~Chapter 7~
The Book of Aka Manah
"What a beautiful night that was. I slept like a, caterpillar in a cocoon?all snuggled up and cozy. I think my blubber kept me?warm all night."
"That's great ma."
"All was fine until I broke that darned bed of mine, and fell flat to the floor...for the tenth time. Son can ya...have one of your-a boys bring me a bigger bed today, and make it-a more sturdy one this time. I must be-a, putting on some weight again," said Big Sal as she looked out over the jail yard, below her cell.
"Sure ma, I will get that dunderhead son of my mine Sleazy right on that this morning. Now how about that there book and those there papers...notes?and stuff that fell outta of that chest yesterday. Did you have any time to do any readin or figuring yet this morning?" asked Squint.
"I did some readin last night Pete and yeah, it was like you said yesterday. We hit the Mother-Load on this one Squint. It turns out that that there book, is some sort of ancient book, written about three-thousand years ago, and it holds the key...are you ready for this Pete...to pure evil."
"Is that right ma? Well I'll be a monkey's uncle."
"Well you're not a monkey's uncle, but your close. You're the son of a hunched-back thief, if that makes you feel any better."
"Ah, ma you always make me feel so darned special."
Big Sal just shook her head in disgust.
"Sometimes you're so stupid", she thought to herself.
Sal looked out across the main yard of the jail to see the empire she controlled. A parked steam-train was at the loading dock, in the center of the prison yard, where prisoners were walking to-and-fro with boxes, and boxes of stolen goods, loading and unloading them.
Big Sal was running the biggest, illegal operation in the area. With the prison guards all run off, and the warden locked-up, the prisoners were completely running the show. Every night their gang, (the Missouri Rats) would leave the prison to terrorize the surrounding city of Saint Louis. Stealing anything, and everything they could get their hands on food, clothing, cars, horses, whiskey, you name it; using the Lucky 7 train to ship the stuff off for sale, to other crooks, and criminals around the country.
The city of Saint Louis's train tracks ran right through the heart of the jail. Each night when the train would come in, the Rats would load it up with all the stuff they had stolen from the night before, then off she went into the night. It was quite an operation all right with Big Sal, and Squint-Eye Pete running the whole show, with both getting very rich in the mean time.
"Let's head over to the dining room again and git a big breakfast?we gotta talk with Black Jack Tilly and the Rats. We gotta make some plans, regarding that evil book."
"OK ma. By the way, you sure look nice this morning. Is that a new prison-issued uniform you got on there? They must have sewed over ten of them together. It just has that special look to it."
"I do look cute don't I Pete?" asked Sal as she grabbed her oversized wheelbarrow, plopping herself into it. With quite some trouble, she began to haul herself down to the mess hall.
"You need any help with your wheelbarrow Sal? I could help push ya if ya like."
"Yeah, Pete, sure grab a handle, give a good push, will ya? You're so special son."
"Ah...it...ain't...nothin ma."
Breakfast was served by Black Jack Tilly and Rags Martin, after about an hour of fine dining on the prison food, Sal was ready to get down to business again. She called all of her top crooks, and thugs into the dining area: Lazy Al, Fat-Eye Joe, Flat-Nose Hank, Horse-Face, and Stinky Bob along with Cool Joe Biggs, Sleazy Tom, Big Bell Bill, and Black Jack Tilly.
After everyone arrived, all sat around a long low laying dining table full of dirty dishes and bones piles; the remnants of a few past meals by Big Sal.
She started the meeting by loudly banging a large skinned rib bone on the table, thereby calling all Rats to order.
"I hereby call this-a meeting of the Missouri Rats to order. All of you Rats keep real quiet, and listen right good, to what I gotta say because there is ah?ah...gonna be new order, and new laws, around here."
Rags blew his nose so loud into his dirty old handkerchief that a few plates cracked in front of Sal. Sal reached out across her wheelbarrow, and slapped Rags on the back of the head with a rib bone, which sent him flying across the room.
Everybody started laughing aloud wildly.
Sal yelled out, "Order Rats, come to order!"
All present, sat up in their chairs, or stood at attention, looking intently at Big Sal.
"Now stop foolin around Rags, this is serious now...I tell ya. It seems that I have got in my possession the ultimate evil book here, thanks to Pete and his natural born, thieving skills. It appears that this book is called the Aka Manah. It is...how do I say this...it's the?ah, the ultimate Book of Evil. It says, from what I have read so far, how to control the minds of kids, just to start with."
Everyone in the room gasped for air collectively.
Rags smiled largely, showing off his horrible teeth once again. A few of the weaker Rats in the room turned their heads in disgust, looking away from their hideousness.
"Ice baby...!"
"I just love Ice!" screeched out Cool Joe Biggs as he started to laugh that insidious and horrible laugh of his.
"Were gonna be rich" called back Horse-Face.
"No doubt about that" screeched out Fat-Eye Joe.
"Yeah ice!" shouted out Rags again, as he blew his nose.
"Everybody shut up, I'm-a talking here. Now where was I? Oh yeah, it seems that if we follow this here book's writings, then we will be able to manipulate, and control kid's minds. There are other evil things in here as well, that's from what I figured so far. Remember last year when we were-a trying to make all of those bad presents up there in the North Pole, to control the minds of the children, we didn't really know what we were doing at all, it turns out.
We did git some of them kids minds controlled, and started to make them lose their imagination and desires. Somehow this-a here book shows you how to do, a few secret incantations, and spells that I can do to really, completely control them. If we can control them, then we can?ah?bring em into our operations here. We'll be able to train them to steal and thief for us, and be real bad."
"Sounds real good Sal" said a smirking Horse-Face, "keep readin."
"Yeah it does sound good now where was I? Oh...yeah...then the Missouri Rats with our ranks filled and swelled over, will take over all the good in the world. We can control the entire toy market just to start with.
We can make evil toys, and if the kids play with those evil toys, we make here at the prison then we will have just thousands and thousands of new recruits. Heck, we almost already run the entire black-market around the country anyway, so getting those toys out will be real easy. Just think about it?we will have an endless supply of new recruits...all the kids in the world."
"That's just ingenious Sal...just a real perfect caper. We'll control the kid's minds, and get them being bad real, early-on, before they have a chance to be good citizens," said Squint-Eye Pets as he lifted his long thin head upwards to show off his horrible face.
He next lifted the leather eye patch of his left eye, partially showing his evil eye to the room, and everyone in it; laughing all the while, like a banshee-warrior in the mitts of a battle. The laugh was so horrible and awful that it made Cool Joe's dastardly laugh pale in comparison. Everyone ran for cover and cowered as Pete had his fun.
"Calm down again, and stop scaring everyone with that crazy eyeball of yours Pete. If ya'll like being scared, then I'll pull my crazy-eyeball out as well. You want to all see real, pure-evil, you ain't seen nothin yet" yelled out Sal.
Sal placed both of her plump hands onto the handles of the wheelbarrow; she wobbled to her feet, then she reached up and lifted h
er worn, old dirty leather eye patch off her right eye. Upon lifting the patch a large, black, probing, evil-eyeball appeared into the morning sunlight.
The evil eye was blood-shot around the outer areas, and the pupil was more dark, cold, steely, and more evil than any evil eye on the planet, even more evil than Squints. Nothing was more horrible to look at than Big Sal's disgusting orb. Round and round it shook, and danced about in its black socket, it festered, slowly dripped, and oozed, small amounts of milky fluids from both corners.
Big Sal grabbed her enormous fatted belly around the far edges (the best she could) with her very corpulent fingers, letting out a belly laugh so deep, and resounding that the walls of the mess hall began to shake, sending plaster, and brick falling everywhere.
"Haa-aa...ha-aaaa-ha!!!
Time after time, she laughed until everyone was so frightened that most started to cry.
"Now where was I?" asked Sal as she sat back down. She cleaned a chicken carcass of skin with one perfect bite; next, she lit another Cuban cigar.
"Oh, yeah back to the business of pure-evil. It seems that Squint-Eye Pete...my loving son...also stole a set of blueprints. Not just any blueprints, mind you, these are ones to be able to build another great Wrapping-Machine, just like the one, at the North Pole. And of course, Sleazy you still have that other key, the one that fit that there great Wrapping-Machine up at Santa's village."
"Yeah, I got it Sal. Its right here" said Sleazy Tom as he pulled the silver key out of his pants pocket, walked over to Sal, and handed it to her. Sal slapped Sleaze Ball Tom on the back of his skull, which sent him flying to the ground, into a pile of dirty dishes, smashing them to pieces.
"Now git outta here Sleazy, git me another boiled chicken. Oh, yeah the key, now as I was-a?ah?saying, we have the key...now all we got to do is start building another one of those Great Wrapping-Machines, use this key to start it, and start building a million more evil toys, to control those there kids minds. Now I will read the rest of this here book to git the spell correct, then we can start shipping those toys out to be played with.
Once again, we will git into the minds of the boys, and girls around the world and then those kids will come running to us looking to join our Rats. Well what do you think boys?" said Big Sal as she stood up to her full length again just to show off her well-rounded belly, one more time.
"Nobody has more smarts than you Sal," said Lazy Al.
"Yep you've got the real smarts," added Flat-Nose Hank.
"Were gonna be rich all right" called out Stinky Bob.
Big Sal plopped herself back down on a sofa nearby, letting her belly hang back into her wheelbarrow.
Everyone yelled out with joy at what an evil plan Big Sal devised. In unison, shouts and catcalls could be heard though out the prison as the word spread.
"Were gonna be rich!" called out a few more of the prisoners around the room.
"We've got it made! Easy street I tell ya! Easy street!" howled out Black Jack Tilly.
Rags blew his nose again, while Cool Joe started smiling like the thief he was. Again and again, he screamed out, "I love ice! I love Ice!"