"You fork!" she screamed. I'm pretty sure that's not what she meant to say, but that's what came out.

Then my finger slipped out of my hand and dropped into her open mouth. Witch did not take this well, gagging and choking and frantically trying to spit it out.

Holy shit, she's going to swallow my finger. I was horrified. Surgeons might be able to reattach the digit, but not if it went through her digestive system!

I could see my pinky at the back of her throat. I reached inside her mouth with my good hand, trying to pinch it between my index finger and thumb.

Witch bit down.

I cried out and tried to tug free. I couldn't.

Then I clamped my bloody hand over her neck, pushing my thumb into her throat until she let up with her teeth. I pulled my fingers free, but my severed pinky was still in her mouth.

We exchanged another couple of punches.

Witch closed her mouth and I could see her jaw working. She was chewing on my finger. This time I clamped my fingers over her nose, trying to force her to open her mouth to take a breath.

The truck took a sharp turn, and I lost my balance and tumbled off of Witch. She sat up, spat out my finger, and picked it up. Then she cocked her hand back as if preparing to fling it out of the moving vehicle.

I grabbed her hand and squeezed tight to make her drop it. She pulled free and elbowed me in the gut, but I tackled her again.

Her forehead bashed against the side of the truck, hard.

She fell over, unconscious.

I picked up my finger and wiped it off on my pants. Despite a few tooth marks, it seemed to be in relatively good shape, at least by severed finger standards. I shoved it into my pocket then scrambled over to the tailgate and retrieved Witch's gun.

Both Witch and I were completely covered in blood, and now that the fight was over I had to admit that I was feeling more than a little dizzy. I crawled to Witch, giving a halfhearted smile to Samantha, who was watching me through the rear windshield… and removing her shirt.

Was this supposed to be a reward for vanquishing my foe?

Samantha reached out of the open passenger window and handed her blouse to me. "Wrap up your hand!" she shouted over the sound of the engine.

I took the shirt from her and bound my injured hand as tightly as I could.

We turned onto a longer stretch of road, and then the other green truck came back into view, close enough that I could see Goblin, Troll, and Charlie inside.

I wondered if they'd be so kind as to let me borrow a cooler in which to store my finger.

Now the dizziness was becoming a real concern, along with a sudden nausea. At least Roger was the one doing the driving. Perhaps I could take a short nap…?

As we rounded a corner, the brakes squealed.

The tires burst.

And as we careened off the side of the road, I saw we'd driven over one of those "Severe Tire Damage" things with the spikes. The truck took out quite a few bushes and assorted plants before smashing into a tree.

We had to get out of there. Run into the woods as fast as we could and try to…

Nope. With Samantha's mangled foot, we weren't going anywhere. It wasn't like we could outrun them with Roger carrying her.

Damn.

The other green truck came to a stop right before the tire shredder. Behind me, I heard Roger roll down his window. "So now what?" he asked.

I hoisted Witch's unconscious body into a sitting position and pressed the barrel of the gun against the side of her head.

Goblin and Troll got out of the truck, about thirty feet away from us. Goblin sighed deeply and ran a hand through his hair. "We're playing the hostage game again, aren't we?"

"Uh, yeah," I admitted, sheepishly.

"You have got to be kidding me."

"So, you know, if you come any closer I'll kill her and all that, and I want you to let my wife and kids go."

Goblin looked at me, looked at the ground, looked at Troll, sighed deeply, and then looked at me again. "You know what? Fine. That's fine. This isn't worth it anymore. We quit."

"You quit?" I asked, surprised.

"Yeah, we quit. I want to forget this ever happened. We won't hurt your wife and kids. You can even keep the truck, for all I care. Just give us Witch back and get the hell away from us. We won't follow you."

He looked totally serious. Were bad guys allowed to just give up like that?

"How do I know I can trust you?" I asked.

Troll grinned. "We could pinky swear. Oh, wait, I guess not."

Goblin glared at him. "You think this is funny? Does it amuse you to screw up so badly? Because from where I stand, it's pretty damn humiliating."

Troll shrugged. "Whatever."

Goblin returned his attention to me. "So what do you think? Let's just put this all behind us."

"Sounds good to me. But I want my wife and kids back with me first."

"Gee, you think?" Goblin asked, rolling his eyes. He pressed a button on his walkie-talkie. "Momma Bear, are you there?"

"What did you do to my husband?" Helen demanded on the other end.

"Nothing, he's fine. Look, we're just going to call this whole thing off, if that's okay with you. It was a bad idea from the start, and we're all going to cut our losses."

"Let me talk to Andrew."

Goblin extended the walkie-talkie toward me. "Do you want me to toss it to you?"

I couldn't very well catch it with one hand wrapped up in bloody cloth and the other holding a gun to the head of an unconscious psycho. "Uh, no. Roger, you wanna catch the walkie-talkie for me?"

"Have him throw it by the side of the truck."

"It'll break," said Goblin.

"The dirt doesn't look all that hard over here."

"This is a fragile piece of equipment," Goblin insisted. "If I throw it on the ground it might break or the settings might get all messed up and you won't be able to talk to her and we'll never get this resolved."

"Okay, okay, fine." Roger got out of the truck. "Throw it."

Goblin tossed the walkie-talkie over to him. It nearly bounced out of Roger's hands, but he managed to keep a hold on it without looking like too much of an idiot. Then he climbed into the back of the truck with me.

"Here, I'll handle her," he said, trading me the gun for the walkie-talkie. He kept Witch propped up with the gun to her head.

"Helen?" I asked.

"Andrew! Are you okay? What happened?"

"Nothing, this whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. They actually wanted to try to interest us in a multi-level marketing scheme, but they got mixed up and tried to kill us instead."

"Andrew, don't joke."

"Sorry. I think we're okay now. What I need you to do is very carefully lead the kids toward the road. Watch out though, because there are some booby traps out there."

"Believe me, I know."

"How far are you from the road?"

"I'm not sure. Not too far, I hope."

"Let me know when you can see the road, but don't show yourself," I told her.

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you, too."

I extended the walkie-talkie toward Goblin, and then, on second thought, drew it back. "Can I keep this for now?"

"Yeah, sure, whatever."

Charlie got out of the truck, apparently satisfied there wasn't going to be any upcoming additional violence. "You're going to pay for what you did to my store," Charlie shouted, pointing accusingly at Roger. "You don't just drive a truck through a man's place of business and expect to get away with it! You'll be cleaning up my place, and you'll be doing it without any fingers on your hands, I promise you that!"

"Shut up, Charlie," said Troll.

"I don't have to shut up! That store is my livelihood! It's bad enough that I've got you shoplifting all the damn time and I have to watch your unnatural perversions, but now my store is ruined! Did you miss the truck breaking through the wall? Did you see how much merchandise was damaged? You think I get that stuff for free? You think some delivery guy just stops by and says 'Here you go, compliments of the house,'? You think I don't have bills to pay? Debts to settle? Pets to feed?"