Southern Fried Rat and Other Gruesome Tales Read Online Free PDF

Sebring and Roger Platt had, to their misfortune, known Buddy Edwards for many years. Buddy had bullied and terrorized them through school, just the other day he had forced Charlie's car off the road with his motorcycle. It took a tow truck to get Charlie's car out of the ditch. Buddy had watched and laughed.
    Charlie was still seething, not merely from his most recent humiliation but from years of torment at the hands of the bully. He was talking in dead earnest to Roger. Both had already consumed a few drinks.
    "That guy's no joke anymore," Charlie said "He's a deadly menace. I could have been killed being run off the road like that. One day he really is going to kili someone. Something has to be done about him before he does."
    "Sure, sure," said Ralph. He had heard it all before. He had said it all before. "Who's going to do anything? You or me? Even if he gets arrested, it'll be a few weeks in jail and then he's back out on the street, and after us. There's nothing we can do about it There never has been, and there never will be."
    "Yes there is," said Charlie. "I've got a plan. It's something I've been thinking about for a couple of days now. We can fix him good, and he'll never know who did it."
    Suddenly Ralph was interested. Fixing Buddy Edwards good was something that he had wanted to do for a long, long time. Particularly if Buddy never knew who "fixed him." "Okay, what's your plan?"
    "Now, you know where he lives, down by Four Corners. In order to get home he comes down Miller's Hill and over the Black Creek bridge. He comes that way every night. Now, lets say somebody strung a piece of wire across the end of the bridge, just about chest high. When he came to the bridge he would hit the wire and it would knock him right off his motorcycie. Maybe the motorcycle would even be wrecked, and then we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore."
    Ralph thought for a moment. "Sounds dangerous. I mean he could be pretty badly hurt, getting knocked off his motorcycle like that."
    "Guys like Buddy are too tough to get badly hurt. Besides, does he ever worry about someone getting hurt when he forces them off the road? I could have been killed the other day. He'll just have to take his chances."
    "The police would suspect us of stringing up the wire," said Ralph.
    "Sure they would. They would suspect half the people in town. And the police don't like Buddy any better than we do. Do you think they would waste a lot of time trying to find out who did something to him?"
    Ralph hesitated for a moment, but the memory of a thousand injuries at the hands of that bully, plus the foolhardy courage brought on by a few drinks, confirmed his decision. "When do we do it?"
    "Now," said Charlie. "Tonight. I have a piece of wire in my car."
    They drove to the vicinity of the Black Creek bridge and parked about half a mile away. They decided to string the wire up where Buddy would be leaving the bridge. They figured that as he crossed the bridge he would have to slow down, and thus he would not slam into the wire at a high speed. "We want to scare him, not kill him," said Ralph.

    After putting up the wire, the two men hid in a clump of bushes and waited. It wasn't long before they heard the familiar roar of Buddy Edwards's motorcycle coming over Miller's Hill. They could see the headlight as it reached the crest of the hill and started down toward the bridge.
    "He's going awful fast," said Ralph. "He better slow down over the bridge."
    But he didn't; perhaps he had been drinking, perhaps he always went too fast. Buddy Edwards hit the wire at a tremendous speed. They saw the motorcycle continue straight forward, while Buddy's body was flung backwards. And they feared they saw something else.
    "Oh my God," gasped Ralph.
    The motorcycle crashed into a tree not far from where the two men were hidden. Buddy's body had been thrown onto the bridge. At least most of it had.
    When police investigated the scene they found Buddy's head was missing. The wire