Chapter 7

They both froze.

The mansion had been lying unused for months now. She had chosen the locale with great care.

She looked down at him. Bloodied and grunting.
Useless!
She spat and bent down to retrieve his Colt.

Jimmy hazed with pain weighed his options.
He yells for help and whoever it is at the door gets the cops to bail him out. He’d be in jail but alive.
Or he tries to reason with her … DONGGGGG! ….. DONGGGGG!

The bell rang twice this time.
Insistent.

It’s definitely the cops she thought.
There were no neighbours around here. No security either. She had been very thorough.

She looked at Jimmy. His eyes were bright. She slowly shook her head in a no. He wouldn’t dare to make a sound. He had a lot at stake too.

Crouched on the floor they saw the silhouette cross a window.
It was a matter of seconds before the broken French window was discovered.

Chapter 6

Her fingers hurt.

A punch like that would have an equally damaging reaction.

She just stood there, staring blankly at Jimmy as he mumbled something about drum beats and scary fairytales and loony plot writers. She was just glad that he hadn't sold off his hat for some magic beans or something.

He still looked human.

He bled.

As he rose his head to see her again, she thrust a photograph right into his face.

"But that's just the camera angle," he whined.

"You made me look fat, idiot!" she snarled.

There was no escaping.

Jimmy squinted like a blind pirate. She had the most confusing body in the world. Jimmy couldn't figure out whether it was sexy or horrifying or both. It was like looking at a rainbow that's shining on a beautiful woman, only she looks like a rotting apple and is dressed like a clown.

"I think I'm in big trouble," Jimmy muttered. And then he laughed. Saying 'big' while still looking at the photograph could've been funny for some. Especially the suicidal.

Surprisingly she took it well. Unless you also consider stabbing him in the shins with a rusty fork taking it well.

He squeaked with pain, but she wouldn't stop.

"Take this as your first photography lesson, asshole!"

The bloody whimpers mixed with cackles of madness echoed through the house.

And then the most predictable thing happened.

The doorbell rang.

Chapter 5

Stars burst before his eyes.

Not just any kind of stars, mind you. It was Orion’s Belt with part of the Horsehead nebula.

When he was seven, his elder brother had knocked him out with unabridged box-set of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. Ever since then, he had been very particular about his stars.

Now like then, the world slowly turned inky black, sounds gradually pointed to mute and he started floating.

Later, somewhere in the darkness, a heavy drum started pounding a single note.

D#. D#. D#.

Perfect pitch wasn’t something he had been born with. Only years of tutoring at expensive private schools had given him that. Thanks to it, he now knew the exact note of his heartbeat.

D#!?

If left to him he would have wanted his heart to pound out something different. Say, maybe, E#7dim5. Maybe, that would have given him a more mysterious air. Maybe, that would have made him a chick magnet.

He laughed sardonically. Two angry orange strobes burst in his head, knocking him back. The drums grew louder and set up a pulsating jungle rhythm.

‘I got to open my eyes.’

He blinked.

The bright sunlight streaming into the room seemed like a fiscal blow suffered by Merrill Lynch investors. He brought his arms up to shield his eyes from the pain.

He turned and glared at the writer.

‘Y’er crazy!’ he spat, ‘Pulp Fiction meets Monty Python? You can’t mix genres like that, you insufferable twit!’ This unwanted aggravation caused his accent to oscillate wildly between Cowboy American to 18th century British, finally settling in comfortably somewhere mid-Atlantic.

But mixing and matching had been going on for centuries. Bungalow, rendezvous and zeitgeist nodded their collective heads in agreement.

More ominously for him, there, nestled by the writer’s bedside table were three books, Pulp Fiction, a Spike Milligan novel and a book of Grimm’s fairy tales.

After a while, his eyes got used to the light and he looked around.

Outside, it was a brilliant spring morning.

But inside were three beds. One large bed, one middle-sized bed and one tiny baby bed.

‘Goldilocks!’ he screamed.

The dame had him running around in circles.

Chapter 4

No response, he waited for a minute and then knocked again. This was the last straw! Did they expect him to stand here forever and freeze to death. So far, he had observed all their weird rules. “For your own good, Jimmy” they told him. The pay was good, the work was harmless. A little snooping never did anyone harm. Not that he was making much money by writing movie scripts – a profession which was a hit with the girls yes but yet to be sent to any producer and consequently yet to make money. And, of course there was the little matter of drug possession that “they” took care of.

“I am done waiting, its time to break some of these moronic rules”, Jimmy said aloud. He was not feeling particularly heroic... he just needed to pee. He took his Colt out and circled the mansion. As years of snooping had taught him – there is always a weak link. There was still one french window which was not barred. “Idiots, they really deserve this”, thought Jimmy as he smashed a pane with the Colt and forced his way in.

It was not too dark as first light was streaming in... and he could make out the outline of two doors on either side. He chose the smaller one and hallelujah! It was the place he was looking for. He rested the Colt on the flush tank and relieved himself. As he was zipping up he felt a tap on his shoulder... he picked up the Colt and turned in one motion, only to feel a fist with two large rings smash right into his face.