“Dunno,” said Teresa, frowning. “He, like, gettin’ up behind one’a them poles. One with some greep tied to it, hey? Some little dude with a shave head.”
“What about Johnson?” Justin asked. “And the others? If they notice the Kid…”
“They ain’t gleeped ‘im yet,” Teresa muttered. “Lucky.”
“Shifty little bastard,” said Lampert, “ain’t he?”
Justin ignored him. “What’s he doing?” he demanded.
“He’s…” Lampert began, but then stopped abruptly and gaped in wonder. There was suddenly a similar look of shock on Teresa’s face and it was obvious that something dramatic was happening.
Snapping around and sorting through the crush of malformed bodies and party decorations, Justin was just in time to see the Kid, improbably festooned in a sparkly party hat and bright orange lei, make his move. With a motion almost too quick to see, the child, a slice of something bright in one hand, lunged at the tethers around the wrists of one of the pinioned victims. This individual, the small bald man, immediately reacted by whipping down his arms and then wading into the surrounding misshapen, startled throng like a little cyclone of fists and feet. In a matter of seconds, three of the freaks were down, bleeding, punched and kicked to the ground.
Meanwhile, moving like a snake, the Kid went down the row of poles and freed the other intended victims. In matter of seconds, the entire chamber was chaos as the freaks, screaming and hooting, clambered over each other to attack the freed victims while the freed victims, to a varying degree, fought back with all they had.
At his side, Teresa suddenly gave a savage whoop, ripped the silly cowboy hat from her head, and erupted from her chair. Startled, unsure, the big tentacle-men who’d been guarding them were caught off guard and she easily ducked past them when they tried to grab her. Then, much like the Small Man, she disappeared into the horde, fists and feet and knees pumping like well-oiled pistons, leaving prostrate enemies in her wake.
“Holy fuck!” barked the Old Man, one hand going to his forehead. “Lookit her go!”
Justin looked over to Lampert and saw that his own guard, a particularly repulsive, smelly creature with five ropy arms, had run off to join the fight. He was wondering what to do with this sudden liberty when a bottle, flung by one of the combatants, came whipping through the air, missing the Old Man’s head by about an inch, and shattered into a thousand glittering pieces.
“Get down!” said Justin, and dragged the Old Man to the floor. He did the same with Cass and Swails and then pulled everyone under the table. Around them, the deformed masses put up a terrible noise and commotion, screeching and bellowing like a zoo full of starved animals and overturning tables and chairs.
Through the crush of bodies and upended furniture, Justin could now see that the fight had devolved into a sort of standoff. On one side were the small bald man—their erstwhile kidnapper—another short, stocky Hispanic man, plus two others and Teresa, and on the other were a momentarily cowed horde of flailing, shrieking monsters, King Suit at their fore. At a sign from their leader, the deformed masses quieted down some, to a slight din, and Justin could hear that King Suit and the Small Man, face to face, crouched in tense readiness, were engaged in some kind of odd colloquy.
“You don’t play nice,” whined the madman in the costume. He was flushed, breathing heavily and blood-smeared, and his eyes rolled like spheres of glass beneath the crazy tangle of blond hair. “And now you’ve ruined my Birthday Party! Simply ruined it! How can I open my gifts like this? No, you don’t play nice at all!”
The Small Man just sneered and stared fixedly at the gore-covered knife in the other man’s fist. On the balls of his feet, he took two steps toward the lunatic as the others, Teresa included, stood with their fists up, one with a folding metal chair, and watched.
“But we can still play a fun game,” said King Suit, a slimy meanness coming into his voice. “Should I tell you about it?”
“What fuckin’ game?” snarled the Small Man, a thin stream of blood running from his nose. “What the fuck are you sayin’?”
“The Cutting Game, silly,” said the madman, waving his knife. “Now just stand still for a minute, and you’ll learn all about it.”
Warily, King Suit moved in, but the Small Man circled him, moving like a cat, and the two men engaged in a sort of spastic dance in a clearing between the two parties of combatants. Holding his breath, the Old Man’s skeletal hand painful on his forearm, Justin watched as they circled, around and around, before finally the madman struck. Quick as a snake, he lashed out with the knife, aiming a blow at the Small Man’s midriff, but his foe was ready and even faster than he was. Grabbing the madman’s wrist with both hands as he dodged the thrust, the Small Man jerked the knife-hand to the side and then, with a deep grunt, drove the blade up and into the other man’s belly. With a sickening, tearing noise, he then tore the blade deeply through King Suit’s guts. Blood, by the bucketful, and gray loops of intestine came gushing from King Suit in a frightful, sudden spasm, and the man, his face a study in surprise, fell heavily to his knees, his hands fluttering about the ghastly wound like frightened birds. The entire throng of deformed creatures gave a deep, collective groan.
“Ouch,” said King Suit stupidly, his eyes already glazing over. “That… hurts.”
The Small Man, a remorseless, flat look to his bruised features, the carving knife now in hand, stood over him and said nothing. Then the madman, all blood and stained robes and dreadlocks and doublet-and-hose, fell forward onto his face, twitched a few times, and lay still.
For a long moment, nothing happened. No one moved and no one spoke. The only sounds were heavy breathing and the madly incongruous strains of The Itsy Bitsy Spider from the record player. The Small Man, beaten and bloodied, slumped wearily and then walked over to the prostrate madman and gave the body a sharp kick in the ribs. The man was obviously stone dead.
Seemingly satisfied, the Small Man nodded, as if to himself, and then, with a stagger and a failed attempt to break his fall on a table, crashed heavily to the ground. After a single attempt to rise, he fell back into the mess of sweet cakes and confetti and streamers and lay still. Again, a very tense silence fell on the scene as everyone—even the freaks—looked at each other and more or less collectively shrugged; what now?
“Do somethin’, Case!” whispered Mr. Lampert urgently, shaking Justin’s arm. “Get out there!”
“What, me?” said Justin. “But what would I do?”
“Shit, I dunno,” hissed the Old Man. “Talk to ‘em. Take charge!”
“Me?” said Justin again, utterly dazed. “I… I suppose I could.”
“Yeah, go on!” said Lampert, shoving. “Do somethin’!”
Feeling utterly ridiculous, very intimidated, and afraid for his very life, Justin slowly crawled from beneath the table, rose, took a few paces, and noisily cleared his throat. Dozens of eyes, some not in pairs, turned to stare at him. What are you doing? clamored some sane part of his mind. What was he supposed to say? For a long, crazy moment, he drew an utter blank, his mind a mass of useless, fearful, disjointed thoughts, but then he finally spoke.
“It’s over,” he said simply, holding up his arms. “This man, this Emperor of yours, is dead. See there? He’s bled to death, understand? It’s over.”
This seemed effective. With a mass movement of resigned, even sad resignation, the throng of badly-made creatures, the blobs and the tall, spidery ones, the tentacle-men and the slug-bodied, wart-covered trolls, all sort of slumped and groaned in bewildered loss and shock. Gurgling and blurping, they shook their heads and shuffled, looking at each other and their human foes confusedly. Finally one of them, a loathsome specimen with a slug body and a head like an insect, came forth alone and tenderly gathered King Suit’s corpse into its four rubbery arms. Then, in a sort of crude, ugly procession, the corpse-bearing creature led them from the chamber. Within another five minutes, dragging off their wounded and dead, they were almost all gone and the lately embattled group relaxed and watched them leave. All, that is, but the stocky Hispanic fellow, who went over to the corner where the record player was still playing (Billy Goat’s Gruff), raised a chair over his head and, with a savage blow, smashed the antique to smithereens.