“You know, Foster,” I managed to say, “you were always my favorite of the group.”
“Isn’t that sweet? You know, I could take you into the operating room, but I’m really an old-fashioned kind of person at heart, so I’m going with the traditional beating to death.”
I pushed myself up. A violent kick to the side sent me right back down. I groaned in pain and rolled onto my back.
“No, no, don’t get up for me,” Foster said. “I have to say, the whole time I sat there I was hoping you’d make it out somehow. I almost dug you up myself. Because I really wanted to do this.” He kicked me in the side again. I wondered if my own ribs were going to look like Wesley’s by the time this was over.
Foster stepped away from me and raised his fists like a boxer. “Let’s make this fair. I’ll give you a couple of moments to get up. Maybe I’ll even give you a free punch. How’s that sound?”
“How about you…” I had to pause to take a breath, “…give me your gun?”
“I might, I just might. Get up. Fight like man.”
My muscles felt like they were being ripped from the bone as I got to my feet, but I couldn’t just lie there and let him kick me to death. I raised my fists, and then lost my balance and fell back to the ground.
“Now that’s just pathetic,” said Foster, taking out his gun. “Maybe I oughta blow off your kneecaps like I said, huh?”
I resumed my effort to get back to my feet. “Sure, if you want to bring the others here.”
“I don’t know, I think this place is pretty well soundproof. Should we test it?”
My legs buckled beneath me, but I kept from hitting the ground. “Sure…if you don’t think you can beat me.”
Foster extended the gun toward my face, and then strode over to me, keeping it pointed between my eyes the entire time. Right before the barrel connected with my face, he smacked the barrel of the gun against the side of my head, hard. I accidentally bit the side of my mouth and dropped to the ground yet again.
“Having a bit of trouble with your balance, aren’t you?” Foster asked. “Could be an inner ear problem.”
I wiped a trickle of blood from the corner of my mouth and made another effort to get up. Though in my current condition, even if I could get a punch in it probably wouldn’t be enough to knock a bird off its perch.
“You do have willpower, I’ll give you that,” said Foster. “Make you a deal. I’ll end this. One shot to the gut, one shot to each leg, one shot to each arm, and then I’ll put the barrel in your mouth and put you out of your misery? How’s that sound?”
I forced myself to shrug. “Will Daniel…reimburse you for the…extra bullets?”
“Probably not, but in this case, it’s my pleasure.”
I stood up as straight as possible. “I don’t mean to be rude, but…”
“But what?”
I motioned for him to wait while I caught my breath. “But why do you need a gun to fight me? Isn’t that kind of sad?”
“Now, see, you’re trying to convince me to throw away the gun to make this more of a challenge, but what you’re not realizing is that I’m the type of person who’s happy to torture and kill a helpless person strapped to an operating table. So while I appreciate your attempt, it’s not going to work.”
He lowered the gun so it was pointing at my belly.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said. “I’ve always been kind of proud that I have an outtie instead of an innie.”
“Well, now, you’ll just have to learn to be proud of your brand new, amazingly deep innie.”
“Nah.” I took a step to the side, and fell back into the open grave. My bare feet slammed down upon Wesley’s jaw, but I withheld the scream as I pushed myself down as far as I could go while I hurriedly searched through the coffin.
“Uh-oh,” I heard Foster say. “Andrew’s hiding from me! Where could he possibly be?”
His head popped into view. “Peek-a-boo! I see-”
Thrusting upward with both hands, I slammed Wesley’s rib into Foster’s throat. It wasn’t the most accurate hit, but there was no lack of momentum.
His eyes widened, he let out a weak gasp, and the gun dropped into my lap.
Chapter 19
A COUPLE of minutes later, I stood above ground again. There I was, wearing nothing but boxer shorts with a revolver protruding from the waistband, totally covered with dirt, blood, and assorted corpse residue, a gory rib bone in one hand and Foster’s martini in the other. Not the most attractive look, but not as embarrassing as my Prince phase.
After I gulped down the drink, I tossed the glass and rib aside and tried to untie Foster’s shoes, but he’d used some mutant knot that refused to come undone. I patted down his pockets, with no success, but after I pulled off his jacket I found two pass cards, and a set of regular keys in the inside pocket. I also found a birthday card from Daniel, but I determined that to be somewhat less useful than the pass cards and keys.
I put on the jacket and flipped open the cylinder of the gun. Six bullets. One for each psychopath, plus two remaining for party tricks. I snapped it back into place.
Though time was certainly a consideration, I’d be in much better shape if everyone thought I was still buried alive. So I took a few moments to push Foster into the grave and fill it with dirt. Not exactly a nice, neat job, but passable.
I was still tired and aching all over, but I had to go. I waved the pass card in front of the reader, and then opened the door just a crack, keeping the barrel of the revolver pointed into the next room.
Cells lined each side of the room. This was where they kept the prisoners. And thankfully, there weren’t any guards present.
I threw open the door and stepped inside. The first person I saw was Roger, directly to my left. He rushed over to the front bars of his cell. “Andrew! Oh my God!”
“Hi, Rog,” I said. “I figured if I could survive your lasagna surprise, I could easily survive being buried alive.”
Yeah, it was a weak joke, and I’m ashamed to admit that I’d actually thought of it back while I was searching Foster, but hey, any quip was impressive under these circumstances.
“You’ve got to get us out of here,” Roger insisted. “They took Charlotte about fifteen minutes ago, but the hatchet guy said that if anything else goes wrong, they’re just going to go ahead and execute everyone!”
“Don’t worry,” I said, holding up the pass cards. The first one was red, while the second was yellow like the one I’d borrowed from Josie.
Nothing happened when I tried the yellow card, so I held the red card up to the reader. After the click, I pulled Roger’s cell door open.
“Do I French kiss you or beat the shit out of you first?” he asked, leaving the cell.
“I’ll take the beating.”
“Cool. We’ll schedule it for right after you finish rescuing me. You have a fabulous plan for our escape, right?”
“Just to screw up as little as possible.” I waved the red card over the next cell’s reader. Instead of a click, we were treated to the sound of a blaring alarm.
The alarm was too loud for us to make the obvious comment about screwing up as little as possible, so we settled for exchanging a look that indicated we were both thinking that obvious comment.
I hated to leave the prisoners behind, but we had to get out of there quickly. With me in the lead, we rushed out of the cell area, leaving the door wide open, and into a hallway. The alarm stopped moments after we began sprinting down the corridor, passing the gladiator ring, and nearly colliding with Josie. Daniel, Mortimer, and Stan were right behind her.
Without hesitation, I threw my arm around Josie’s neck and pulled her toward me, pressing Foster’s gun to the side of her head. “Stop!” I shouted.