They held him down and wired his hands behind him, the wire cutting tight into his meaty wrists, then stood him up and blindfolded him then marched him into their vehicle and drove him away. He was in some wooded lot but now they were taking him somewhere else, where he didn’t know, couldn’t know, had no chance of seeing where, all he knew was that they were driving and he was being driven with wired wrists and blinded eyes.

At least they didn’t gag his mouth.

“Where are you—”

The smack made him feel its sting, numbing his jaw. He couldn’t tell if it was really a smack or a punch but it hurt so bad he couldn’t speak. He wanted to know where they were taking him of course but now it didn’t matter because he knew that in less than an hour he would be dead anyway. At least that’s what they said before when they wired his hands.

In what seemed just a few minutes the vehicle stopped. He heard shuffling feet but no voices. Then a door opened and he felt angry hands grab at his arms and yank him up and move him. He stumbled on something then felt what he guessed was pavement. He sensed the presence of one of them close to him but wasn’t sure if it was the vehicle or something else.

Then he heard what struck terror all through him.

Traffic.

The sounds of passing vehicles emanated from somewhere. He felt himself being moved, walking forward. The sounds seemed to get closer. They seemed to be coming from below his range of hearing.

I’m on an overpass.

He heard a vehicle pass nearby, then another, but the continuous sounds confirmed it.

I’m standing on an overpass. They’re going to throw me off.

Suddenly he felt something being wrapped around him. Something that felt like a rope, or maybe a longer wire. He felt them putting it under his arms and tightening it around his chest. Someone was behind him pulling at it, getting it tighter, now too tight. It constricted him, but he could still breathe well enough. But it was too tight, it cut into his flesh, moreso than the wire on his wrists.

Someone pulled at his hair from behind and yanked his head back. The traffic seemed to get louder in his ears. Someone spoke from his left.

“You had many chances. We gave you so many chances to tell us but you refused. You signed your own death wish.”

The pain in his chest became more intense as he felt himself being moved again, but only a few steps until he felt something solid against his hips. Hands from both sides lifted him sideways, to his right, and he felt the solid thing on his shoulder and legs and hip. Hands pushed his feet forward and then he felt himself drop. Whatever it was they tied tightly around him cut deeper into the flesh of his chest and back, against his armpits. The pain was excruciating and his mind raced, realizing that he was being lowered into the sound of all that traffic, which was no doubt an expressway during rush hour.

The air was cool and he felt a breeze on his face, but it did nothing to diminish the pain. The sound of the traffic, the passing vehicles, got closer. He began to focus on his feet, knowing that soon he would feel something strike against them, and hard. It would be the top of a semi more than likely and maybe the impact would crack his feet right off. A semi going 70 miles an hour could do that, he thought. He instinctively bent his knees to raise his feet up but then he thought that would be even worse if his knees and legs got it so he straightened them out again and tried to think of something else, anything else, which was hard to do when you’re being lowered into oncoming traffic, all those vehicles rushing to get to work or wherever the fuck they were going, and then suddenly blowing their horns since they’re seeing you now, you, a body hanging off an overpass, your eyes blinded by some wrap, the cars and the trucks and campers and motorcycles not seeming to slow down but instead speeding up, why would they do that, shouldn’t they be stopping, but no, they can’t just stop, there are hundreds of them, they can’t stop, you’re not some ornament on a tree or some landmark they need to look at, you’re just a body hanging from an overpass and that fucking semi just took off your feet and you’re swinging around and being lowered even further, right in the path of a Winnebago and BAM it bashes against your chest and those wires cut into your ribs, you feel as if they’re gonna cut you in half but they don’t, you’re just bashed by another one and you see that your legs are deformed and lower you go so that you’re level with the oncoming traffic, a little break in it but that’s no relief since your ribs are cracked and there’s blood dripping out of your legs where your feet were and BAM right in the fucking head another one hit, it hit the wire that hangs you there too, and you’re catapulted around and back so that you’re struck by yet another one, and now it’s all black and you can’t feel much now, can’t see that your intestines are hanging out of your bloodied torso, those wires still slicing through you as if you’re a block of cheese, but soon it’ll be over, soon you’ll be splattered on the fucking freeway like a deer and you’ll be a carcass, bashed open like a human pinata, all those cars and trucks and whatever else swerving to miss hitting you, their drivers unaware at first of what’s in the road, maybe it is a deer but no it’s a fucking person, oh my fucking god, it’s a person and then you’re done, you’re history, everything’s over, there’s blood and guts and brain matter and limbs in the road, your torso and head are all that remain intact, they’re still lovers, they still love each other so much but they died together, your head cracked in half but still connected to the neck, the neck still connected to the shoulders, but what bloody mayhem of a mess you are now, you’re just a dead thing in pieces that had been hanging from an overpass. That’s really all you are.

By Jeff Callico