David Robbins - Madman Run

“Nothing is inevitable.”

“You’re wrong. It’s inevitable that all of us must live with the consequences of our acts, and the Morlock clan is long overdue to reap the results of decades of tyranny and savagery.”

Endora cocked her head. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen. Why?”

“You must be older than that.”

“Don’t let his fancy words fool you, lady,” Hickok interjected. “He talks that way every now and then, usually after he gets through readin’ one of those books by the Greek guy who ran around dressed in a towel.”

Geronimo moaned, and his eyelids fluttered. “Nathan?”

“Right here, pard,” Hickok said, leaning over his friend.

“That’s what I was afraid of.”

“Another cut. That’s two I owe you.”

The Blackfoot’s eyes opened, and he struggled to sit up, still woozy from the blow. “Where’s the—” he began, then saw their attacker lying on the floor. “What happened?”

“The big guy took the tin man down. Elphinstone is the one wearin’ the armor.”

“Let’s find something we can use to tie him up,” Blade proposed, surveying the room.

“I won’t let you,” Endora stated.

“You can’t stop us,” Blade said. “And we’re not leaving him loose to sneak up on us when our backs are turned.”

“I’ll keep him right here.”

“Not good enough, Endora. We can’t trust you, either.”

“Then why don’t you tie me up, too?” she asked scornfully.

“We will.”

The patter of dozens of feet filled the corridor, accompanied by much giggling and tittering. A general commotion ensued with pale figures jostling to see who would stand the nearest to the doorway.

“It’s the wimps again,” Hickok remarked. “What the dickens do they want now?”

“Oh, outers!” came a high-pitched taunt from a pale throat. “Come out and play with us, won’t you please?”

“Yeah,” chimed in another. “All of us are here to play pincushion, and this time you won’t scare any of us away. So be nice and come out and die.”

Blade stepped to the doorway and saw dozens of smiling serfs packing the corridor, blocking any possible escape. Every one carried a knife. None made a move to harm him—yet.

“Hello, Pard.”

The youth glanced to the right and recognized a pair of friendly, beaming faces. “Tabitha. Selwyn. Not you, too?”

“What do you mean, sir?” Tabitha responded. “We like to play pincushion as much as everyone else.”

“But pincushion isn’t a game. All of you could be killed.”

Tabitha chuckled. “Not us, sir. Why, unless we’re eaten or chopped into itty-bitty bits, we just curl into little balls for a couple of hours and wake up as good as new.”

The full extent of her insanity staggered Blade. He sadly shook his head and scanned the rows of fragile, thin figures. “You don’t understand about dying. You don’t know the first thing about pain and suffering, Please, please, put down your knives and go have fun in the forest.”

“But we can’t sir,” Selwyn said. “The great mast wants us to play pincushion with you, and that’s what we must do.”

“What if my friends and I don’t want to play?”

“You must, sir.”

“We don’t want to hurt you.”

The serfs laughed, exchanging amused looks, and then, all at once and all together, without a signal to spur them forward, they attacked.

A glittering knife almost ripped Blade’s left arm open as he stepped backwards and tried to shut the door. Fists and blades rained down upon the wood, and the press of bodies kept the door a foot from the jamb, preventing him from doing more than temporarily thwarting the serfs.

Hickok and Geronimo rushed to his aid and added their weight to the fray.

The serfs laughed, giggled and snickered the whole time. As they pounded on the door, as they pushed against the panel in a compact mass, as they slashed at the space between the door and the wall, they did so with the utmost hilarity, and the harder they fought, the more mirth they expressed.

Blade’s muscles were taxed to their limits. He pushed on the door until he was red in the face, but after all he’d been through he was in no condition to withstand the combined strength of dozens of determined serfs, no matter how weak they might be individually. Even his finely sculpted physique wasn’t made of iron.

“They’re gettin’ through!” Hickok declared as the door slowly inched inward and the serfs were able to extend their reach.

In the end it was the knives that made Blade acknowledge the door couldn’t be held. A razor edge sliced into his left forearm, not much more than a prick, but he realized it was only a matter of time before they inflicted a grievous wound. “On the count of three,” he told his companions. “We let go and fall back. Spread out and take as many with you as you can.”

“I don’t much cotton to gunnin’ nymphs,” Hickok grunted.

“It’s either them or us. We can’t afford to go easy on them or we’ll never see the Home again.”

Standing near Elphinstone, Endora Morlock cackled and mocked them.

“You’re not so tough now, are you, boys? In a few minutes you’ll be lying on the floor, and I’ll be dancing in your blood.”

“One,” Blade said, ignoring the barbs. To think he’d once felt sorry for her!

The nonstop drumming on the door continued, mingling with the laughter and the tittering to create an insane din.

“Two,” Blade stated. If nothing else on this trip, he’d learned never to take potential enemies and circumstances at face value. Hidden motives and meanings always lurked beneath the surface, and they had to be diligently peeled off like the layers of a rotten onion to expose the putrid core within.

“Kill them, my little darlings!” Endora cried. “Show them how foolish they were to cross the Morlocks.”

“Three,” Blade barked and leaned backwards. He held the Marlin in his right hand, leveling the barrel as his friends swiftly backed up and the door crashed inward.

Serfs jammed the doorway in their eagerness to plunge their knives into the youths, beaming inanely, bloodlust animating their eyes.

The Marlin boomed, and two serfs dropped. Blade fired twice more, wishing there was some other way he could stop them, overcome with guilt.

Geronimo’s Winchester cracked five times in succession, and with each shot a pale, smirking fury fell.

“Kill them! Kill them!” Endora shrieked.

Doing their best to accommodate her, the serfs pressed inside without a spare glance at their fallen comrades. They were about to crest into the room like a tidal wave breaking on a shore when a lean youth in buckskins barred their path.

Hickok had held himself in reserve for just this moment. A lopsided grin creased his lips as he slapped leather, both Colts clearing leather in a streak of movement too fast for the eye to follow. He thumbed off two shots and bored two slugs through two atrophied brains.

The serfs concentrated their attack on the gunfighter. A male lunged with his knife extended.

Unflinching, Hickok sent a round into the male’s nose, then shifted and blasted two others. More took their place, and he gunned them down, a single shot apiece, invariably going for a head shot, firing until both revolvers were empty and a pile of corpses choked the doorway.

Over the pile came the rest of the serfs, their enthusiasm bordering on fanaticism, those in the front laughing the hardest.

Blade saw the gunfighter trying to reload, and he grabbed Hickok’s shirt and propelled him backward. Discarding the Marlin, he drew his Bowies and advanced to meet the serfs head-on. Suddenly they were swirling around him, cutting and hacking and cackling, always cackling, thoroughly enjoying themselves. He blocked and countered and stabbed, matching their madness with a frenzy of sheer desperation, becoming a tornado of whirling limbs and flashing Bowies, only dimly aware of Geronimo battling on his right, of the twin tomahawks weaving a lethal tapestry to rival his own.