Chapter 19
I knew I was purposely putting myself in a dangerous situation, but it was worth it if I could save an innocent life.
We could not pretend to trade, that would be exceptionally dishonest and break the white flag code of the Execution Battle and so we needed another distraction.
My best friend walked in a sluggish manner, shirtless and crying, direct to the cannibals’ front door.
I had drawn on his stomach the regions of organs that were most delectable if he were a cow or sheep, hoping this might appeal to them and forgo looking elsewhere outside, specifically the ladder along the side of the building which I climbed swiftly.
The panty snatcher was captured by cannibal hands, the evidence of this came from his excessive wailing and eventual screaming.
Thanks to his distraction I was able to scout over the building top and to their chimney.
It was not yet lit and down below a stew—I did not want to think what was inside—was cooling off.
I undid the lids on all the rat poison bottles Dig Graves had stashed in his shelves and tipped all six down the chimney and into the stew.
I waited.
Evening skipped around and the cannibals ate. I yawned and watched them heave over with excessive vomiting. Three fainted. I hoped they were not dead. Perhaps just sleeping. I crossed my fingers.
I strode in through their front door, gasping as one of them toppled over next to me as I entered, grabbing at their throat, their eyes going red.
“Hello.” I waved to him. “Lovely night tonight, how are you all doing?”
He fell to the ground, wheezing, stretching out his hand to me.
I got to work searching for keys but found none and considered it best if I did this quickly and used a blade to hack at the lock on Tommy’s cage.
He had crawled into the corner of it like a beaten dog. His eyes hanging from his head, his lips bitten and chapped from dehydration.
“What are you doing?” He shook, curling into himself. “Are you a cannibal now?”
“I’m setting you free.”
“Delphine!” Fiona called with glee from her cage next to his. She held the bars with her little incest hands. “You came to save us?”
“Of course, darling. I’m a good person.” I pitched her a knife and she got to toiling on her own lock.
Much better than me, she set herself free within seconds while I was still salaried on Tommy’s. She was about to hug me, when I pushed her.
“Get Tommy out of here,” I said. “Quick. I don’t know how many cannibals there are and how many are actually poisoned.”
I stood up and searched for the door where I had seen them take the panty snatcher.
“Where are you going?” Fiona grabbed my sleeve.
“I have to find my best friend.”
“The only one back there is the panty snatcher.”
“Perfect!”
Her and Tommy fled after promising to meet up in the suburbs and I stalked into the back room, holding out my blade.
The panty snatcher laid on a table, his ankles and wrists bound, and he concluded his sobbing when he saw me enter. A woman hovered at his side, holding a dagger about to sacrifice him for her cannibal stomach.
Fuelled with only instinct, I swung first, stabbing my knife into her side.
She let out a shriek, the blade in her hands clattered on the floor, blood gushed from her wound. A main artery.
“Oh freckles!” I gasped as she fell.
I had not meant to severely harm her. It had only been instinct to stab her, to save the panty snatcher. I was a good person. I did not kill. I was a good person.
My knees decked to the ground, and I slapped my hands over her wound. “Please don’t die! Please don’t die!”
She gurgled out something.
“Come on.” I flicked her cheeks. “You’re not dying. You’re just sleeping. Just sleeping. Go to sleep. Shh. Go to sleep. Hush now. Sleepy, sleep.”
Her eyes closed. Her chest no longer moved.
I looked up at my best friend.
Pulling at his restraints, the panty snatcher looked down at me. “What are you doing?”
“You don’t think she’s dead, do you?” Anguish crushed my face into rivers of lines. “She’s just sleeping, right?”
“I think she’s pretty dead.”
“No!” I shouted at him. Above me the sky was cracking and falling. Below me the earth was breaking and folding in on itself. “I am a good person!”
My heart thrashed.
My blood rushed.
I’m a good person. I’m a good person. I’m a good…
Air refused to enter my throat, I suffocated right there, gasping, heaving for a breath that never came. Pain seared behind my eyes. I scrunched up my face. Not a single tear fell. Why can’t I cry? What's wrong with me? There was something wrong with me.
“Woah! De Astor!” the panty snatcher called down to me. “What's wrong? Are you hurt?”
I choked. I shook.
“Oh shit, you're going to have a panic attack. Hey! Look at me! Breathe!”
Clutching my chest, I gasped in air. “I don’t want to be a bad person.”
He irked his jaw. “Um…”
“Did I kill her?” My words quivered.
“Well…”
“I want to be a good person!” I clawed at my throat. “Is she dead? Did I kill her?”
“You didn’t kill her! She’s just sleeping!”
“Oh.” My breathing returned to normal. I slapped on a smile and stood up. “Good.”
He eyed me.
I cut his hands loose and offered him the blade from the sleeping woman.
“What the hell just happened?” he asked.
“Hm?” I smiled larger.
“I didn’t think you’d come back for me,” he said. “You really are crazy.”
“I keep my promises. I am a good person.”
“I think you might be mentally unwell.”
“Ah!”
Something sharp punctured into my arm. I toppled into the table, losing a breath from the shock of the assault. A blade stuck out of my arm, rendering my limb useless. A second pierce dug into my side and this time a bellowing huff exhumed from my throat.
Behind me, a man shucked out the blade he had dug into my side and lifted it high, aiming for my throat. Before he managed to make the blow, the panty snatcher pushed me aside, placing himself in the destination of the blade.
As I fell, the two men stabbed their knives, landing both their weapons into each other’s chests.
The cannibal who had attacked me loped down to the ground, dead. Meanwhile, the panty snatcher demolished back onto the table.
I scrambled up with a whine, blood dribbling from my side and arm.
I had been hit close to the main artery in my arm and so I did not pull out the dagger that was still sticking out of me.
Most of the stinging pain emanated from the wound in my side, thankfully it had missed vital organs, though, it was gushing a river of blood and that was probably not a very good sign.
Also, judging by the appearance of the dagger in my arm and the one on the ground that had once been in my side, I was probably about to have a nasty infection.
“Best friend?” I gripped the table, breath sawing out of me. “I need you to… to… help me.”
He did not move.
A knife stuck out of his chest, perforating a lung and his eyes widened on the ceiling as he seemingly documented over the last moments of his life.
My forehead lined. “You sacrificed yourself and saved me.”
He wheezed, choking on his own blood. “Give me your panties.”
“Best friend?”
His voice was fading into a whisper before his eyes closed. “I’m not your friend.”
I was dying.
But that was okay, because I had my cigarettes.
I realised very quickly that I was dying as I hobbled out of the warehouse, clutching my side and slipped on a puddle, finding it was my own blood.
Tommy and Fiona had fled successfully, at least that was good news. I prayed to God and Jehovah and Buddha and whoever oversaw Scientology that they made it to the suburbs on the outskirts of Tar and were able to set up a proper base.
Tommy better name his first child after me.
I groaned to open the door to leave, using what strength I had left and burst into the cool night air. Stars winked. The streets slunk with dank black. I forced my feet to move, one right after the next, arguing with myself not to faint and stay awake.
I made it back to the nice man who had given me directions last time.
He was now having sex with a new corpse over the same car, beating his pelvis into it from behind.
“Excuse me.” I waved to him, attempting to smile instead of collapsing. “Do you happen to know where the hospital is this year?”
Continuing his thrusting, he pointed north.
“Thank you, have a wonderful night.”