Or had it?
On those crime scene investigation shows, they were always talking about how you could never truly get rid of blood traces, no matter how hard you tried. Many a criminal had been apprehended because of their false assumptions about the cleaning power of household detergents. But I’d never heard of the lab guys saying, “Oh my, look at this...she forgot to sweep up this chunk of the victim’s brain.”
So Mildred was bluffing.
She wasn’t really going to shoot me.
I was pretty sure she wasn’t really going to shoot me.
But she could be lying about her familiarity with brain matter and still be telling the truth about her intent to shoot me.
Obviously, she was trying to sound more threatening than she actually was. Yet if a mob enforcer said, “I’ve killed thirty-eight people,” when he’d only killed twenty-six, you’d still be worried if he took you out on a boat and asked you to hold your feet in a box of cement until it dried.
If she had the gun and the gun was pointed at me, why would she need to say something about brain matter? Why did she need to be scarier? I was a sixteen-year-old kid. Was she so worried that I was going to try to rush her and knock the gun away that she made a sinister comment to make sure I stayed in my seat?
Well, to be fair, I had considered the idea that she was bluffing, and her comment about the brain matter had encouraged me to devote more thought to whether or not that was a good idea, so technically, her comment had been successful.
Was the gun even loaded?
Franklin seemed kind of irresponsible. Would a good parent keep a loaded gun in a house with somebody like him around? What if he accidentally shot out his eye?
Did Mildred have a secret pocket in her apron where she stored the gun? Did she hurriedly put on the apron when she heard the doorbell.. .or did she keep the apron on at all times just in case she needed to shoot somebody?
Oh my God, I was being held at gunpoint by a woman who carried a gun in her apron at all times just in case somebody needed to be shot.
No way was I standing up.
Adam screamed again. At least I knew he wasn’t dead.
Unless he was a zombie.
No, Mr. Click was a zombie, and he couldn’t scream.
Unless Adam was a different kind of zombie. One that could scream.
All of these thoughts went through my head in about 0.00039 seconds, at which point I made my final decision to respect Mildred’s gun and not try to knock it out of her hand.
“So which base should we cover tonight?” asked Mildred.
Glenn shrugged. “What are you more in the mood for? The kindness and serenity of Buddhism or the human sacrifice of the Aztecs?”
“Aztecs!” said Franklin.
“Nobody asked you,” Glenn told him. “Although it’s been a while since we got any use out of the sacrificial chamber. The new dagger we bought has just been lying on the air hockey table.”
“I’m not sure I want to cut out anybody’s heart tonight,” Mildred admitted.
“I’ll do the heart,” said Glenn.
“Actually, it’s not so much the cutting out of the heart,” said Mildred. “It’s more about what he said about the cannibalism thing.” “You mean you think we’ll look like hypocrites if we take a bite out of the heart?” Glenn asked. “That’s okay. I don’t mind looking like a hypocrite.”
“No, it’s just that I’m not sure I’ll fit into the sacrificial gown. I have put on weight since then. I know I should exercise more, but it’s hard with everything that’s going on right now. I know, I know, excuses, excuses.”
“If you want to treat them with kindness, that’s okay with me,” said Glenn. “Although we could also store them in the freezer until you’re feeling more up to it.”
“We still have all of that ham in the freezer. Let’s just be nice.” Franklin frowned and looked as if he were going to throw a temper tantrum like a three-year-old.
Glenn looked at Kelley and me. “Good news. Looks like our religious experience for tonight is going to be to treat you with respect and dignity. Would you like some ice cream? We have chocolate mint, french vanilla, and Neapolitan.”
I really wasn’t sure how to react to this, so I said, “Sure. Chocolate mint.”
And then my right ear exploded.
CHAPTER 19
Mildred, Glenn, and Franklin all gasped and stepped back.
Kelley screamed.
I wasn’t immediately sure what had happened, except that it felt and sounded like a water balloon filled with warm water popped next to my ear.
And then pain. Lots of it.
I clutched my ear. It wasn’t completely gone, but the entire earlobe was missing along with half of the cartilage above it. What remained was a wet, sticky, mangled mess.
Most of my earlobe was on my shoulder.
Back in Donna’s room, Adam screamed again, though I assume it was unrelated to my ear explosion.
I tried to stifle my own scream and accidentally bit down on my tongue so hard that I screamed.
“Did you shoot?” Glenn asked Mildred, his voice frantic. “Did you shoot him?”
“I didn’t shoot anybody!”
“Then what happened to his ear?”
“I don’t know! It just burst!”
“Somebody shot him!”
“I have the only gun, and I didn’t shoot it! Did you hear it go off? Did you? Do you see any smoke?”
I pulled my hand away from my ear. I was hyperventilating in a big way. More than half of my ear was gone. What if my entire head was next?
The inside part of my right ear was ringing, but I could still hear with it. So I was mutilated but not deaf.
I tried to speak but couldn’t catch my breath.
Kelley had bits of ear on her shirt.
“People’s ears don’t do that for no reason!” said Glenn.
Franklin clutched at his heart. “It was the Aztecs!”
Then he dropped to the floor in a dead faint. I didn’t blame him. I was pretty close to fainting myself, but I successfully forced myself to remain conscious and unsuccessfully tried to force myself to remain calm.
Oh God, it hurt. Though I’d never had my ear pierced, I think the pain was like having your ear pierced a million times in a row, all over, with a dull, ear-piercing device.
Blood ran down my neck.
I had to focus. Had to at least get enough control over myself to blurt out a sentence. That cabdriver could be holding the tip of a pin right between the doll’s eyes.
“You have to let me make a call,” I said.
Mildred shook her head.
“I won’t call the cops!” I promised. “I know who did this! I have to speak with him!”
“Satan?”
“No, not Satan.” I reached into my pocket and dug out the cabdriver’s business card. Zeke Geiler. “Please call this number and let me talk to him.”
Mildred looked like she wanted to question the reason we would call a taxi service about an exploding ear, but instead, she walked out of the living room and returned a moment later with a phone. She dialed the number on the card and then handed the phone to me.
“Try anything sneaky, and I’ll shoot your other ear off,” she said.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I have to do this. I can’t have these on me,” said Kelley, her voice a full octave higher than usual, as she picked my ear bits off of her shirt and flicked them onto the floor. She’d been strong and brave through this whole ordeal, but cartilage on your clothes is a bit much for anyone.
On the other end, the phone rang once, twice, three times.
Please answer before the crazy lady decides to shoot me, I thought.
“Hello?” asked a familiar voice on the other end of the line. A voice that sounded much more evil and villainous than it had earlier this evening.