Jeff Strand - Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

Daniel frowned. “That’s fine. It wasn’t really completely ready to go yet.”

“So where’d your fancy machine gun go?” I asked, trying to keep him occupied while I waited for a good chance to run for cover.

“The last thing I need is for you or your friends to get a hold of a machine gun, don’t you think?”

“I thought you just didn’t want to shoot up the maze.”

“That, too.”

“So what’s up with the mummy? Was it supposed to attack me or something?”

“It’s a placeholder. That’s where the rattlesnakes are going to go.”

“Cool. I hope they weren’t too hard to smuggle into Alaska, because we accidentally killed a few of them.”

“Why would you kill innocent snakes in an aquarium?”

“It got knocked over. Sorry about that.”

“As long as you didn’t do it on purpose. So, have you formulated some brilliant escape plan while we’ve been talking? There’s not a chandelier above my head, is there?”

“Nah,” I admitted. “I’m pretty well screwed, actually.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. And now I’m going to shoot you.”

I instinctively held the machete in front of me, like a very narrow shield, as Daniel pulled the trigger.

Now, if somebody had said to me last week, “Andrew, guess what? You’re going to be standing in a big maze, and the main bad guy is going to have a gun pointed at you, and you’re going to gab for a while, then he’s going to fire. But you’ll have instinctively held this machete in front of you, and not only will the bullet hit the machete right around where you heart would’ve been, but the bullet will ricochet off the blade and hit the main bad guy in his gun-shooting arm. Oh, yeah, and you’ll really look like crap,” the only part I would have believed was the part about me looking like crap

But it happened. Daniel fired. The bullet struck the machete blade, knocking the flat edge against me with painful force, and then ricocheted off and struck Daniel in the upper arm. His hand opened, and the gun dropped out of his grip.

I was, to put it lightly, pretty damn surprised. Almost too surprised to take a swing at Daniel with the machete. Unfortunately, with my hands throbbing violently from the fact that they’d been holding the machete when it took a bullet, it wasn’t a very good swing.

It was, however, a good enough swing to convince Daniel that he needed to get out of there. And so he turned and ran through one of the maze paths. I picked up his revolver, trying to count how many times we’d played musical guns since the vacation began.

The maze split off into two paths again, but I could hear Daniel’s footsteps to the right. I followed him, smacking into a mirror this time, but continued the pursuit.

NOT ONLY did I have the sound of Daniel’s footsteps to follow, but he was also emitting a stream of outrageously creative profanity, so I was able to keep on his trail.

A door opened and slammed shut just ahead.

I promptly hit a dead end, but quickly retraced my path, took the other branch, and found the door. Though the plan was to regroup at the exit, I didn’t want to lose my chance when Daniel was on the defensive. So I let out one of those piercing whistles I used to love so dearly in elementary school silent reading time to help guide Roger and Charlotte in the right direction, and then opened the door.

The next room was the largest one yet, and looked like nothing so much as an underground warehouse. The room was probably two hundred feet square, and filled with piles and piles of machinery, vicious-looking implements of torture, and props. There was a stack of artificial corpses that must’ve been fifteen feet high.

I saw Daniel duck behind an electric chair and fired, but the bullet struck the arm of the chair. Keeping a safe distance in case he’d somehow armed himself, I ran to the side to get a better shooting angle, but he was gone.

A three-foot scorpion flew through the air at me. Without thinking, I blew the plastic creature away, which had obviously been Daniel’s intent. I had three bullets left, at the most, so I had to be careful.

A slightly larger octopus was launched at me from behind a display of ballerina bodies impaled on lances. It landed on the ground in front of my feet with a splat. “Dude, you’re throwing rubber mollusks,” I pointed out. “It’s time to give up.”

“Never!” Daniel shouted as he hurled a football over the display. I didn’t get a very good look at it, but I’m pretty sure it had squished roaches stuck to it.

The football hit the ground and black smoke began to pour from each of the ends. I hurried away from it, taking cover behind a medieval stretching rack with a large replica of Gumby on it.

The door opened, and Mortimer entered. As he shielded his eyes from the smoke, I took aim and fired. And missed. Mortimer turned toward the rack in surprise, and I pulled the trigger again, only to be rewarded with a click.

“He’s out of bullets!” Daniel shouted from behind the smoke cover. “Get him!”

Mortimer, holding a butcher knife, ran toward me. I tossed the gun aside, stood up and grabbed the first thing I could use as a shield, a very large teddy bear with a slashed-open stomach and innards that were most definitely not stuffing.

“Hello, I’m Bernard the Bear!” said a jolly voice. “Will you be my best friend in the whole world?” Three-inch claws burst out of the bear’s paws. “Or do I have to mess you up? ”

I swung the bear around just as Mortimer arrived. His knife got Bernard in the chest. I lunged with the machete, missing, but twisted Bernard so that his claws slashed Mortimer’s arm. Mortimer struck with the butcher knife again, stabbing Bernard in the face.

“ Be my friend, yes sir-ee, or I’ll hunt your family …” sang Bernard in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Daniel’s.

My next swing with the machete missed, and Mortimer got in a rock-solid uppercut to the jaw that sent Bernard and I stumbling backwards, smashing into the stack of corpses.

“Hey kids, have you ever wanted to take a bath with Mr. Hair Dryer?” asked Bernard.

I tossed Bernard aside as Mortimer charged at me. Though he stopped well out of range of the machete, he threw the butcher knife. I moved my head out of the way and it stuck in the nose of an unfortunate artificial cadaver.

I was distracted enough by the knife that I wasn’t able to stop Mortimer before he pounded his fist into my chest. I bashed against the corpse stack again, flinching as one of the plastic hands goosed me.

Then I slammed my head forward, connecting with Mortimer’s forehead. In the movies, this only hurts the defensive head and leaves the offensive head in tip-top shape, but in real life it makes the offensive head feel like it’s about to split open like Humpty Dumpty.

However, Mortimer was certainly in pain as well, and he backed away, hands to his forehead. I lashed at him with the machete, getting in a great hit that slashed across both of his upper legs. He went down, howling.

Then I realized that I had a very big problem behind me. I hurriedly got out of the way as the stack of corpses began to topple. Mortimer tried to scoot out of the way, but with his injured legs he simply couldn’t move fast enough. The fifteen-foot pile of plastic carcasses came crashing down upon him. The last thing I saw before turning away was an extended corpse hand slamming into his open screaming mouth.

I had a very strong feeling that Mortimer wouldn’t be getting up.

Bernard the Bear chuckled. “Remember, kids, that rabid squirrel and your sister’s sock drawer are a perfect match!”

“Come on out, Daniel,” I shouted. “It’s just you and Josie left, if she’s not already dead, too.”