Endurance

skill, and after six stitches the wound was still gushing.

He’d also sewn his fingers to his neck.

“That’s it!” Mal said. He felt both ready to laugh hysterically and sob at the same time. He shook away both emotions, forcing himself to stay in the moment. “You’re doing it, Dr. Jimmy! A few more stitches and you’re done!”

Jimmy lasted one more stitch. Then he dropped onto his face.

Mal let out a breath, his head resting back onto the table. He closed his eyes.

It’s over.

Now I need to get out of here.

Maybe I can escape.

Maybe I can even find a doctor to reattach my hand.

It’s over.

The worst is over.

Then his eyes went wide with panic when he heard the door open.

# # #

Deb stole a glance at the framed poster of Ulysses S. Grant facing the toilet as she hid in Florence’s bathroom. Like the poster in the Roosevelt room, it seemed to be looking right at her.

Then she stared at the door, straining to hear what was happening.

“Granny, that was a big mistake.”

Florence was in trouble.

What do I do? Go out there and try to help?

Anything is better than waiting in here for them to find me.

Deb flinched when she heard the gunshots. Two, in rapid succession.

Jesus, did they kill her?

“Hi there, girly girly.”

Deb spun around.

The poster of Grant was yawing open on hinges, and Teddy was slinking out into the bathroom through a hole in the wall.

He flopped onto the floor, reaching his hideous, double-thumbed hands for her, grabbing her prosthetics.

Deb cast a frantic look around, seek some kind of weapon. There was nothing. Just a sink, a toilet, and a shower. She lashed out at the poster, trying to break the glass.

Plastic. The covering is plastic.

Teddy began to pull himself up her artificial legs, groping at her underwear.

“How ‘bout you ‘n Teddy get familiar on the floor right here, girly?”

Deb felt herself losing balance, tipping forward. She reached for the toilet to steady herself, her hands slipping on the cistern cover.

The heavy, porcelain cistern cover.

She snatched it off the toilet tank, a flat slab of stone that weighed at least eight pounds. Without thinking, she slammed it down onto Teddy’s head.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

One the fourth strike, the cover cracked in half. Deb raised the broken piece, ready to bring it down again.

She didn’t have to. Teddy’s skull looked like a kicked pumpkin. His bloodshot eyes—popping from their sockets from the beating—stared at her accusingly. Deb pushed him aside, sliding his body across the spreading lake of blood, reaching for the door behind her, stumbling out of the bathroom to see—

BANG!

—a third gunshot, Florence shooting a man on the floor in the head—

BANG!

—the older woman fluidly bringing the pistol around and pulling the trigger as the Sheriff lunged at her, shooting him in the stomach. He dropped to his knees, clutching his gut.

“Deborah? Are you okay?” Florence asked, keeping her eyes on the Sheriff.

“Teddy... he got into the bathroom. He crawled through the walls. There are secret passages everywhere.”

“Come over here. I’ve got some jogging shorts and a sweater in my suitcase. Put them on.”

Deb looked at herself, half naked, and sought out the suitcase next to the bed, making sure she kept far away from the dust ruffle.

The Sheriff groaned. “Lordy, you got me good, granny.”

“The next one goes through your head, Sheriff. If you don’t want to end up like Grover here, tell me where my family is, and how many people are guarding them.”

The Sheriff shook his head. “Don’ matter none. I’m dead anyway. Wasted all my styptic on John.”

“That’s not a fatal wound.”

The Sheriff grinned. “It is for me. So you can take that gun and shove it up your ass, old woman. I ain’t tellin’ you shit.”

Deb sat on the floor, fighting to get the shorts up over her Cheetahs.

When she heard the Sheriff yelp, she looked up and saw Florence grinding her heel into the man’s stomach wound.

“Let’s get something straight right now,” Florence said. “I’ve seen some terrible things in my life. Things I promised I’d never do, no matter how desperate I got. But if you keep me from my family, I’ll break that promise and make your last moments on earth absolutely unbearable. Now I’ll ask you once more, and then I’m going to stick my finger in that bullet hole and pull your guts out. Where is my family and how many people are guarding them?”

The Sheriff made a grunting noise. Wincing, he said, “Rot in hell, you old bag.”

Deb’s mouth fell open as she watched Florence drop to one knee and jab her index finger into the Sheriff’s stomach.

The Sheriff thrashed for a moment, and then made good on both of his promises; he refused to talk, and he died.

Florence’s eyes went wide. She felt his neck. “He shouldn’t be dead. I was a combat nurse. It wasn’t a fatal wound.”

“Look at all the blood,” Deb said, pointing.

There was a large pool of red on the floor around the Sheriff. Pints of the stuff. A similar amount surrounded Grover.

“Styptic,” Florence said. “That stops bleeding.” She wiped her finger off on the Sheriff’s sleeve. “They’re hemopheliacs. Their blood doesn’t clot on its own.”

“Teddy said something about needing my blood.”

Florence shot her a look. “Are you O negative?”

Deb nodded.

“So am I. So are my daughter and granddaughter. Did you get the room for free?”

“Yeah.”

Florence wiped her finger off on the Sheriff’s sleeve. “So did we. When we filled out the applications for Iron Woman, we listed our blood types. O negative is rare. Less than seven percent of the population has it.”

“What are you saying?”

“They lured us here for our blood.”

It was so ghastly, so unreal, Deb didn’t want to believe it.

Florence touched one of the Sheriff’s open eyes. She plucked off a contact lens, exposing an eyeball as