Jeff Strand - Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

If we turned back they’d have us trapped. So I moved as close to the source of the nearest set of blades as possible without getting in their way. The blades popped out. The instant they retracted, I moved forward.

I beat the second set of blades. They snapped out right behind me, grazing the back of Foster’s jacket.

And I beat the third set of blades, nearly falling over as I lunged into the next part of the maze.

I turned back toward Roger and Charlotte. “Just follow my lead and-”

“Look out!” Roger shouted.

I spun around, machete raised, and nearly ended up with a meat hook through my face. Stan held one in each hand, and lashed out with the second one, slashing across my cheek before I could deflect it. I took a swing with the machete, clumsily batting it against the maze wall since there was so little room to maneuver.

I wondered what happened to the machine guns. Most likely the van was easily replaceable, but Daniel didn’t like the idea of damaging his precious maze of death.

Stan’s next swing was a downward slice. Though I tried to move back, the meat hook tore through the jacket, slashing across my chest in the process, and became lodged in the material. Stan yanked on the meat hook, pulling me toward him.

I tried to jam the machete through some part of his body, but again there wasn’t room. So instead I leaned forward and tried to bite him. He had the same idea at the same moment, and our teeth collided with a clack.

We stared at each other, a little embarrassed.

Then he smacked me on the side of the head with the non-pointy side of the other meat hook, and shoved me toward the gargoyle. I tried to resist, but with my bare feet I couldn’t get enough traction. I could hear the blades snapping right behind me.

I kneed him in the groin again. It seemed almost unfair to handle the situation in such a way, but these weren’t exactly times to be worried about fighting honorably. As he moaned in agony, I twisted our bodies around, forcing him to be on the side with the gargoyle.

He punched me in the stomach. Hard. I doubled over with dry heaves. And then I looked up to see him raise the free meat hook high above his head.

Reaching over the gargoyle, Roger grabbed the meat hook and tried to tug it out of his grip. Stan refused to let go…and that’s when the floor started moving. The entire section with the gargoyle and the rest of us shifted, throwing everybody off balance, and causing Stan to topple against the gargoyle.

The third set of blades burst forth, the center blade going right through his side. Stan opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. His lit cigarette dropped to the floor. As the blades retracted, he stumbled back another step and was caught by all three of the second set of blades. When those snapped back, his body fell onto the first set. While he should have fallen to the floor at this point, his meat hook was caught on the gargoyle’s arm, causing the first set of blades to get him a good half-dozen more times before Roger freed it.

Stan was quite dead.

Another section of maze began to slide next to ours. I got the impression that the maze was set up like one of those puzzles where you slide one square piece at a time until you’re able to correctly arrange them into a picture. Whenever I try to do those I end up with some kind of pseudo-Picasso surrealist nightmare.

Though this would have been a fine time to stand there and just gag for a few hours, we had to move. Roger squeezed his way through the blades, getting a nasty cut on his elbow but suffering far less than Stan. Charlotte made it through just as we saw Daniel running down our old path. Since the maze had shifted, he’d have to take a slightly different route to the gargoyle, but Stan was definitely visible through the clear walls from his vantage point.

We didn’t stick around long enough to see his reaction to Stan’s closed-casket-funeral body, though we did hear his scream of fury. We selected the center path of three and continued moving through the maze.

“You’re dead, Mayhem!” Daniel screamed. “ Corpus delicti! ”

His words chilled me. Which was pretty weird, considering that after all I’d been through so far, the simple fact of Daniel informing me that I might perhaps be in a spot of trouble shouldn’t have been much of a mood-breaker. Must’ve been his delivery.

After a couple more turns, we reached a narrow wooden door. I didn’t especially feel like seeking out more keys, but this one didn’t appear to have a lock. I opened it and immediately saw hundreds of razor blades falling toward me. I got out of the way right before the razor blade-lined ironing board fell. It was classic slapstick: the unexpected ironing board dropping out of the closet, smacking the poor bozo on the forehead. Thank goodness I’d been able to avoid the uproarious facial lacerations.

We retraced our path and moved on. The maze was undeniably disorienting, but I felt confident that we were at least moving in the same general direction. Well, until we found ourselves back at Stan’s body.

Naturally, Roger had a smart-ass comment, but in his anxiety he completely messed up the timing and the phrasing, so it’s not worth repeating.

“Okay, so, what do you think about splitting up?” I asked. “If one of us finds the exit, they can call out to everyone else, sort of guide them in the right direction.”

“And give away our position,” Charlotte noted.

“Right. But we have no idea how big this thing is, or where we’re supposed to be headed. We could be wandering around for days.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” said Roger. “As long as I’ve got my trusty meat hook, I should be okay.”

“All right, then,” I said. “Everyone pick a path.”

I had a very strong temptation to give Roger a good-bye hug in case I never saw him again, but I resisted it. We each took our separate paths, myself to the right, Roger straight ahead, and Charlotte to the left.

My path quickly came to a dead end, so I cheated and went down Roger’s path, just as he was returning.

“Yours a dead end, too?” he asked.

I nodded. Together we followed Charlotte ’s path, which very shortly separated into two. I took the right and Roger took the left.

I peeked at myself in one of the mirrored walls. Ugh. Not a glamorous sight. If Helen ever saw me like this, I’d be practicing forced abstinence for the rest of my life.

Two turns and a quick glimpse of Mortimer later, I was at another door. Now, past experience told me that I probably did not want to open this door, but then again, it could also be the way out. All these risks were doing wonders for my machismo. There wasn’t room for me to stand to the side of the door when I opened it, so I settled for turning the doorknob carefully and easing it open inch by inch.

When I was satisfied that nothing sharp or heavy was going to drop out on me, I opened it all the way. Inside was a mummy. A pretty darn cool mummy, almost a dead-on replica of Boris Karloff in his dusty bandages, but it didn’t seem to have any function beyond just standing there, being a mummy.

I closed the door and moved on, promptly walking into a wall. It was bound to happen with all these clear walls and mirrors, so I could only be thankful that it had happened while I was alone.

After another half-minute or so of wandering, the floor began to move under my feet. As it slid, it revealed another section of the maze…where Daniel stood.

I raised my machete, and he raised his revolver. The tip of my weapon was practically touching the barrel of his.

“Well, well,” he said. “You’re pretty damn impressive, I’ve gotta give you that. How’d you like the gasoline shower?”

“Is that what was that was supposed to be? All it did was trickle a little bit,” I said, just to piss him off.