We were sitting around in
Greekie's room, Greekie and Yorkie and Nameless Bob and me. I can't remember why we were there, but for the purpose of this tale let's suppose we'd been drinking. There was a picture above Greekie's fireplace, him in his fatigues during his national service days, which they still have in Greekland. In the picture he still had hair, and we mocked him for this.

"Want to see a real picture?"
We nodded, yeah, ok. Greekie opened his bedside table and pulled out a book. There was a photo between two of the middle pages. He held it up for us to see.

Several years earlier, Twenty-Four was sitting in the back of a truck. It was dark and sweaty and claustrophobic. There was no light as there were no windows. He could hear the driver's radio through the wall in the cab, and the suspension creak as the truck clambered the roads of the hill country on the Greek-Albanian border. Like the other 22 men in the back of the truck, he had sat in a tense, hopeful silence since they had crossed the border. He wondered what it looked like outside. He imagined something a bit like Endor, with more hills and less merchandising. Almost there, he thought, almost there. The driver had said he could get them over the border. That was what they'd paid him for.

The driver muttered and banged on the wall and the engine slowed and they came to a halt. He could hear voices from the front, over the radio. Then the back of the truck flooded with light, and the silhouettes of two soldiers stood framed by afternoon sun.

The soldiers spoke no Albanian and the passengers no Greek. The soldiers gestured them out with their guns. They were on a remote road in the woods. There were around a dozen soldiers. They corralled the passengers into a gap in the trees just inside the forest. One of the soldier walked back up the road, to the top of a rise of a hill, and walked back. He spoke to one of the other soldiers. They laughed and gestured the men further into the forest, away from the road, with guns. They led them away from the road for a mile or so. They came to a clearing with some sheds and a shack. The soldiers ordered them to lay down. They obeyed, because they had guns.

Soon, Twenty-Four was hogtied, as were the others. The soldiers walked among them, talking in Greek. They laughed. They kept pointing at the hogtied men. Then, two of them walked up to One, each took an arm, and they dragged him off behind the shack.

Bang. Gunshot. The men looked between each other in panic and muttered anxiously. The soldiers raised their guns and barked at them and they were quiet. The two soldiers returned from behind the shack. One of them had blood on his trousers. They quickly selected Two, and took him behind the shack. Bang. Gunshot.

Then Three, and then Four, and so on, and so on.

Twenty-Two was taken. Then Twenty-Three. Bang. Bang. Twenty-Four lay with his face in the leaf litter. He didn't want them to see him crying. 'Please', he muttered, 'please'. Hands seized him by the arms. He was closed his eyes and felt his knees drag through the leaves. He stopped. He opened his eyes and saw a soldier tower over him, rifle in hand. He felt damp spreading through his trousers. He's be brave and look him in the eye.

The shot went in the air. Then a rifle butt slammed into his mouth one, two, three times. His mouth was full of blood and broken teeth.


"..... and the funny thing is, the last one was so scared he pissed himself"
Yorkie looked at the photo, his mouth agape in disgust. Greekie sat straddled atop a pile of hogtied men, alive, stacked like logs, bloody-mouthed. He waved his rifle triumphantly above his head.

"You do realise that that was a war crime, don't you?"
"They're only Albanians"
(cs1ca, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 21:37, 8 replies)

I watched severance too.

( janet aylia y'all motherfuckers need jesus, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 21:45, closed)

I haven't
is it good?
(cs1ca, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 21:49, closed)

i havent seen severence ?
but wanted this to be a huge hoax in which everyone jumped out from behind the shack laughing at the end only to find the last man crying and lying in his own wee....oh well
(Cov Boy, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 10:04, closed)

Yay!
We're back to dreary urban myth qftw!
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 22:11, closed)

"About ten years ago
a guy I worked with showed me a photograph. It was him sat on top of a big pile of tied-up blokes with their mouths all smashed, waving a gun above his head.

Apparently they nabbed 'em all coming over the Albanian border, took them behind a shed one by one, pretended to shoot them, then smashed their teeth out, then put 'em in a big pile and took pictures"

Any better?
(cs1ca, Thu 12 Jan 2012, 22:16, closed)

It's a slightly shorter version of the same dreary urban myth.
Is shorter better? Probably.
( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 9:00, closed)

Shorter better?
wasn't what you told me last night, was it now sweetie?
(cs1ca, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 10:36, closed)

it's still big enough to fill a pram

( Slippery Mick ‏, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 11:28, closed)

And my anus, by all accounts

(cs1ca, Fri 13 Jan 2012, 13:46, closed)