said Eddie, “take her! I can tell that none of these want to die! Go ahead, take her!” Eddie slipped his hand deeper under the upper flap of the briefcase. He was beginning to sweat below the hairline, little beads forming on his forehead.

  Vince began to move toward Karen. “Captain, please take the controls,” said Marty. Henderson took the controls. Marty turned and looked at Vince. “Stay away from her, son of a bitch!”

  “Go ahead, Vince,” said Eddie, “take her! One move out of anybody and I’m blowing us all to shit! I mean it!”

  “O.K., Eddie . . . ”

  Eddie looked at Karen and he could then see why Vince wanted her. It was that wild uncombed hair, the pointed nose, and the lips, the way they pouted, slightly idiotic. Vince moved to Karen, grabbed her. His mouth was on hers and her hands pushed against his chest, weakly. She seemed stricken, numbed . . .

  “You got the best one, Vince,” said Eddie, “you son of a bitch, you lucked it!”

  Then while still kissing Karen, Vince held her with one hand around the waist and lifted her skirt with the other. Her legs were long and slim and glorious. Her pantyhose were dark. Vince held her about the waist still kissing her, bending her backwards, and with his free hand he mauled her ass.

  Marty got up from his seat. “Stop it, you bastard! I’m telling you, stop it!”

  “Just st
ay out of this, Marty,” said Eddie, the sweat now running awkwardly down his face, “just stay out of this Marty, I’m telling you! I wanna watch this one!”

  Then Vince reached down and grabbed her between the legs. He kissed her under the throat shoving her head back. Marty charged from his seat and leaped at Vince, and then there was the mark of the sun and the fuselage and the wings separated and the engines shook loose from the wings and dropped and the fuselage dropped, spinning nose-down whirling like a very large dart and losing its tail section as the engines fell through the sky. It was over a small town in Midwest America and not much damage was done except for part of a tail fin which sheared through a roof and sliced off a right arm to the shoulder of a seven-year-old girl working on her history lesson.

  Fly the Friendly Skies

  It was 12:35 p.m, lunch had been served, drinks had been served, and the jetliner steadied through midair and the movie came on: The Dream of the Dancer, a nice slight plot of a film featuring a junket of third-rate actors. It was a Miami to L.A. flight, #654 on a Thursday in March, almost clear skies, not much doing. The biggest problem was a backup at the restrooms, small lines forming, but that was standard after lunch and drinks. The passengers were an admixture of male and female, none of them exceptional, unusual or desperate except for three: Kikid, Nurmo, and Dak. They had three seats, right, side, middle. They had been observing the others and speaking quietly. Then as a stewardess walked by, Kikid nodded and Dak jumped up with the length of wrapping twine which was formed into a noose. He trailed behind her, then dropped the twine over her head and tightened it, held her there.

  “Quiet, bitch, or you die!”

  Most of the passengers were aware of the proceedings but they just stared like cows or they acted as if they were watching a movie which had nothing to do with them.

  Nurmo and Kikid jumped up. They were all small young men, dark, thin, nervous.

  “Take her up to the captain and begin proceedings,” Kikid said to Dak.

  The passengers watched as Dak pushed the stewardess toward the pilot’s compartment. A heavy-set young man further up the aisle from Kikid and Nurmo turned on his seat and said to them, “Listen, you’d better change your minds about this thing; this is a very serious thing.”

  “Listen, man,” Kikid said, “you stay out of this!”

  “Yeah, man,” said Nurmo, “you stay the fuck out of this!”

  The heavy-set young man, who might have been a football player, continued: “I’m just warning you for your own good.”

  “Listen, man, I’ll give the warnings around here!” Kikid responded.

  “I just want to repeat,” continued the young man, “that . . . .”

  “Goddamn you! What did I tell you? What the goddamn hell did I tell you?”

  Kikid ran up to where the young man was sitting. The young man saw him coming and started to rise but he had to undo his seatbelt first. It cost him. Kikid grabbed him by the collar, then something flashed in his hand—it was a metal can opener. He gouged the pointed end into one of the young man’s eyes and twisted. The scream of pain almost shook the aircraft. The young man held both of his hands to his head where the eye had been. The eye was on the floor. Kikid looked down, saw it, stepped on it with his shoe, crushing it like a snail.

  “Now,” he said, “you want to keep your other eye, you keep your fucking face shut!”

  Just then the captain’s voice came on over the intercom: “THIS IS CAPTAIN EVANS. I’M SORRY TO INFORM YOU BUT THIS PLANE HAS BEEN HIJACKED. WE HAVE NOW CHANGED COURSE TO HAVANA, CUBA. PLEASE COOPERATE WITH THE HIJACKERS. DO NOTHING TO CAUSE HARM TO YOURSELF OR ANY OF THE OTHER PASSENGERS. THANK YOU.”

  “All right,” said Kikid, “now I want everybody to stay in your seats.”

  “Yeah,” said Nurmo, “stay in your seats.”

  A stewardess rushed up from the rear of the jet. She had a first-aid kit and she began administering aid to the bloodied young man who had lost his eye.

  “Well, well,” said Kikid, “we’ve got these neat little dolls all over the place! Nothin’ like lots of gash!”

  He watched her bending over the young man. She had a beautiful behind, so full and young, a truly maddening rump. He reached out and grabbed her ass, hard, then let go. The stewardess straightened up and faced Kikid. She had a little girl’s face, freckles, heavy lips, long red-brown hair.

  “Keep your hands off me, you pig!”

  “Attend your patient and feel lucky that’s all I might do!” Kikid told her.

  “You just hijack your plane. Let me try to save this man’s life!”

  She turned back to her job.

  Nurmo who was standing behind Kikid said, “We’re not hijackers! We’re FREEDOM FIGHTERS!”

  “All the way,” said Kikid.

  He kept looking at the stewardess’ ass. He had never seen an ass quite that marvelous and he’d seen and studied many, many asses. It just kept making those movements at him. He reached over again and grabbed a cheek of that ass, hard.

  The stewardess whirled and faced Kikid again.

  “I am trying to stop the flow of blood here! Otherwise, this man will die!”

  “Is that right?” Kikid asked.

  He pulled the wrapping twine from his pocket. Just like Dak’s. It was formed into a noose. Then in a swift motion it was about the stewardess’ throat. He tightened it and drew that little girl’s face with all that ass toward him. He pulled it in close, then, kissed her viciously. Then he let her go, looked at her.

  “Oh my,” he said, “I do believe I’m getting hard!”

  Kikid kept holding the stewardess close to him by the twine. She looked good to him, all flushed and fearful. The other passengers watched, terrified.

  “Hey, man,” Nurmo objected, “we’re trying to hijack a plane here! What’s all this bullshit with the broad?”

  Kikid turned to Nurmo, still holding the stewardess with the twine. “Listen, man, I’m running this show! Now, you go up front and check on Dak, see that everything’s okay up there!”

  Then he looked back at the girl. “I like you baby. I like you very much! Now you’re going to kiss me off! Right in front of all these nice people here!”

  “No,” said the girl, “I’ll die first!”

  “Well, baby,” Kikid smiled, “that’s up to you.”

  Tightening the twine just a bit about the girl’s throat, Kikid reached down and unzipped his fly. He pulled his penis out. It hung there, limp and ugly. Meanwhile, the wounded man had slumped in his seat, his lifeblood dripping into the aisle. Kikid pulled the girl’s face closer to his, smiled at her: “Baby, you’re going to kiss me off, NOW!”

  “I’ll die first!” she screamed.

  Kikid smiled again, tightened the twine. The girl stood there, her face darkening. Kikid tightened the twine again. The girl’s head began to move down.

  “That’s it, baby! Just a little lower! There, there . . . you’re gonna like this and I’m gonna like this and maybe all the people watching are gonna like this!”

  The girl’s head was down there.

  “NOW GET IT, WHORE, OR SO HELP ME, I’LL KILL YOU!”

  “My God, can’t somebody do something?” an old woman in a rear seat croaked out.

  “Somebody is doing something, grandma,” said Kikid, “and she’s doing real well, just like a pro. Just like a goddamned pro! Oh oooooh, shit, I can’t stand it! I love you, you cunt! Oh, get it, get it ALL! Swallow it, you bitch, get it all!”

  Then Kikid pulled away, shoved the stewardess to the floor, said “That’s the quickest head-job I’ve ever had. You lick and suck at the same time and this FREEDOM FIGHTER wishes to thank you.”

  Then he pointed to the dying man: “Okay, see if you can patch this asshole up! He’s messing up the floor with his blood!”

  The movie, The Dream of the Dancer, ended just then, though it was doubtful that any had watched it. Kikid zipped up just as Nurmo returned from the captain’s cabin.

  “
How’s it going up there?” Kikid asked him.

  “It’s okay, Dak still has the girl hostage and we’re on course to Havana.”

  “Fine,” Kikid stated, “as FREEDOM FIGHTERS our mission is about accomplished.”

  “What’ll we do now?” asked Nurmo.

  “Just wait,” Kikid answered.

  It was 1:43 p.m., approaching the Gulf of Florida, the stewardess showing great courage in attempting to stop the flow of blood from the dying man. It all seemed a matter of waiting, one way or the other. Kikid and Nurmo just stood there watching over the passengers.

  “All right, you people, you know what your captain advised you. Don’t cause any trouble. We have the girl as hostage up front. You try anything funny back here, the girl dies,” Kikid told them.

  Suddenly a flash of silver light leaped into the cabin.

  “What the hell was that?” Kikid asked.

  “Geez, I dunno . . . ” Nurmo said.

  Kikid ran to the window, leaning across some passengers. “Look! That’s where the flash came from! See that thing out there?”

  Nurmo leaned across and looked out of the window.

  “I see it! Look, it’s silver and round and glittering!”

  “It’s a fucking flying saucer!” yelled Kikid.

  “Hey, it’s gone!”

  “Where’d it go?”

  They ran to the opposite windows. There was nothing in sight. They stood back in the center aisle.

  “It’s weird,” said Kikid, “a flying saucer.”

  “I can feel it right over us!” said Nurmo. “And I can feel that something strange is going to happen!”

  “I know what it is!” said the old woman who had spoken before, “it’s God! God has come to save us from being hijacked to Havana!”

  Kikid whirled on the old lady and said, “Grandma, you’re full of shit!”

  “The Lord has come to save us!” she screamed.

  Then there was a flash of purple light, a purple light as never seen upon the earth before, and then before them appeared a creature quite globular, almost all head with eyes as bright as 500-watt electric bulbs. Everything about the Thing was tiny except for the head: tiny ears, legs, mouth. It must have weighed 300 pounds and its skin had a metallic texture. How it managed to stand on its tiny legs was unbelievable. But the total effect the thing gave off was one of awesome power and an uninhibited and splendid intelligence. It stood, consuming the scene.