The hand holding my belt let go. It brushed against my belly. “Give,” Thelma said.
“What?”
“The razor.”
“How do I know you won’t cut off my whang?”
She laughed softly. “You won’t be much good to me without it.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
I could hardly believe that Wesley was sleeping through all this. My luck wasn’t likely to continue forever, though.
I tried to concentrate on what I needed to do.
“The razor,” Thelma said.
“Let go of me, and I’ll give it to you.”
“Think I’m an idiot?”
“It’ll be a fair trade,” I whispered.
“Long as I’ve got hold, you’re gonna do whatever I say.”
“You’d better let go,” I said.
“The razor.”
I let go. I’d been holding a lot more than the razor. It seemed like about a gallon. I opened up on her.
She still clutched me for a second or two. Probably not sure what was going on—what was that hot liquid squirting all over her hand and up her arm? Then she must’ve figured it out. She went, “Yuuuuuh!” Her hand leaped away. “You bastard!” she shouted.
I was probably catching her in the chest, so I reached down and gave myself some elevation.
“Westley!”
She got his name out. A moment later, she began to sputter and spit as I hosed her face.
I backed off fast.
Wesley sat up in bed. “What… ?”
“Get him!” Thelma squealed. She sounded as if she’d lost her mind. “Kill the little shit!”
I couldn’t wait around to finish what I’d started. I couldn’t manage to quit, either. So I whirled around and ran for the door, still squirting.
The Chase Is On
From behind me, I heard thuds and voices.
“Who?” Wesley asked. He sounded mighty damn scared. “Who was it?”
“Rupert!”
“He’s dead!”
“My ass!”
Just outside their door, the wet floor sent my feet sliding. I gasped and flapped my arms. My legs flew out from under me. My butt whammed the floor.
Behind me, Thelma was still talking. “He snuck right in here. Had my razor. Gonna slit our throats!”
“You sure?”
“Yes! He peed on me, the little cocksucker!”
I was still peeing. My shorts were drenched.
My feet stuck out into space. I pushed myself forward. My legs lowered. My feet found a plank of flat, slippery wood, which I figured to be the second stair down from the top.
“The keys!” Wesley blurted. “He got the keys!”
“I got ’em,” Thelma said.
“You sure?”
I switched the razor to my left hand, reached up with my right, grabbed the banister, and pulled.
“Right in my hand,” Thelma said. “He had ’em, but I got ’em away from him.”
On my feet, I looked back toward the doorway. Thank God Wesley and Thelma had decided to have a discussion instead of a hot pursuit.
“Good going,” Wesley said. “Here, give them to me.”
The way they were thumping around in the room as they talked, I figured they must be grabbing stuff. Not just the keys, either. Weapons, more than likely.
What if they’ve got flashlights?
I took a step down. My feet skidded on the wet stair. I might’ve fallen again, but I kept a good grip on the banister. In the meantime, I was still going. You can’t just shut things down at the drop of a hat, not if you’ve been holding it a while, and especially if you’re scared. Anyway, I’d probably only been at it for half a minute or less even though it seemed like ages.
Somewhere along the way, my tool had gotten out of alignment with my open fly. Which meant I’d been splattering the insides of my own shorts. A lot came back at me, the rebound drenching my groin and spilling down my legs and soaking my socks.
“Come on, come on,” Wesley said.
“You ready?”
“Yeah. Here, take these.”
I hobbled down the slippery stairs, my sneakers squelching.
From above and behind me came the thuds of quick footfalls.
I tried to move faster.
I wished I could see where I was going.
Suddenly, I could.
They’d turned on the lights!
The mansion had its power on, after all.
I suddenly missed the darkness. The darkness seemed like an old friend that used to hide me in its closet.
Now I was out in plain sight.
But at least I could see, and move fester.
I was about three steps up from the bottom of the stairway. I leaped. The book bag sort of lifted off my back. A second after I landed on the floor, the pack swung down and gave me an extra shove. As I stumbled, a spear shot by. (Connie’s special fishing spear with the carved barbs.) It missed me by inches. It clattered and skidded on the hardwood, and went scooting down the hallway.
I thought about chasing after it.
Which would mean leaving the stairs behind.
Which would mean a fight, not an escape.
Two against one.
The spear wasn’t worth it.
From the sound of things, Wesley and Thelma were already rushing down the stairs.
Not daring to look up at them, I made my turn-around and lunged for the next stairway. About to start my race down, I heard someone cry, “Yeeee!” Then came some quick thuds.
I looked.
Wesley seemed to be poised on top of his head, about halfway from the bottom of the stairs. He was barefoot, bare-ass, bare everything. Except for the soiled white squares patching his boob and butt, all he wore was a belt around his waist.
I glimpsed an empty leather sheath at one hip as his legs and rump slammed down. The hunting knife was in his hand. He held on to it all the way as he somersaulted and crashed down the rest of the stairs.
He came to a stop on his back.
He was all sprawled out.
He looked unconscious or dead.
