How To Avoid Death On A Daily Basis: Book Three

by V. Moody

  “I think we can get out this way. The other buildings are quite close. We should be able to jump across.”

  “You want to leave the people downstairs?”

  “Yes, Jenny. I want to leave them. You can stay if you want.” Enough of the heroic bullshit. I looked up at the hole. It would be hard to pull myself up through it. What I needed was something to stand on. Something a bit more solid than the heap of bodies.

  “But don’t you think it’s strange?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I think it’s very strange. Everything in this world is strange.”

  “No,” said Jenny. “I mean, if the army guy wanted to grab all these people to make some money, why would he hire professional thugs to help him? They must cost quite a bit.”

  She had a point. “You’re the one who said he was doing it for the money,” I said. “Maybe it’s something else. Maybe these guys owed him a favour.”

  “Or maybe someone loaned them to him, so it would be more of a test for you.”

  “For me? Why would anyone…” I didn’t need to finish the thought, I already had a pretty good idea of who would want to see if I could wangle my way out of a tough spot like this. It would mean he had gone to a lot of trouble, which he would only do if he had big plans for me.

  “So, if I leave now and get out of here in one piece, would that mean I pass the test?

  “Depends what they’re testing.”

  If I abandoned these people to their fate and snuck away without a scratch, I could only see the Lord Administrator being impressed by my resourcefulness. The utter disregard for other people’s lives would probably be a bonus. If I managed to get out of here alive, I had no doubt he’d find a way to force me to go on some impossible mission where I’d be terrified the whole time, right up to my death. Success was not an option. Failure, on the other hand, would mean dying here and now.

  “What we need to do,” I said, “is find a way to fail and still somehow survive.”

  “And how are we going to do that?” asked Jenny.

  “I don’t know,” I said, and then I shoved her as hard as I could, sending her tumbling to the floor.

  Running up behind her was a figure with something in its raised hand. I raised my own hands defensively and a flash of brilliant white light exploded from my right hand. It wasn’t intentional and I didn’t have time to move my fingers in any particular pattern; it just happened. It didn’t last very long, but long enough for me to make out Little Chicken and the kitchen knife in his hand.

  It could have been an honest mistake—a panicked kid, a dark room, threatening strangers trying to break in—but what the flare revealed was not a face surprised to see the wrong target. What I saw in his eyes was confirmation that he’d found his man.

  And that was the last thing I saw. Not because he stabbed me—the knife never arrived—but because the white light had left me blind.

  “I can’t see, I can’t see,” screamed my attacker. The light had had the same effect on him.

  I fumbled my sword out of its sheath and stood there waving it in front of me. “Jenny? Jenny, are you there?”

  “Yes,” said a voice beside me. “Stop waving that thing about.”

  I felt a hand on my arm, and then the sap was removed from my wrist. A few seconds later, Little Chicken screamed again.

  “Ow! Ow! Stop, that hurts!” The familiar thwack of the sap rained down. I couldn’t tell from the sound where she was hitting him but I could tell it was a lot.

  “Why—” thwack “— did you—” thwack “— try to—” thwack “— kill us?” Thwack, thwack, thwack.

  “No, please, no, I didn’t.”

  The rain turned heavy as more blows fell. And then they stopped.

  “G-get away from me,” said Little Chicken in a shaky voice.

  “Put the knife down,” said Jenny.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it.” His voice was smothered in tears. “He said he’d pay me. It was so much money.”

  “Okay,” said Jenny. “I understand. Just put the knife down before you hurt yourself.”

  I could hear them moving about. I still couldn’t see so I assumed he couldn’t either. He was probably striking out wildly.

  “I said, put the knife doooooown.” Jenny’s voice moved across the room. Was she lunging at him?

  There were sounds of a scuffle, and then Jenny screamed. Something flew past my face and bounced off a wall. More thwacks and yelps from Little Chicken which gradually turned into whimpers.

  The thwacks stopped and something fell against me. Jenny.

  “He stabbed me.” Her voice sounded weak and like she was continuously inhaling.

  “What? Where?”

  There was no response. I could feel her holding onto me tighter. I fell backwards, landing on my backside. She fell with me, cradled in my arms.

  “Jenny, I can’t see. You have to tell me where.”

  “He… stabbed… me…”

  “Yes?”

  “In the... crotch.”

  It was my turn to pause. “What?”

  “In the pussy… He stabbed me right in the pussy.”

  “Why would he do that?”

  “He wasn’t aiming for it.” She was starting to sound a bit annoyed, but it wasn’t exactly a standard ‘I’m hurt, help me’ situation.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Of course it hurts! Ugh.” Raising her voice made her grunt with pain.

  “Alright, alright. It could have slipped in and out without hitting anything.”

  “I don’t know what kind of women you’re used to, but no it couldn’t. It hurts.” She grabbed my shirt in two tight fists and moaned. “And it’s bleeding. You… you… you have to heal me. Please.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Of course. It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. Only… I have to use my hand. I have to put my hand over the wound.”

  “I know that. Obviously. Ow. Ah. Colin, stop being such a dork and put your hand down my knickers.”

  It was possibly the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to me.

  21. The Doctor Is In

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m going in.”

  Under normal circumstances, this sort of thing would happen with both people getting hot and heavy, some kissing, various body parts rubbing against each other, a sense of excitement in the air… in this case, not so much.

  Being unable to see anything other than dark blotches on a background of even darker blotches also added to the strangeness. I finally had the chance to be intimate with the girl I liked and it was about as sexy as a gynaecological examination.

  I probably sound a bit self-involved. After all, she was badly injured and in a lot of pain. Did it really matter if I wasn’t able to enjoy this moment for its eroticism? Of course not. Getting turned on would be inappropriate. Although, inappropriate sexiness is one of the best kinds of sexiness.

  No. This was a medical emergency and I was doing what I had to. That was all. One hundred percent. Plus or minus five percent standard deviation. You always have to allow for a margin of error when it comes to statistics. What’s that? Standard deviation doesn’t work like that? Shut up and go back to your textbooks, I had lives to save.

  I composed myself and placed my hand on Jenny’s stomach. She took a sharp inhale of breath. I slid my hand down her body.

  “Stop!”

  I froze.

  “I’ll undo my belt.” She twisted against me and grunted. “Go ahead.” Her breathing was ragged and she was clearly in a great amount of pain.

  “I just want you to know this is purely for medical—”

  “Shut up and get on with iahhhhhh—” She let out a gasp as my hand slid inside the fabric of her underwear. They were surprisingly large panties. Not that I was paying attention to minor details like that.

  “Oh, you’re really wet.”

  “That’s... because... I’m bleeding.”

  “Yeah. That’s what I meant. Okay, I have to move my fingers to activate
the healing.”

  “Yeah, fine, just do iunghhhh.” She suddenly gripped my jacket and buried her face in my chest. Her body convulsed as my hand vibrated. From the healing. That’s all I was doing, one hundred percent healing. Plus or minus five percent. Statistical variance is a thing, don’t judge me.

  I pressed down harder as she writhed and moaned. Because of the pain. Probably. I still couldn’t see anything, so I didn’t know what kind of face she was making.

  “You know,” I said, “usually the bleeding is the first thing to stop, but my hand seems to be actually getting wetter.”

  “Mmmm,” she responded. Followed by, “Ggggggggghhhh.” She bit into my jacket. The pain must have been too much for her to bear.

  After about five minutes, my hand was still sopping wet. “Is it any better?”

  “Little bit. Little bit better. Keep going.”

  I tried not to think about where my hand was. I tried to ignore the soft flesh pressed against my fingers. This was nothing more than a medical procedure. One hundred percent. Plus or minus.

  Jenny’s body shuddered and then she went limp. Had she passed out? Did the healing not work?

  “You can… you can take your hand out now.” She was out of breath but didn’t sound in pain anymore. I removed my wet and sticky hand from her pants.

  She let out rather a long sigh. “Thanks. I needed that.”

  “Me too. I mean, glad I could help. Medically. Hey, I think my eyesight’s returning.” The blotches in front of me had started to take shape and colour was returning as I squinted and blinked.

  The first thing I saw was Little Chicken lying on the floor. He was curled up in a ball with his arms over his head. He was making a weird high-pitched whistling sound so at least that meant she hadn’t killed him.

  Then my attention was caught by a flicker further down the passageway. A light was coming up the stairs.

  “Someone’s coming.”

  Jenny turned her head to see and then jumped to her feet. Her trousers fell down to her ankles and she quickly bent down to pull them back up.

  The barman’s face, illuminated by the lantern he was holding, appeared at the top of the stairs.

  “He-hello? Are you okay? I heard—” He stopped once he saw the curled up body lying in the doorway. He ran forward. “Little Chicken, oh no.”

  He knelt down and cradled the boy in his arms. “What happened?”

  Jenny buckled her belt. “It turns out your nephew was helping Corporal Ween.”

  “What? No, I don’t believe it. Little Chicken, Little Chicken.” He shook the boy by his shoulders and the whistling sound turned into a gurgle. He was crying.

  “I’m sorry Uncle Enwye,” sobbed the boy. “I’m sorry.” His face had lumps and bruises all over it.

  The barman, Enwye, looked over at the three carpenters who were in a pile behind me. “Are they dead?” he asked.

  I got up and kicked each one. They all made various noises indicating that they were breathing. “They live.”

  Now that we had some light, I could see their clothing. They were wearing matching jumpsuits with large collars and shoulder pads that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an 80s music video. I knew this was a backward society, but I hadn’t expected to see something this primitive.

  I turned back to the barman. “Help me get these men naked.” Which was the first time I’d ever said that. Yes, I’m sure. “And you,” I pointed at the kid, “how well do you know those guys downstairs?”

  Little chicken looked confused.

  “Well enough to want to help them out of this mess?” He nodded. “Then take your clothes off.”

  Despite what you might think, a gay gangbang was not part of my plan. But I did have a possible way out of this predicament and the others seemed to sense it. At least, they did as I said without wanting wasting time to ask questions.

  It took a while to get Duran Duran out of their outfits. They were tight-fitting duds with plenty of straps and belts so some squeezing and twisting of limbs was necessary. This produced a number of groans and painful yelps, but none of them regained consciousness.

  Once we had them stripped, the barman found us some rope and we tied their hands behind their backs. The youngest of them was actually around my age, he just had an unusually high voice. He also now had an extremely broken nose. But I had no qualms about having hit him, even if he had been ten. Child or adult, he came to kill us. He deserved what he got. The important thing was that he was about the same size as our traitor.

  Little Chicken put on the guy’s clothes as I told him what I wanted him to do.

  “We’re relying on you,” said Enwye in a stern manner. “You’ve gotten yourself in big trouble, Little Chicken, but you can still get yourself out of it. A man faces his problems. Right? And don’t be thinking of running off. Don’t matter where you go, you can’t escape from Enwye, you know that.”

  Little Chicken trembled in his Flock of Seagulls one-piece, but he had a determined look on his face. He nodded and we boosted him out through the skylight. His disguise probably wouldn’t fool any carpenters close up, but his outline running over the rooftops might not raise their suspicions too much.

  “Now we just have to get these guys down the stairs,” I said.

  Easier said than done. The three of them had finally regained consciousness but were still quite out of it. Guiding them downstairs required a mixture of prodding, coaxing and carefully targeted kicking.

  While Jenny and I had been dealing with the intruders upstairs, Enwye and his staff had been busy sorting out their customers. The drugged men were all lying on the pub floor arranged in rows, snoring.

  We maneuvered the bound carpenters through the field of sleepers towards the door. Once we got there, Enwye unbarred it and opened it just enough to let his face out.

  “Crunchy!” Enwye called out “We got a gift for you.” He pulled the door wider and kicked the first man out.

  He was stark bollock naked with his hands tied behind his back, but he didn’t make a sound. Too embarrassed at having royally fucked up, I would guess.

  He was quickly followed by the other two.

  “If they took a blood oath on this job, I think you can safely mark them down as failed,” said Enwye. “But feel free to send down a couple more. We’ll have a couple of fellows waiting to give them a warm welcome.”

  That wasn’t true. We’d simply closed the door to the back room and hoped our bluff would stop them from trying the same thing again.

  The three naked men stood in the street, shivering. Corporal Crunchy and his hired thugs could have tried rushing the door, but they seemed too shocked by the unexpected turn of events, or perhaps there was a truce in operation as we returned our prisoners. Either way, there was no attack.

  Hooded men came forward and bundled their naked colleagues roughly towards the wagons. There were some unpleasant sounds which I assumed were the consequences of taking a blood oath on a job you thought would be a pushover.

  Enwye closed the door and barred it. “Now we wait.”

  “Yes. Let’s hope your nephew comes through for us.”

  “He will. He’s not a bad boy. He’ll do what’s right.”

  I didn’t feel so confident, but it was our only chance of getting out of this. And, more importantly, I wouldn’t be the one to save us.

  22. The Waiting Game

  “He’s probably going to come at us with everything, isn’t he?” I said to Enwye.

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. Thing about Crunchy is, he’s never been a big risk taker. Likes things to be in his favour before he makes a move. Sending out those boys naked like that would have put the wind right up him.”

  The only reason I’d made them all strip was so the uniform I’d given Little Chicken wouldn’t be missed. But returning prisoners naked also had a nice psychological effect.

  I went and sat down in the booth at the back of the pub, exhausted from all the running around and hitti
ng people from behind. Just because it was cowardly and dishonourable didn’t mean it wasn’t tiring.

  Enwye went back up and nailed the door shut in case our little subterfuge didn’t work, although I wasn’t sure it would stop them if they really wanted to get through. A couple of slams with those shoulderpads would probably leave the door in smithereens.

  But they’d have to come through a bottleneck one at a time, which completely negated their advantage.