ChuckleVision Noir

Two men dressed as builders emerged from the alleyway. 

"Oh look, you've gone and put the lamp-post in the wrong place."

"have I?"

"Yes, and it's not on either. It's all dark."

It was true. This one lamp-post in the street was off, leaving the perfect ambush zone. How had I been so blind?

"someone could get hurt if they're not careful."

"Sorry." The shorter one, whose face I still couldn't see, stood there for a second, impassive, like a dark, time-weathered statue in the night. He was almost like some sort of menacing imbecile in his stillness. It was as if he could not comprehend the cruelties he was inflicting upon me.

"Well, help him up then," his associate commanded.

They picked me up, then dropped me, hard like a sack of bricks onto the sidewalk. My god. These brutes were playing with me, before they finished me off. I felt a rib snap as I hit the concrete, and my world exploded with more pain than I thought possible. I stifled a groan, desperate not to give these sadists the satisfaction. 

"Oops. Best try again."

The two men picked me up once more. 

"Ok. Now get him to the Van. We'll need to take care of him."

I knew what was next. A concrete overcoat for sure. I tried to wriggle free, but I was too weak, and despite my resistance, they half-dragged, half-carried down the alley into their vehicle. 

"Mind his head now," came the sarcastic, fake warning, so cruel, so callous in its banality. They actually seemed cheerful as they heaped one torture after another onto me.

Sure enough, as they bundled me in, they knocked my forehead smack dead centre against the hard iron door of the van. Everything started to go blurry as they pushed me into the vehicle's shadowy interior.

I tried to get a glimpse of my attackers as they peered into the door of the van, but I couldn't see anything in the darkness. Just two moustaches and a mullet. 

"Please," I croaked, with as much composure as I could muster. "Please, you don't have to kill me." 

I knew it was hopeless. 

"Oh dear oh dear."

"Oh dear oh dear."

"Oh dear oh dear oh dear." 

So calm, so chilling, so unconcerned about the terrible things they had done to me. Those mundane words were the last thing I heard before the pain overcame me, and I blacked out.