Better Off Dead in Deadwood

by Ann Charles

What was I going to do? My gaze darted around the stall—a roll of toilet paper and a little plastic trash can for tampons and sanitary pads. That was it. I had no weapons, no way of helping Helen short of throwing Harvey’s smiley-face keychain and my phone at whoever had chased her in here.

  My phone!

  Tugging it free of my jacket pocket, I pushed the wake-up button and stared down at my screen. The battery showed a thin red sliver, and the reception was down to just one bar.

  Double shit.

  The scraping and clacking stopped at the same time. “Of course you won’t tell,” Miss Spikey Heels said. I frowned at the ceiling. How did I know that voice? “Because I’m going to take that knife from you and cut out your tongue. Then I’ll slice the rest of you apart piece by piece as you watch.”

  I froze. Was she serious?

  The mewling started up again.

  Hands trembling now, I opened my phone’s address book, scrolling down. My finger hesitated over Doc. Right above it was Detective Cooper. If what Doc said was true and Cooper really wanted to help, he’d better get his ass over here pronto.

  I tapped Cooper’s name and typed: Need help ASAP!! Helen in trouble!!!!

  After I’d hit Send, I realized he had no clue where we were. I added: Girls bathroom main floor Opera H—

  My shoe slipped off the side of the toilet rim. I caught myself without making a sound, but my phone slipped from my grip. I watched in horror as it splashed right into the toilet, the screen with my text for Cooper on it going black as it sank.

  Silence came from the other side of the stall door.

  I winced. Way to go, numb-nuts.

  Clack, clack, clack. The boots came into view under my door. “Come out, come out whoever you are,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  I had a brief déjà vu of playing a deadly game of hide-and-seek with Wolfgang while his house sizzled and crackled with flames.

  Now what? Short of keeling over dead, which sounded tempting for a split-second, there was no escaping whoever was on the other side of the door. I climbed down off the toilet seat and unlocked the door. Using it as a shield, I poked my head out.

  My jaw fell open. “Caly?”

  The pixie was covered in spikes—from her white-blonde pokey hair to her heels, including a dog collar, wrist bands, and a belt that she had wrapped around her knuckles. For a moment, I wondered if I’d gotten mixed up in some kind of kooky sexual fetish, hide-and-seek game Helen and Caly liked to play. But then I remembered Caly’s threat about cutting Helen to pieces and confusion mixed with fear to create an uncomfortable flutter in my chest.

  “Well, well, well,” Caly practically purred. “If it isn’t Cornelius’s little friend.”

  Little? I hadn’t been “little” since I got knocked up with twins, and compared to Caly, even in her big girl heels, I was an Amazonian queen.

  The handicapped stall door behind the sprite-turned-dominatrix swung open without a sound. My favorite zombie bride crept out, her index finger held to her lips. In a glance, I noticed her veil was missing and her makeup looked smudged. If this were some role-playing farce, Peter was going to be pissed when he saw her.

  I focused back on Caly, going along with Helen the zombie because she was less spikey. “Listen, I won’t hold you two up. I just needed to—”

  Caly reached out and pinched my lips shut.

  Funny, I hadn’t noticed her long, sharpened fingernails before. Did Cornelius know she had this sadistic streak? Maybe that was one of the things he liked about her.

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Helen pull something from behind her. Something thin and—oh, my God, it was a knife!

  Surely, it was a prop. It had to be a prop, right? This was what Caly had been threatening to use moments ago. It must be part of their game—

  Before I could finish my thought, Helen swooped in with a battle cry and planted the knife into Caly’s left shoulder blade.

  I stared into Caly’s face, waiting for it to contort in agony, for screams of pain to follow. But the only movement was her lips twisting upward in a grin that would have scared the piss out of me if I’d had any left.

  “That was a really foolish thing to do, Helen,” Caly said and let go of my lips.

  How did … How could … What was going on?!!

  This had to be part of the zombie wedding musical play. They must have come up here to practice a scene. That had to be what this was. I just happened to get caught in the middle of it … so they were improvising.

  Helen stumbled backwards, her eyes widening as Caly took a step toward her.

  Clack.

  I saw the knife lodged in Caly’s back. It looked real, but there was no blood around the blade. Dang, the special effects for this play were going to kick ass.

  Caly cackled. Clack clack.

  Helen spun around and tried to escape into the end stall. Caly’s hand snaked out and snared her by the hair, yanking her back out.

  Grabbing onto the stall door, Helen struggled for freedom. The terror on her face looked so real that I stepped free of my door-shield and reached for her.

  Helen craned her neck in my direction. Her eyes were extra wide, fear rimming them. “Run!”

  My feet stayed glued to the tiles as shock overrode my instinct to flee.

  Caly grabbed Helen around the neck and lifted her completely off the floor, as if she were nothing more than a Chihuahua.

  My gaze sped from Helen’s dangling toes and the torn, blood-splattered hem of her zombie wedding dress up to her face. Her skin was ashen, her mouth gaping at me, her eyes bulging.

  Holy shit! How did a pixie lift a full-sized woman clear off the floor like that?

  “Put her down!” I shouted and took another step toward her.

  “No,” Caly smiled at me over her shoulder. “Not until I’m finished. Then it’s your turn.”

  Tears ran down Helen’s cheeks. She struggled, clawing at Caly’s grip. The whites of her eyes were red, her gaze darting frantically before landing on me again. Run! she croaked then reached down and jammed her thumb into Caly’s eye.

  Screaming, Caly whipped Helen into the closed stall door hard enough to break it clean off its hinges.

  My adrenaline kicked into overdrive and I flew out of the bathroom.

  The door across from the elevator was locked.

  The elevator! No, it would take too long. I raced past the stairs that led up and sprinted to the door at the end of the hall. It would take me to the opera house lobby.

  A loud crash and the sound of glass breaking rang out from the bathroom.

  I slammed into the door to the lobby. It didn’t budge.

  Fuck!

  Behind me, the elevator dinged, the doors opening. What the …? I didn’t remember pressing any buttons.

  I waited to see if someone stepped out. When nobody did, I raced back and inside, punching the button for the next floor down several times. “Come on, close!” I cried.

  A thud came from the hallway, sounding like the bathroom door slamming open. I jammed the door-close button again and again.

  Clack, clack, clack, clack.

  Oh, Jesus, why couldn’t I have been wrong?

  “Close, close, close, close …” I whispered the order to the elevator as I backed into the corner.

  Clack, clack, clack.

  The doors started to shut. Something big and white flew in, crashing into the wall next to me.

  I screamed as the doors closed, shutting me in with Helen Tarragon, who stared up at me with one sightless red-rimmed eye. A long, wide splinter of mirrored glass stuck out of her other. Blood oozed out her eye socket and dripped onto the elevator floor, its coppery scent wafting up to me. I started to retch at the same time as I gasped for air.

  Panic screeched in my head, but something compelled me to tear loose a strip of satin from Helen’s hem. I wrapped it around my palm and fingers, protecting them.

  The elevator dinged, announcing my arrival on the ground floor. With no
time to spare, I squinted and reached down with my satin covered fingers, grabbing the broken piece of mirror. It pulled free of Helen’s eye socket. The squishy-slurping sound nearly made me throw up all over her blood-covered dress. Trying not to think about what I was doing, I wiped the blade of glass off on her dress and held it out in front of me as the elevator doors slid open.

  I stumbled into the dark basement hallway, discombobulated by what I’d just witnessed. Someone had shut off the overhead lights, damn it. Which way was the Picklemobile?

  A commotion of clacks and thuds came from the stairwell to my left.

  I turned right, away from Caly. Staggering into a run with my arms out in front of me in the darkness, I smacked into the double doors. With a quick tug, I opened one. The floor and walls in the covered pool section of the hall were lit in an orange glow from the outside streetlights that shone through the glass exit doors. I pulled the door shut behind me and leapt all six steps at once, racing past an open doorway on my left. I was halfway to the exit when I remembered the dead battery in the Picklemobile and slid to a stop.

  Something slammed into the double doors behind me at the top of the pool room stairs, rattling them in their frame. My heart nearly shot out through my nose.

  Christ! Had she knocked herself out?

  The doors shook again. Damn, no such luck.

  I raced into the open doorway and closed the door behind me. I felt for a lock, found one on the knob, locked the door, and leaned my head against the cool wood.

  My breath came in shallow bursts. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed a red light over my head. I looked up at an Exit sign, blinking away tears I hadn’t realized had escaped. I closed my eyes and the image of Helen Tarragon’s blood-covered face appeared, so I opened them again.

  Why? Why would Caly … how could she …

  The door knob moved in my hand. I gasped and stepped back.

  Something banged outside in the hall.

  What the hell was that? Not like a gunshot, more like a battering ram.

  Bang!

  Then it hit me—Caly was trying to bust through the double doors. Had I somehow managed to lock them? And if Caly was still behind those doors, who was turning the door knob? One of the cast members?

  I looked down at the blade of glass in my hand. It wasn’t going to be enough. I needed a freaking baseball bat—better yet, Cooper’s gun. Or some help.

  Where in the hell was Cornelius? He needed to tame his crazy-ass girlfriend. I gasped. Oh, no, what if Caly had killed Cornelius, too. Had he been trapped by her when he called me for help?

  Bang!

  God, that tiny bitch was relentless. Surely somebody in the play had to hear that, even clear up in the theatre. Where in the hell was everyone?

  I needed somewhere to hide before she huffed and puffed and blew down all of the doors between us.

  On a long table to my right, I could just make out a bunch of clubs scattered around, some long, some short. A club would do some damage. Or not, I thought, remembering Helen’s knife attempt.

  As I reached for one of the clubs, my brain caught up with my eyes. I reeled back, covering my mouth. That was no club. It was an arm!

  My gaze swooped over the rest of the table, my knees nearly giving way at the sight of too many body parts to count—legs, more arms, a stack of hands, and several heads. “Holy fuck,” I whispered.

  Bang!

  This time, the bang sounded different, more hollow. A crashing noise followed.

  Had she just busted through …

  Bang!

  She rammed the single oak door left between us. I jerked in surprise, bumping the table of body parts. The arm closest to me rolled onto its side. A price tag hung off the sleeve.

  A price tag. I nudged the arm, which rolled back too easily to be flesh and bone.

  It was fake. Jesus, it was all fake.

  The play! Zombie pieces. Of course.

  Bang!

  I stepped back, my legs feeling like they were weighted down with bricks. How long would the door hold under Caly’s blows?

  I had to hide or I was going to end up like Helen. I ignored the voice in my head that reminded me Helen had been trying to hide when she’d joined me in the bathroom.

  There were stacks of boxes two and three high, sitting on pallets on the other side of the table. Through a trail between the boxes, I saw a railing. I made my way to it and found a set of stairs leading down into the shadows.

  As my foot hit the bottom step, I hesitated at the closed door in front of me. I put my hand on it—cold steel. I’d like to see Caly kick through this sucker.

  What was on the other side? Could it be any worse than the crazed pixie coming to kill me? I reached into my pocket, comforted by the shard of glass.

  Bang!

  Something clattered to the floor above me. A piece of the jamb?

  I was out of time. Tugging the heavy steel door open enough to slip through, I stared into total blackness. If Cornelius and I made it out of this mess alive, I was going to beat the living daylights out of him for luring me to this blasted place tonight.

  As I pulled the door quietly closed behind me, another bang followed by a loud crack of splintering wood.

  I felt along the cold steel for a lock or deadbolt, but there was no lock on this door.

  Damn. Now what? I couldn’t just stand here by the door waiting for Caly to come through it. Holding my hands out in front of me, I took several steps into the darkness. The cool, dry air was still around me, no airflow at all, smelling of musty concrete.

  I felt my way along with my feet. Keeping one hand in front of me, I moved my left hand out to my side, feeling for a wall. If I touched anything fleshy at all, my brain was going to burst from an overload of panic.

  My fingers brushed over something soft, cottony. I reached over with both hands and touched the edge of what felt like a sheet. I made a left turn and followed the sheet, which seemed to be hanging from the ceiling. The sheet ended perpendicular to a concrete wall, then another sheet was there. I felt my way along the second one, not brave enough to reach behind it.

  Ahead on my right, a light flashed. I stopped and stared into the darkness, wondering if I were seeing things. Extreme stress had been known to inspire UFO sightings. After my elevator trip with Helen, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a full-scale alien bumbling around down here.

  The white light flashed again, in the shape of a big circle, leaving an imprint on my eyes. I felt my way closer along the wall of sheets until I was sure I stood across from where the light had flashed.

  Someone sneezed in the dark. It wasn’t me. Did killer aliens have allergies?

  I tiptoed toward the direction of the sneeze.

  The light flashed again, this time right in front of me, from a big hole in the concrete wall. My shoe hit something. Metal clanged onto the floor before I could catch it.

  The light went out.

  For several seconds the only sound was breathing—mine and that coming through the hole.

  “Whoever’s out there, are you alive or dead?” said a familiar voice from the other side.

  I held onto the rough wall to keep from crumpling in relief. “Cornelius,” I whispered, “I can’t believe I found you.”

  “Violet,” he said, turning on his light. He looked out at me. “What took you so long to get here? What day is it?”

  I resisted the urge to scramble up the wall and smack him upside the noggin. “Shine your light through the hole.”

  He stuck his phone through, the light from the screen helping me find the stool and right it.

  I crawled up on it, peering through the circle at him. “What are you doing down here?”

  “Getting my hat back. That little tyrant hid it from me the last time I came down to make contact.”

  “What little tyrant?” Was he talking about his psycho girlfriend?

  “The ghost of the boy.”

  Oh, yeah, I’d forgotten about that g
host after all the hubbub with Prudence. So this was what Cornelius had meant by “under the pool.” That still didn’t explain why he was on the other side of a hole in the wall. “But why are you in there?”

  “The little shit tossed my hat in here, so I crawled through to get it. But when I tried to get back out, the stool on this side broke.”

  My jaw tightened. “Are you telling me I’m standing in a sub-basement of the opera house while a sadistic bitch covered in spikes hunts me down all because of a stupid-ass hat?”

  “By definition, I’m not sure this is structurally considered a sub-basement.”

  As soon as Caly came busting through that door, I’d be feeding Cornelius to her first.

  “And I’ll have you know, Violet, this hat has been in my family for generations.”

  If Cooper didn’t come to save the day, it was going to be the end of the line for Cornelius and me. He could stuff that in his damned hat.

  Wait a second. He had a cell phone. “Give me your phone,” I said.

  “It’s not holding a signal long enough to call anyone.”

  “How’d you call me?”

  “I had two bars for a while. Now it’s down to one that comes and goes.” He stood on his toes, leaning closer, and whispered, “I think that boy is affecting the electromagnetic waves.”

  I didn’t care about the damned ghost at the moment. I had more actual worries about tyrants who still had flesh. “So this hole is the only way out for you?”

  “There’s a door at the other end of this crawlspace,” he said, “but it’s locked from the other side.”

  “Shit.”

  “I’ve had time to consider several possible escape plans while you took your time getting here.”

  Silly me, I shouldn’t have stopped to pee and watch Helen get killed. “It’s one hole in one wall,” I said dryly. “How many escape possibilities can there be?”

  “You’d be surprised. Now push that stool through the hole to me.”

  I stepped down and lifted the stool. It got stuck partway through the hole, the legs flaring a little too wide at the bottom.

  “Buggers,” he said. “Why don’t you run upstairs and see if there is a skinnier stool somewhere.”

  “No.”