Stanley sat in the darkness, hurting and miserable.
He missed his arm already.
They'd taken it away, laughing, and then packaged it up and mailed it off.
He'd be okay. He was still alive, and Brant would pay the ransom. Maybe with an extra splash of virgin blood they could reattach his arm. Hopefully the thugs packed it carefully.
No matter what happened, he wasn't going to get depressed. He might cry and scream and pound his fists (well, fist) against the floor, but he was going to remain upbeat. He'd get out of this. Project Second Chance knew about the injection deadline, so they wouldn't waste any time coming up with the money.
Since handcuffs were somewhat ineffective on an individual with only one hand, they'd tied his remaining arm behind his back by wrapping the rope around his chest.
He tried to think happy thoughts. After all, having only one arm wouldn't limit his lifestyle all that much. What would he miss out on? Push-ups?
That was pretty much it. Push-ups. And really, you could do one-handed push-ups if you had enough strength in your arm, so he'd be losing out on nothing.
He'd be fine.
He could make a lot of jokes about his disarming presence, and he'd have an advantage over two-armed actors if they ever cast for a remake of The Fugitive, and maybe he could even get a really cool prosthetic arm, one with superhuman crushing abilities or a telescope built into the forearm or a laser or something.
Then he'd be fighting some serious crime.
He closed his eyes and wept.
He woke up, not sure if he'd actually been asleep. He knew that Tom had come in and said something to him, but he'd understood it to be something about lemmings and trampolines, which was probably not the reality of the conversation.
He felt weak. He wasn't sure how long he'd been locked in the room, but it may well have been twenty-four hours or more.
He wondered when the oozing would begin.
He heard voices on the other side of the door. He couldn't make out the words, but one of them was definitely Tom. The other wasn't Hugh.
The door opened.
"Donald…?"
The scream had jolted Donald Mandigan out of a very nice daydream involving the new makeup girl. She'd been wearing a nurse outfit that would be unacceptable at any state-approved hospital, and she kept dropping her thermometer.
He hurried out of his office and over to the source of the scream. One of his interns was pressed against the wall, pointing at the package she'd opened.
Donald rushed over and glanced inside.
An arm. A bluish-grey arm that looked a hell of a lot like the arm that had been formerly attached to Stanley Dabernath.
"Everyone stay calm!" he announced to the other five people in the area. "Where did this come from?"
"It was in today's mail," the intern explained.
There was an envelope taped to the lid of the box. Donald pulled it free, opened it, and removed the handwritten letter inside.
Donald Mandigan, we have Mr. Corpse. If you want to see him alive again, bring twenty million dollars to 313 East Arginine Blvd. at midnight tonight. Let nobody follow you. Tell nobody. If you disobey our instructions, the next package will contain his head.
"Did anybody else see this?" Donald demanded.
The intern shook her head. Donald looked around the room, and the rest of his staff shook their heads as well.
"Okay, you're all under information lockdown. There are raises for all of you if you keep quiet. Nobody is to say a word to anybody, got it?"
The members of his staff nodded their understanding.
Donald closed up the box, returned to his office, and shut the door. He had to think about this.
Donald drove to the appointed address, a briefcase resting on the car seat next to him. It did not contain twenty million dollars. He didn't have that much. He did have enough hundred dollar bills wrapped around stacks of one-dollar bills that if the contents were not carefully inspected, it would pass for twenty million dollars.
He hadn't told his producer because she would freak if she knew he was putting himself in this much danger and probably call the cops herself. Yes, it was a big risk, but the story potential was immeasurable. And he didn't think he was dealing with criminal geniuses, or else they would've mailed the arm to Project Second Chance, not him. Then again, they were the kind of sadistic bastards who would cut off somebody's arm, so he had to be careful.
He spoke into his handheld recorder as he drove. "If these are the last words I speak, I want the world to know that I died to save a truly great American…"
He pulled into the driveway of a small, decrepit home. It was about ten minutes until midnight.
He waited.
A couple of minutes after midnight, a man approached the car, pointing a gun. "Come out with the money," he said.
Donald picked up the suitcase and got out of the car. "I'm unarmed," he lied.
The man grinned. "So is Mr. Corpse."
"Funny. Where is he?"
"He's safe."
"How do I know that?"
The man gestured at him with the gun. "Put the suitcase on the car and open it, slowly."
Donald set the suitcase down and popped the lid.
"I said slowly!"
"That was slowly."
"Slower."
Donald very slowly opened the lid, revealing the bills inside. He picked up the stack on the upper right corner, flipped through it, and extended it to the man. "Do you want to count 'em all?"
"Damn, that's a lot of bills. Why didn't you use thousand-dollar bills?"
"Because they don't exist."
"Sure they do."
"No, actually, they don't."
The man grabbed the stack of bills from Donald, flipped through it, and handed it back. "Is that the twenty million?"
"No. Twenty million dollars would be two hundred thousand bills, which is unlikely to fit in this suitcase. This is two million. You get the rest when I see Stanley." Donald replaced the stack, one of six that was entirely made up of hundreds, and closed the suitcase.
"That wasn't the deal."
"The deal was vague."
The man seemed to be thinking about whether it might be worth it to just take the two million and run, so Donald spoke up. "You take me to get Stanley, and then the three of us can go to where the rest of the money is hidden."
"How do I know there aren't cops there?"
"If a cop shows up, you can shoot me."
The man considered that. "Fair enough."
"Should I ride with you, or just follow you?"
"You can ride in my trunk."
Donald sighed. "All right. Let's go."
Donald looked horrified as Tom shoved him into the room. "My God, Stanley, what did they do to you?"
"Shot me in the head, sawed my arm off, let rats nibble on me…but at least there was no mental torture."
"Glad to see you've kept your sense of humor."
"Enough talk," said Tom. "Hugh, get the corpse guy up and let's get them out to the car. Mandigan, you're going to help carry."
"Stop shoving," said Stanley.
"I'm not shoving, I'm being jostled. It's not my fault he can't drive."
The trunk was not built for two, even with Stanley taking up less room thanks to his missing arm. Donald had protested the arrangement, but the gun that Tom pressed against his nose had apparently convinced him that the discomfort was worth it.
"Were you awake when they did it?" Donald asked.
"Did what?"
"What do you think? Cut off your arm."
"Sort of. The bullet is still in my brain. It makes me go kinda loopy at times. You took good care of my arm, right?"
"I'm using it as a lamp."
"Were you always this funny?"
"No. I'm just trying to distract myself from the idea that they might open the trunk and riddle us with bullet holes. Ooops, didn't work."
"Ha ha."
"Your arm is in my refrigerator. It looks about as bad as it did before it came off."
"So why'd you come to get me?"
"Extra fame."
"No, really."
"Extra fame."
"No bond of friendship?"
"Nah. I always thought that you were kind of a jerk, to be honest."
"I tried not to be, and look where it got me."
"At least you'll only be able to flip people off half as often."
"Yeah, there's that."
"Don't worry, Stanley. We'll be okay. I've got a plan."
"Good plan or shitty plan?"
"Shitty plan, but that's better than no plan. I've got a gun."
"You mean the one that fell out when you got in the trunk?"
Stanley couldn't see Donald, but he was pretty sure that he wasn't wearing a smile.
"Are you serious?"
"Yeah."
"Damn."
"Yeah."
"I take it you don't have the rest of the money?"
"I didn't have the money they think they've already got. There's not anywhere close to two million in that suitcase. But I've got a sniper ready and waiting."
"What if they check the money?"
"They won't."
"I dunno, that seems like something they might be inclined to do."
Stanley still couldn't see Donald's expression, but he was pretty sure it continued to not be a smile. "Well, I hadn't intended to be riding in a trunk. I figured I could keep them from going through the money if I were actively talking to them."
"So we're screwed."
"No. They won't be pawing through a suitcase filled with money while they're driving and somebody could see."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sixty percent sure."
The car turned, slowed, and stopped.
"We've only been driving for fifteen minutes or so," said Donald. "It should've taken us half an hour."
"Maybe they stopped for a potty break."
"Okay, I have a really bad feeling about this all of a sudden," said Donald, his voice panicked.
"Do you want to use me as a shield if they start shooting?"
"No, seriously, I don't think this is good. Aw, Christ. What the hell was I thinking?"
The lid of the trunk opened. Tom had his gun pointed at them, and did not look happy.
"Get out," he said. "Slowly."
Stanley suddenly felt like he was going to vomit. Fear had a lot to do with it, but it was something more. His skin was starting to itch and burn.
Donald climbed out of the trunk and glanced around. "This isn't where I told you to-"
The gunshot cut him off. Donald dropped to the ground.
"Shit!" cried Stanley, pushing himself tightly against the back of the trunk as if that would protect him.
"Think you can screw me over?" said Tom, looking down. Stanley couldn't see Donald's body, but he assumed that it was in poor shape. Tom fired twice more, and then pointed the gun at Stanley. "Get out."
The itching and burning was almost unbearable. He tried to push himself up…and then his arm gave way, folding underneath him.
He let out a squeal.
"I said, get out!" Tom shouted, as Hugh walked up beside him.
"I'm…I'm having a problem here…"
Tom stomped over to the trunk, reached inside, grabbed Stanley by the collar, and pulled him forward. "Your buddy just cost you, big time," he said.
Working together, Tom and Hugh dragged Stanley out of the trunk. He fell onto the ground, feeling his ass cheek flatten underneath him more than it should have. They were behind a warehouse, or at least something that looked like it might be a warehouse from behind.
Donald lay on the ground in a pool of blood, unquestionably dead.
"It wasn't my fault," Stanley insisted. "You can still get the rest of your money!"
"So you can screw us over again? I don't think so!"
"I wasn't involved in the screwing!"
"We're just gonna sell you off in parts," said Tom. "Probably worth big bucks that way. Should've kept the other arm."
"C'mon, let's be reasonable!"
"Let's not." Tom pointed the gun at Stanley.
Stanley instinctively threw his arm in front of his face to protect himself. His arm stretched out to about twice its length, smacking Tom in the face.
Tom, Hugh, and Stanley all gaped in surprise.
"What the hell was that?" Tom demanded.
Stanley threw another extended punch, this one striking Tom in the nose. It wasn't a particularly hard blow, but the second hit surprised Tom just as much as the first, and he stumbled backwards.
Stanley pulled on his right leg. It stretched like it was made of elastic and popped free of the rope.
Tom fired the gun. The bullet struck Stanley in the chest. Though he'd rather not have been shot, the pain was a welcome distraction from the itching and burning.
He threw another stretchy punch at Hugh, missing by a few inches. Hugh grabbed his hand in a panic and tugged, pulling Stanley to his extremely wobbly feet.
"He's fuckin' Plastic Man!" Hugh shouted.
Stanley got him with a stretchy kick to the groin. Hugh howled and doubled over in pain.
Stanley wanted to say something intimidating, but his jaw wasn't working right. It kind of felt like it was hanging free.
Tom shot him again.
Stanley threw a punch his way. Again, this one didn't hit with much force, but what it lacked in power it made up for with the fact that Stanley's extended index finger got Tom right in the eye and sunk deep.
Tom let out a wail that more than matched Hugh's howl.
Stanley tried to pull his finger free, but it was stuck. His legs gave way beneath him and he dropped to the ground, one of them sticking up at a strange angle.
Hugh turned and ran.
Tom fell to his knees, bellowing.
Stanley felt something slimy trickling down his cheek and realized that Tom wasn't the only one with eyeball issues. Stanley was staring at Tom with his good eye and at the ground with the eye that was slipping out of its socket. He passed out pretty quickly after that.