Bang!

3 months earlier ...
"Breathe you rotten, evil bitch!  You are not going to die on me!  Not until I kill you first!  Breathe! I said."

 ***

 Presently...
"I don't know what to do," Lourdes whispers, sitting by her mother's bedside.  "She's been this way ever since the police called off the search for Lisette's body."

"She's sleeping though right?  I mean, she's not in a coma or nothing like that,"  Bobby Lee asks, observing the IV inserted in his grandmother's hand.

"Dr. Cohen isn't sure.  He wanted to admit her to the hospital, but she specifically instructed me not to allow anyone to move her body.  I've seen her like this before, but never for this long.  Bobby, I'm really getting scared."

"Do you think she can hear us?"  Bobby nervously clears his throat wondering what more could possibly happen to this family.  He didn't think things could get worse than when Lisette pistol-whipped Devra to a pulp for screwing around with Lance behind her back.  Then Lance turns around and gets half his face blown off with a cellphone; subsequently faking his own death.   Then there was the dead anonymous face sewn onto the soccer ball and Lisette getting attacked in the bedroom upstairs.  Soon after that cousin Roxanne gets killed in the Hamptons at the same time Lisette's five kids disappear into thin air.  Now Devra's pregnant and acting crazier than a loon married to that shady attorney Mason Truce who won't let any family near her.  At least he and Marvin Lee didn't have to worry about swamp twins Jarvis and Jonas.  Thank god the Grand-Ma-ma sent them back to West Virginia where they could resume skinning deer and snakes or whatever those two murdering non-human rejects enjoyed doing most in their spare time.

"I'm pretty sure she can hear us.  I think she's looking for Lisette.  She's always loved that stupid girl more than any of us,"  Lourdes whispers, angrily wiping away an endless fountain of tears.

"Did you just say you think the Grand Ma-ma is looking for Lisette?" Bobby asks, a bit baffled.

Lourdes nods, biting her bottom lip.  "Mother doesn't just read minds Bobby Lee.  She can do other things."

 ***

 3 months earlier...
"She's gone Vlad.  There's no heart beat.  Nothing.  Look at her lips.  They are blue,"  the scrawny little weasel of man with the greasy ponytail made with only sideburns and severely pocked skin, looks up at his boss.  "I can keep pumping her chest forever, but it is not going to do any good."

"No. I do not accept this.  No.  Move away. Move away from her right now."  Surrounded by four of his men, beneath the darkness of lower Wacker Drive, Vladimir Gonzalez refuses to believe what is so obvious to everyone else around him.  Lisette Lee Reynolds Johnson is indeed dead.

 ***

Presently...
"It's called astral projection.  Mother's ancestors practiced it for generations.  It is the belief that the soul can travel outside of the physical form,"  Lourdes gently lifts her mother's wrist. "Feel her hand.  There's no weight to it.  She's gone."

Bobby Lee's eyes grow wide as he takes a cautious step away from the bed.  "That's okay.  I can see the Grand Ma-ma's hand looks a little light-weight from here,"  Bobby Lee rubs his mouth.  "Aren't you dead when the soul leaves the body?"

"Not always,"  Lourdes closes her eyes.  "Come back ma-ma.  Three months is too long, even for you."

 ***

 3 months earlier...
"Bang!"  Vladimir's fist connects with Lisette's breast-less chest again, and again, and again.  Liquid the color of a Mountain Dew soft drink streams from her nostrils and the side of her mouth.  The four hardened men look away, stifling back gags.  "Bang!"

"Mr. Gonzalez, our transportation is here.  We must leave now," Mr.Weasel Side-Burn Pony-Tail says, his voice heavy with accent and urgency.

"Help me pick her up," Vladimir instructs his men.  Taking his wet t-shirt off, he uses it to gently wipe Lisette's swollen face.  

"Leave her.  She's dead,"  and before Mr. Weasel  Side-Burn Pony-Tail can say another word, so is he.

 ***