Family Tradition

Epilogue

In spite of a number of potential complications, all was soon set back to rights at the obscure town of Hoth’s Landing, located at the even more obscure site of Harstene Island. The strange disappearances of the Morrone brothers were duly reported to the police, and so were the disappearances of Seattlites M. Gerald James, Rochelle Pillman, Carol Rood, and Sheree Hart.

None of them, in fact, would ever be seen or heard from again.

Eventually—and intra-police-departmental rivalries notwithstanding—a Lincoln Town Car registered to one M. Gerald James, and a Winnebago registered to one Robert Morrone, would be suspiciously discovered abandoned amid flanks of trees along the Route 101 corridor, near the town of Port Angeles. Traces of blood, in fact, would be found in the Winnebago, and traces of human urine in the Lincoln. And though police would conclude that the disapearances of the above could probably be attributed to “foul play,” they would always remember an auxiliary discovery in the Winnebago:

Several coolers full of dead Crackjaw eel.

««—»»

It was a Clallum County police officer who’d been driving his cruiser on routine traffic patrol past the sedate town of Dungeness who, in stark broad daylight, had spied the naked, emaciated girl wandering down the road. The officer’s name was Sergeant Michael Murtz, a twelve-year veteran with one valor medal, several commodations, and first on the list for deputy chief. He rolled down his window, pulled over onto the graveled shoulder, and stopped.

Holy Mmmmmoly!

Murtz had seen a lot of funky stuff in his career. But…this?

“Fox!” the skinny, naked girl seemed to shriek in glee. “Thank God, you’ve found me!“

Murtz just stared.

“There’s a fish in my pussy, Fox! Get it out!”

Murtz stared all the more.

She looked nearly breastless standing there. She smelled…bad.

“They put my friend Bess into a big drum and cooked her, Fox!” she squealed. “They stuffed vegetables in her stomach and made me eat fruit and throw up!”

Great, Mertz thought. A Crazy. And it was just his luck. He was off at four, and headed to his best friend’s bachelor party.

They were going to have strippers who did a bit more than strip.

Great, he thought again. I miss out on ALL the good stuff.

“Let me get you to a hospital, miss,” he said and grudgingly got out of the car and put the stinky naked girl in the back. He drove off back toward the county med center in Joyce.

“Don't take me back to the J. Edgar Hoover Building, Fox!” she raved. “The Smoking Man will be waiting! And the Washington Field office? Forget it!””

Murtz let out a long, frustrated sigh.

“They were these two big fat redneck men! They put the fish in my pussy and made me vomit into pie tins!”

Murtz couldn’t help but shake his head.

This would be hours processing and writing up. By the time he got to the party, the whores would be long gone.

Sometimes duty called in strange ways.

“Just simmer down, miss,” he said. “I’ll have you to the hospital real soon.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you, Fox! Then you can call Scully! She can get this fish out of my pussy!”

Whatever you say…

He headed back out toward 101. But then—

“Fox, the Smoking Man isn’t really your father, is he?”

—he got an idea.

Fuck, he thought. A Crazy?

“You’re my hero, Fox!” she gushed. “You saved me!”

Murtz pulled over onto the shoulder and stopped. He got out, dragged the stinky girl from the car, then propped her up in front of him, his hand braced under her jaw.

“Fuh-Fox? What are you doing?”

Murtz fired one semi-jacketed wadcutter from his .357 service revolver directly into the center of her forehead.

His heels jumped of the ground at the bang—the first time he’d discharged his gun in the line of duty. The girl’s brains launched out the back of her head in a fascinating arc of chunky pale-red mush.

Then her body collapsed down into a weedy ravine.

Who’s gonna miss one dead Crazy?

Murtz reholstered his service piece; he stalked back to the car. He didn’t notice that she’d landed spread-legged in the ravine, nor did he notice the tail of a Rainbow Trout sticking out from between metal staples in her labia.

The constable drove off. No paperwork now, huh? he thought.

Now he’d get to the bachelor party early.

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