Day of the Edd PART III

Edd grinned his toothy grin, holding her nude body against his, a single bed sheet covering their thin frames from the afternoon breeze. The whole time, Lee had been coming slowly out of her paralysis, but had been uncharacteristically quiet the whole time, listening to the sound of her sister losing her virginity to the awkward inventor boy who lived down the street from them. She laid there, pretending to be asleep as Edd slowly stood up and gathered his things. She didn't know if she wanted to hug him or strangle him; she was really indifferent to the whole situation. She was almost jealous that Edd had given her sister so much affection that she had missed from Eddy.

Edd kissed Marie softly and exited the trailer, taking inventory of his backpack as he stepped out into the dropping evening sun. He felt relaxed, alert, and more motivated than ever. Despite all the teasing from the Kanker sisters in the past, he decided to let them live; he really did like Marie, and the only one whom had really gotten on his nerves was May, just for the sake that she was dumb as a rock.

He still had a few arrows left and several poisoned darts. For a moment, he mused over how this ammunition would be applied; it was very important to him that each kill should be creative as well as personal. However, the sun WAS falling and he was running out of patience. While spending time with Marie was pleasant, it had tortured his schedule and he really wanted to have all of this wrapped up within the day.

The only advantage to the coming nightfall was that the kids may use darkness as cover to find a better hiding place. it was more than likely that they heard the commotion he had stirred up at Jimmy's house, and they were bound to get restless staying in one place. He smiled at the thought.

He made a trip back to his house one last time before darkness consumed the Cul de Sac and refitted his outfit for nightfall. He reloaded his dart gun, tightened his bow, and grabbed some more homemade explosives. He wished that he had time to set some charges in the street to create some real chaos, but he assured himself that there would be plenty of chaos to go around the minute he got the first kill.

Exiting out of his house through the back door, he hopped a couple of fences until he was a decent distance down the street and sat atop the roof of a house, waiting. Darkness had engulfed the street and the streetlights began to stir, washing a yellowish haze over the black sea of asphalt. He waited tirelessly, watching over the darkened houses like some kind of superhero.

it seemed like hours before he finally heard it: several hushed whispers and collective footsteps.

A pattering of sneakers on cement.

There they were. Edd watched them from the shadows as they nervously, huddled in a large group, marched stupidly down the street. They wore armor that had obviously been scrapped from Nazz's house: pots and pans for helmets, baseball pads for body armor, and oven mittens for gloves. Pathetic.

However, in all its bleakness, it made Edd smile. They were making an effort to resist, even if they were trying to slip by unnoticed.

He fitted his arrow and watched the group move.

Eddy was in the front, sweat cascading down his brow, whispering furiously to Ed, who insisted on stopping every five seconds to stare at the june bugs that had come out under the lights. Then there were Rolf and Nazz, who stood side by side and obviously looked the most coordinated out of the meager group. Edd couldn't decide who he should strike down first; the group would scatter the moment the first one fell.

Edd could hardly keep the arrow still as the kids pattered down the street, going who knows where.

nervous anticipation.

His fingers slid and he let the arrow fly.

It soared right into Ed's neck, darting all the way through and dropping him instantly, his eyes growing the comic size of saucers before he fell to the ground. Nazz shrieked and the group began to scatter, scanning the rooftops for the source of the arrow, but Edd was already gone.

"Oh my god! Ed! ED!" Nazz sobbed, trying desperately to pull Ed's limp body along. Eddy, in all his cowardice, backed away, watching the horror from a distance. Rolf held his work rake high in the air, howling something in his long forgotten foreign language.

"Eddy, goddamnit, help me!" Nazz cried, pulling Ed by the arms to the sidewalk.

"NO WAY!" Eddy yelped, scrambling out of the streetlight. "Double Dee's here! He's HERE!"

"To the clubhouse!" Rolf commanded, grabbing Nazz by the arm and pulling her along.

Edd ran alongside them from behind the homes. His heart pounded as he hopped fences and skipped over forgotten toys in the yard. It was now, with adrenaline pumping through his veins, that he coped with the fact that he killed one of his best friends. There were few things in life that he truly desire, and one of those things was a jawbreaker. The process to obtaining one of these delicious candies went like this: Eddy came up with the idea, Edd would design it and direct Ed, who would do all of the heavy lifting / muscle work. The way Edd operated was that he had a plan, and it was this plan that he stuck to. 

Ed, in the meantime, would do everything in his power to disrupt that plan. Whether it be a comic misadventure playing with his imaginary friends, daydreaming about horror movies, or just plain getting in the way, it was all these things built up that prevented Edd from obtaining those delicious balls of candy. In a way, it was a good thing that Ed died; now, at least, Edd would be a lot more productive. He felt no shame or remorse; time for that may be later, if at all. The task at hand was now taking out Eddy, Nazz, and Rolf. He was very pleased at his boy accuracy with Ed; hopefully he would be able to emit such efficiency with the rest of the kids.

The clubhouse appeared on the horizon and Eddy was first in line, his tongue flailing wildly out of his mouth. Their plan had gone horribly. They had hoped to escape to the clubhouse undetected, but this was obviously not the case. Edd sprang out of the shadows and from his shadow figure a wet ball was thrown. It glistened in the moonlight as it soared toward Eddy and landed on his shirt.

"WHAT THE-" Eddy yelped, pulling at the white, slimy ball that was stuck to his shirt. As he turned to look for Edd, the ball exploded, severing Eddy's spinal cord from his rib cage. Eddy's jaw erupted with the consistency of shattered glass; bits of bone fragments rained over Nazz and Rolf, who stared on in a stunned horror as Eddy's lifeless body crumbled to the ground, his eyeballs loose in their sockets, exposed muscle tissue glistening in the moonlight. The explosion had severed many major arteries and had burned them to the core, so blood only emitted in short, small bursts. Nazz was screaming and sobbing, so much so that Rolf couldn't move her, and decided it was time to stand his ground. He readied his rake as he surveyed the surroundings for Edd.

It was dark, but Rolf's eyes had been trained in the wilderness and he saw quite well. So well, in fact, that he saw Edd approaching in a low crouch from a short distance away and hurled his rake with terrifying accuracy.

Edd saw this at the last second and did an evasive roll just in time to dodge the rake, with only a bit of its blade ripping across the skin of his arm. It was nothing to worry about.

Coming out of his roll, Edd scooped up his dart gun and fired three rounds into Rolf's right leg. The blue haired menace yelped out but did not faulter. Nazz, despite all this, was a sobbing mess, watching the fight but unable to move with her legs retaining the consistencies of jello.

Edd pumped two more rounds into Rolf's left leg and watched as the boy began to succumb to the effects of the poison.

"You smarmy son of a gun! You no good, lousy-"

Rolf was cut off by the modified bat jammed into his mouth and out through the back of his head.

"Rolf," Edd replied with a long sigh. "I've had enough of your 'foreign' anecdotes for the rest of my life. As it is, I'm pretty sure that you're not actually FROM anywhere but here: suburbia. You're only lying to yourself."

By now, he was talking only to a corpse and a sobbing girl, who watched Edd with terrified eyes.

"Double Dee," Nazz said through a cascade of tears. "Why are you doing this...?"

Edd simply smiled at her, admiring her body and reminiscing over all the times he had yearned for her. Now the object of his former desire sat in a bathetic heap on the ground, clad in strange armor and sobbing her eyes out.

"Because, my dear," Edd answered, subtly sliding another 'sticky' ball explosive down the front of her shirt. It was most likely sticking to one of her breasts which, for some reason, turned him on slightly. "You all annoy me."

In a stunned silence, Nazz watched him leave, trying to figure out why he had left her unscathed except for this strange, sticky ball that had been placed down her shirt.

Once Edd was a safe distance away, he pressed the button on the control and there was a small explosion.

And then...

Silence.

Edd stood in the middle of the street and listened to the melody of the crickets and owls. It hadn't been long since Edd realized that they had been living in a fantasy world, a world that was limited only to this neighborhood, a junkyard, a small patch of woods, and a trailer park. Aside from all the other reasons Edd wanted to end the lives of his so-called 'friends,' he really felt as if he were doing them all a favor. If Hell xisted, it would be in the form of a cartoon, where characters had logical, intelligent thought and were forced to live within small boundaries for the rest of eternity.

Not this Edd.

He slipped into his darkened home and turned on the lights, peeling off his armor as he went along.

No, this Edd was going to be different.

Today was a good day.

Today was the day that things had changed. He had eliminated most of those that held him back or irritated him, and he had gotten some good target / combat practice while he was at it.

It was a long day, but there was still work to be done. Jimmy and Kevin were waiting for him in the basement. Edd fitted on his apron and picked out his kitchen utensils carefully. After choosing a long steak knife and another sturdy knife with serrated edges, he opened the basement door to the dismay of the terrified kids inside.

Edd had worked up quite an appetite slaying the population of the Cul de Sac. At least, with all the bodies, he would have plenty to eat for a while. He sharpened the knives, sliding them together has he walked down the steps, eying Kevin carefully.

It had been a very long day.

Kevin watched him, bound and gagged, fear overwhelming his eyes. Jimmy lay in a crumpled mass at the foot of the stairs, both his legs broken. He struggled to pull himself away from Edd, sobbing uncontrollably. Edd smiled as he approached Kevin, trying to decide where to make the first cut.

Today was the day things were going to change, indeed.

(Read Part I | Part II | Alternate Ending)