He’d only had a little time to test it today, but he’d surmised that if he moved slowly enough, his movements wouldn’t be detected, hence why he was proceeding along the hall at a pace a moving statue would’ve considered painfully sluggish. At least the corridor was dimly illuminated, thanks to some low-level strip lights, so he could see what he was doing. The light under the sensor was currently green, and as long as it stayed that way he was OK. If anyone walked out into the hall, he would be rumbled in a second, which was why he had waited until 3am.
He was now only a step away from being able to lower himself carefully to the floor and out of the motion detector’s range. From there, it was a six-foot crawl to the kitchen door. He’d figured there might be another motion detector in there, but he assumed he’d be able to beat it the same way. Arthur was a patient man as well as an optimistic one. There would also be the locks on the doors, he knew, but at least he’d soon have access to a kitchen full of handy tools, and in his experience, most houses had locks designed to keep people out, not in.
He held his breath and took the final step. The light under the sensor stayed blissfully green. He lowered himself slowly and crawled.
When he reached the door to the kitchen, he pushed open the door. He scanned the ceiling for the tell-tale lights from a second motion detector, but he couldn’t see anything. He took a tentative step into the room.
Arthur’s heart leaped into his mouth and he caught his breath. He looked again at the breakfast bar and relaxed. It was just a trio of brown-paper grocery bags sitting there. For one wild moment he thought he’d seen somebody.
Then, one of the grocery bags shifted slightly and spewed fire at him. Something hit him hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him entirely as he crumpled to the ground. The lights came on as he felt the cold kiss of the tiled floor against his face. He looked back at the breakfast bar. The grocery bags had been moved to one side and Sister Joy was sitting there, a massive bag of salted peanuts in one hand, a shotgun in the other.
“Y’know,” she said, hefting the shotgun over her shoulder, “ever since I gave up the drink, drugs, cigarettes, gambling, sex, chocolate, meat, killing and dairy, peanuts are one of my few little treats in life. I know they’re not great for me, but damn, I really do love ’em.”
“You. Shot. Me.” Arthur’s voice came out in a pained gasp.
Joy poured nuts into her mouth. “Only with a beanbag. Could’ve been a whole lot worse.”
A part of Arthur’s brain agreed with her. Six inches lower and the lunatic could’ve entirely removed the prospect of him ever reproducing.
“At some point,” continued Joy, as she munched, “it’ll occur to you that six inches lower and I’d have made you into one of them eunuchs, and you’ll wonder, ‘Was she aiming for that, or did she deliberately put it close, but no cigar, as a warning’? You’re just going to have to figure that out for yourself.”
Arthur glanced subtly at the back door, trying to calculate if, when his body felt up to moving again, making a run for it was an option.
He flinched as Joy nonchalantly racked the shotgun.
“Or you could make a break for the door and find out conclusively.”
The scariest thing was how casual she sounded. It gave the very definite impression that she already knew the answer.
Joy thumped a fist against her chest and belched. “I’m not a great one for sleeping regular hours, and I can see you aren’t either. Ain’t ever much on TV at this time, though. I need to get me one of those Netflix subscriptions.”
She picked up a control and the TV on the kitchen counter sprang into life. Arthur experienced one of those weird moments of confusion where you can’t place what you’re looking at. That was because the figure on the screen was him.
“I’ve been sitting here for an hour,” Joy said, “watching a man short-circuit a door, then pry off an ankle bracelet, and finally walk real, real slow up a hall. Got to be honest, it ain’t much of a show. I prefer the cartoons myself. Pinky and the Brain – ever seen that one? Little mice trying to take over the world every night. One’s a dummy and one’s a genius. Thing is, the so-called genius in his way is dumber than the dummy. Know why?”
Arthur sat up slowly, rubbing his belly. The bean bag had burst and tiny beads were all over the floor around him. “I imagine you’re going to tell me.”
“Because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone else. Now, I think that’s one of them metaphor things, ain’t it? Do I really need to explain myself further?”
“I think you’ve made your point.”
“Oh, goodie. Now, way I see it – you have to be you. You’ve had your two shots at breaking away from me, and believe me, third time is not going to be the charm. I ain’t going to kill you, but I can make it so as you wish I did. Now that you’ve got it out of your system, how’s about you go back to sleep, wake up bright and early, and give busting out this McGarry fella that old college try?”
“You know it’s impossible, right?”
Joy tossed a peanut high in the air and caught it in her mouth. “You’re talking to a woman who got told she had six months to live two years ago. I ain’t the one to buy impossible. You do your part, me and the girls will do ours, and well, let’s see where we end up. Deal?”
Arthur sighed. “It’s not like I’ve got much of a choice.”
“Nope. Not a good
