Part Four: The Return of the Mafia

Chapter Two: The Silhouette of the Future


Thunder crackled in the sky as Timmy waddled down the old New York suburbs towards the crumbling, crooked and broken domain. It was tall and slanted, crushed by years and years of neglect. Timmy slid down over the thing, almost ashen fence and hopped into the ash-soaked garden. A smile on his face, he knocked on the door, which crumpled into dust upon his touch, it’s old, worn frame shattered by the simple pressure of his hand.
Gleeful, he crawled into the hallway and called out, “Uncle! It’s me… Retard-baby!”
A small crack appeared in the wall to his left and it was not long before the entire wooden surface fell away to the ground along with some masonry. A figure moved from the crawl space, he was tall, wearing a gasmask and carrying a small knapsack and pitchfork. The rest of the humanoid’s body was coated in a thick jumpsuit.
He approached Timmy, who was still beaming gleefully, “Timmy? What are you doing here?”
Timmy grinned, “It’s your birthday silly! I brought you a present!”
The creature reached into his underwear and pulled out a skinless rat, who was thrashing wildly, blood streaming from its eyes, which promptly exploded.
“Odd,” Timmy frowned, as the rat died in a shower of blood, “It had skin before I put it in my underwear.”
The man laughed, loud and fruitful, “I missed you nephew.”
Timmy hugged the man, “I missed you too uncle.”
Uncle handed the rat a small case, “I got this for you, it’s your birthday present. It took me a while to find it, but I met someone who seemed quite eager to give it to me when I told him it was a gift for you. It seemed like the perfect present.”
Timmy knelt down in the ash and took the case, it was long and regal, bent from the purest of oak. It looked quite out of place in this old house. He unclasped the golden locks and carefully lifted the lid.
At first, he felt as if it was vaguely familiar, as if he had seen it before, as if it was very important to him. Then his mind quashed that idea and he lifted it into his hands. It was a staff, roughly the same size as him, but ornate in obsidian black and tipped with a golden orb set into which was a small, chocolate monkey. There was something engraved in the wood, but he couldn’t read it, it was in some form of English.
He turned to Uncle with a wide smile, layers of grey whiskers separating in jagged lines and gave him a hug. Uncle patted him on the back and led him into the remains of the kitchen, now we must have dinner prepared before Cousin and Niece arrive.
As Uncle opened the long disconnected refrigerator and removed a plate of foetid cheese, Timmy searched through the cupboards for the birthday cake. It did not take long for him to discover it, a slimy mess of rot and moss, a thick layer clinging to what could only be assumed to have been some sort of sponge. One hundred and eleven years, that’s how long the cake had been there, all waiting for this day. For Uncle and Timmy’s birthday.
With the cake and cheese on the table, Uncle withdrew for a moment to haul in the long-dead carcass of a cow, sawing off its head with a hacksaw before placing it within the confines of the small oven. Cracked and broken, the oven spat out a great gout of fire, licking over the table and setting the head alight. Satisfied, Uncle took the head and placed it on the wooden surface, using a screwdriver to crack open the skull, wedging it open until the thick, mushy brain matter was exposed.
The rest of the carcass was discarded, with the exception of the large intestine, which Uncle removed and draped over himself like a scarf. He had not, of course, cleaned out the organ and so the last meal of the cow, along with some remnants of fat, sloshed out of the end of the tube every now and again as he trotted gleefully around the room. Timmy, looking nervously to each side, reached out to grab a handful of brain but Uncle caught his hand.
“Now now dear nephew, not until Niece and Cousin arrive!”
Suddenly there was a knock on the front wall and Timmy stood up beaming to see a pair of familiar figures clamouring through the hall towards him.
There was Niece, her long, beautiful body dragging along the ground atop her many, hairy legs. Timmy blushed as she winked at him with fifty of her hundred eyes, her mane of shaggy hair hung close the whole way down her tube-like body. Her mandibles snapped a greeting as she sat upon the bench opposite Timmy.
Cousin followed, his spiny shell dripping with arterial fluid and the waste of a thousand beings. He had come all the way from his lovely new home in the Chicago sewers, having fought and murdered his way in the real estate market. Everyone in the family was very proud of him. He had thick black eyes much like Timmy, but his fur was deep green, rather than the light grey of his cousin.
“Happy birthday Timmy and Uncle,” Cousin said, his voice deep and gruff despite his tiny, pointed mouth, which was already dripping with saliva for need of the succulent food palette set out before him.
Timmy grinned in response before Cousin handed him a blood-soaked package. The small creature opened the present eagerly, happy to find a small punch of intestinal fluid with maggots swimming within. HE threw himself around Cousin.
“Just what I’ve always wanted! Thank you sooo much!”
“You’re welcome Timmy, you deserve such a delicacy on this important day, you’re a man now. Fifty-seven is the year all of our family really moved on in life.”
“Oh I’m moving on, did you know I got promoted in my job?” Timmy asked.
“Yes, it was on the news dear wasn’t it? They made you team leader of team 2 didn’t they?” Niece asked, her maniples chattering constantly as her front twenty legs shuffled out the knives and forks amongst the four of them. Her other five legs passed Timmy a present.
He opened it, finding a jar within, containing what looked like a smaller version of his Niece. “Thank you, what is it?”
“It’s a vertimorde foetus suspended in the seminal fluid of my brother. It’s one of my children.” Niece replied matter-of-factly.
“Thank you, this means a lot to me.” Timmy beamed once again, the smile had not faded since he entered the building, but had instead grown in intensity with each passing moment.
“Just be sure you are wearing a bib when you eat it. You don’t want semen all over the place do you?” Niece said, warmly, carving the cow brain and doling it out to each person???.
“I don’t know what that is. But I’m sure I wouldn’t like to make a mess. May we dig in now Uncle?” Timmy asked.
“First, we must pray to the oldfather.” Uncle replied and they all bowed their heads, each putting a finger in their rectal hole.
“O holiest of holy beings,
Oh mightiest of heroes,
Bless us all in your name,
With foetid cheese and brain of
Bovine, we honour you,
We give you thanks.
O Oldfather, we give you praise,
Give us knowledge.”
They all removed their fingers and licked them before beginning their meal. Uncle stood, giving each of them a small glass container.
“Who wants a drink?” he asked, to which they all gratefully replied.
He took the first glass and squeezed fat from the intestine into it before handing it to Cousin, who began to drink deeply.
“Isn’t it wonderful to have the family all together?” Niece smiled as she nibbled through a piece of brain matter, fluid dripping onto the table from her mandibles.

“I’m sorry sir, but we can’t let you in here. Lord Columbo is indisposed,” The Oompa guard responded as Silent waited at the gates of Knockbeg impatiently. Jamsie got out of the limo behind and strode up to him.
“What’s going on? Any idea where the fecker is?” Jamsie muttered, to the furious gaze of the trio of Oompa guards.
“I wouldn’t…” Silent moved his voice to a whisper, “I wouldn’t speak about Columbo like that in front of these guys if I were you, they’re a tad bit touchy.”
“Why the fuck should I care, Columbo killed the fucking President and decided to take over the world, me arse if I’m letting him away with this shit!” Jamsie replied, drawing his weapon as he noticed the trio of Oompa’s whipping out their own guns.
“Shit!” Silent muttered as he back away, jumping over the limo’s opened door as a blast of chocolate bio-energy lapped over it. He fired into the air, hoping to startle the little creatures, but they were battle hardened soldiers and all it served was to drag more of them over.
“Jeevsie! Get us out of here!” He shouted, letting loose with his pistol as he hung onto the limo where the door was slowly melting away as the chocolate ate through it. Two of the guards went down, heads exploding in a rush of firepower.
Jamsie jumped onto the roof of the limo, sliding down through the sunroof as he fired, killing another enemy with a shower of bullets which shattered the small guard post, showering the rest with glass and blood droplets.
Jeevsie whirled the limo around, even as reporters rushed onto the scene. Oompas returned fire, indiscriminately blasting through the onrushing crowds to get at the Mafia. One reporter was torn in half as his flesh melted down to his skeleton in the steaming goop.
The limo crashed through a parked, empty bus and went down onto the highway. It wasn’t long before they heard the tell-tale sounds of a chopper behind. Silent look back and saw a large hovership approaching, it had four insulated propellers and no less than four quad cannons.
“The fuck is that thing!” Jamsie yelled, looking frantically through the limo compartments for a rocket launcher.
“I don’t know, just shoot it!” Silent replied, opening up with his assault rifle. The limo swerved to the right as it reached a turn and his opening shots went wide, ripping into a tree.
“Sorry!” Jeevsie called as he desperately charged through the oncoming traffic, swerving in and out of the way.
The hovercraft showed no compunction with collateral damage however and blasted aside a mini-van which exploded, sending the shattered chassis over the bridge they were now crossing and into the river below. A sniper fired from a side-seat of the vessel and destroyed the wing-mirror just behind where Silent’s head had just been resting as he tried to get a better angle.
Jamsie hurled himself onto the roof as he found the RPG, kneeling down using his knee-cap gauntlets to fix himself in place. He took aim and fired, the warhead racing towards the enemy.
It exploded before reaching it, a small energy discharge taking out the missile from the front of the hovercraft. The explosion sent Jamsie arcing backwards, spraining his back as the gauntlets held him in place. He cried out in agony and fell backwards after disabling the knee-caps. The rear of the limo had shattered, sending shards of black metal everywhere. Some penetrated passing cars, shattering windows and imbedding drivers and passengers. One man took a shard to the neck and swerved at the wheel, hitting the curb and flipping over into a garden before exploding in a showering fireball.
Silent fired again, this time hitting his intended target, but finding only thick armour-plating on the front of the vehicle. He curse as he watched round after round flicker off the tough windscreen, snarling as he saw the smiling face of the Oompa within.
He ducked back in to reload, just as a quad cannon shot ripped apart a car nearby, blasting shrapnel towards him. He took a seatbelt strap to the face which cut a jagged gash down his cheek. He tasted blood. Slamming in a new clip, he stopped as he heard an agonising cry from the back seat.
Looking over his seat, he saw Jamsie sprawled on the ground. Having been unable to move from his back sprain, Jamsie had been unable to shield himself from the debris and had taken a long black shard in his shoulder, jarring his left arm and pinning it to the leather seat behind him. Unfortunately, this left him wide in the open with nowhere to go for the Oompa snipers.
Silent kicked down the back of his seat and flung himself into the back, just in time to put his thick blast armour in front of a sniper round. The chocolate began eating through his battle plate and for the first time ever in a battle situation, he took it off and tossed it aside.
“They’re reloading, do what you have to do now! We aren’t getting a second chance!” Jamsie yelled over Silent’s shoulder.
Silent frowned as his wristblades shot out, “Are you sure?”
“Do it now for fuck’s sake!” Jamsie screamed, seeing an Oompa readying his rifle even as he spoke.
“Alright!” Silent yelled, bringing down the claw in an arc towards Jamsie’s pinning arm. There was a flash of warm blood and Jamsie hit the ground, leaving his arm behind, still pinned to the chair. Silent leapt to the side as a blast vaporised the chair along with Jamsie’s arm.
Jamsie was unconscious, sheer shock had rendered him so. Silent was on his own in this fight. He stood as the hovercraft veered above him. He had no idea what to do. He put up a layer of covering fire before ducking again as another cannon shot tore up the air where he had been standing, hurriedly, he rushed through the compartments Jamsie hadn’t gotten too. Finding a flare gun and a harpoon rifle, he knew what to do.
He clamboured onto the roof, drawing the fire towards him as he readied the harpoon. He’d only have one shot at this. He ran to the end of the limo and jumped, just as the hovercraft passed over him, he fired. The harpoon raced into the soft rear armour and latched on. Pushing the retriever, he shot up inside the hovercraft, immediately flashing his wristblades to decapitate one of the snipers. He fired the flare gun into the cockpit and leapt off, landing onto the back of the limo.
Silent drew his pistols and took cover behind the backseats as the cockpit of the hovercraft exploded outwards, sending the flaming pilot out through the thick armoured glass in little more than thick chunks of flesh. One of the gunners tried to follow Silent, but the man shot him in mid jump, his body hitting the road with a thud. The hovercraft swayed in the air for a moment as the rotors tried to maintain its lift, before slowly cruising to the ground and crashing hard against the pavement in an earth-shattering explosion.
Silent rushed to Jamsie, strapping up the wound as best he could with the rudimentary medical supplies in the limo before collapsing back into the seat beside Jeevsie.
“We have to get back to HQ now, this is way out of hand.”
“You’re telling me…” Silent muttered, wiping blood from his face as the limo headed straight for the nearest airport.