Before the ladder had a chance to settle down, he shoved himself to his hands and knees and started crawling across it.
Away from the fire of his own making.
A fire that had already fallen to half its size.
But he didn't know that. He wasn't looking back. If he'd seen how the fire had diminished so abruptly, he probably wouldn't have been so quick to flee.
Billie still clung to the bars at the distant corner of her cage.
She still had her hair.
From shoulders to buttocks, her skin looked ruddy, shiny wet, uncharred.
She'd made it!
Now the job was to kill Wesley.
I snatched up the machete and raced for him.
Halfway across the gap, he saw me coming. He let out a yelp and crawled faster, the ladder shaking and clattering beneath him.
I ran full-speed between the cages. With the ladder looming over me, Wesley almost to the other side, I leaped and reached high, slashing with my machete.
Missed him, the ladder, everything.
I'm not a tall guy. I must've missed the ladder by a foot.
Gave him a good scare, though. He'd squealed when I swung at him. As I put on the brakes, the clamor of the ladder let me know he was scurrying like mad.
The ladder noise suddenly stopped.
I turned around in time to see Wesley look for me over his shoulder and try to stand up.
He should've been watching his feet.
The right one stepped down between two of the bars. He cried, "Yaaah!" as his leg shot down. He flapped his arms. His other leg bent at the knee and scooted out from under him. His bare ass struck the bars.
And there he sat, his right leg hanging down into Kimberly's cage.
He made whimpery, frightened sounds.
Before he could even start to free himself, Kimberly jumped.
My God what a jump!
"Yes!" someone yelled.
Billie.
She stood at the side of her cage, the fire behind her fluttering low, Wesley's blazing torch in her upraised hand.
Kimberly dangled beneath Wesley.
She hung with both hands from his right ankle.
Golden in the torchlight, arms stretched so high that her breasts were nearly flat -- long, low slopes topped by hard and jutting nipples -- her entire body taut and thin as if she were being stretched from both ends.
Wesley tried to kick free of her.
His leg hardly moved at all. Just enough to sway Kimberly back and forth with an easy, gentle motion.
"Let go of me!" he shouted.
Kimberly didn't answer. She just held on.
Wesley pulled a knife out of its sheath on his belt. He wouldn't be able to reach her with it. He could throw it, though.
"Look out!" I yelled, and ran between the cages.
Billie shouted, "He's got a knife! Watch out!"
With an underhand toss, I flung my machete toward Billie's cage. It hit bars, but fell near enough for her to reach it. I faced Kimberly's cage just as Wesley let out a cry of pain.
Kimberly had started to swing.
Still hanging from his ankle, she flung her legs forward and up.
A kid on a swing, pumping for the sky.
"Stop!" Wesley wailed. "Stop it! Fuck!"
I jumped, reached high, grabbed two bars, squeezed bars between my knees, and began my struggle for the top of Kimberly's cage. Slow going, awkward. I made progress, though.
As I pulled and scurried my way higher, Wesley's voice raged in my ears. "My leg! Let go! Shit! You're gonna rip it off! Fuck! Let go! Ahhhhh!"
Kimberly no longer acted like a kid on a swing. The smooth, graceful pumping action was gone. She'd turned wild, bucking beneath him, twisting, kicking her legs toward the barred ceiling.
She had a knife protruding from her left thigh.
I hadn't even seen it hit her. Wesley must've hurled it down through the bars while I'd been looking somewhere else.
No wonder she'd gone wild.
She swung like a rabid Tarzan, a mad and naked Jane trying to ride her vine to the moon.
Through Wesley's shouts and shrieks, I heard a gristly, popping noise.
His thigh bone bursting out of its hip joint.
His scream gave me goosebumps.
"Don't kill him!" someone yelled.
A girl's voice from far off.
Erin.
"Don't kill Wesley!" she shouted. "He's gotta tell where the keys are!"
And then my left hand caught hold of the crossbar at the top of the cage. I reached up with my right, grabbed hold and pulled myself up.
Wesley kept his eyes on me as I clambered over the edge. Suddenly, I found myself perched atop Kimberly's cage, my hands and knees on the roof bars, Wesley a distance to my right and just beyond the end of the ladder.
Though one leg lay across the top of the bars, he squirmed and swayed like a human torso -- or like one of those inflatable punching toys that swings back and forth when you hit it, and keeps coming up.
"Help!" he blurted at me. His face was streaked with sweat and tears, tremulous with torchglow and shadows, twisted ugly with pain. "Please!" he cried out. "Make her stop! Please!"
Though he pleaded, he held his second knife high, its blade pinched between his thumb and forefinger.
"Put down the knife!" I shouted.
He couldn't seem to make up his mind whether to throw it at me or Kimberly.
Looking down, I saw her rising toward me on his leg. She seemed to be looking at me. In another moment, she was sprawled out beneath me like a lover. She lingered there, just below the bars, all shadowy and open.
Screaming, Wesley jerked the knife back toward his ear.
He'd made up his mind.
Kimberly.
His tormenter, and such an easy target inches below the bars, motionless, trapped in the moment before starting her downward course.
Yelling, I sprang.
Hurled myself -- not so much at Wesley as between him and Kimberly.
I heard a thunk.
A grunt.
I landed flat and hard on the bars. They pounded me. They rang out. I slid on them.
Below my face was Kimberly's face.
Eyes squeezed nearly shut, mouth open, teeth bared.
Her face huge and beautiful but torn with pain.
Then shrinking.
At first, I didn't know why.
But as her face became smaller, more and more of Kimberly came into view.
Her neck, shoulders.
Her arms reaching overhead like a surrendering prisoner.
Her chest.
The knife handle jutting up between her breasts.
Her belly, her groin, thighs.
The knife handle jutting up from her left thigh.
Her long, spread legs.
All becoming smaller.
Then the shrinking stopped. She shook as if she'd suddenly been hit by a monstrous gust of wind. It shoved at the front of her whole body -- spread her face, mashed her breasts, distorted her everywhere for a moment -- then moved on.
I was vaguely aware of yelling.
Billie was yelling.
I was yelling.
Somehow, I missed the noise of Kimberly's body smacking the concrete. It must've been drowned out by our cries of shock and despair.
I don't know how long I lay sprawled on the bars, gazing down at her.
I couldn't believe this had happened.
I wanted it to be a dream.
Or a trial run. I wanted another chance, a way to try things differently.
A way to save her.
"The bitch was gonna rip my leg off," Wesley said. "I couldn't just let her rip my leg off, could I?"
I raised my head.
"Hey," he said. "Hey, look. Just settle down. It was an accident, okay? Accidents happen."
In The Land Of Pain
When the sun came up, Kimberly still lay sprawled on the bottom of her cage. A pool of blood had spread out around her, much like the gasoline that had puddled the floor of Billie's cage, but dark.
Billie and Connie stood at the front corners of their cages, facing me.
I faced Wesley.
Alice and Erin watched from their distant cages.