The Sale. Part 12.

My hands were in the air and so was the rock-solid Maglite flashlight. Silas was watching the Mexican standoff in the store room where crazy woman Junifer had confronted Aisha.

I threw the torch as hard as I could. It was a crappy throw. The flashlight hit Silas in the side, surprising him more than hurting him. He fired his revolver. The bullet struck me high in the right shoulder, piercing the flesh, ricocheting off the bone and exiting at the side. I yelped and fell back against the laboratory wall.

Aisha and Junifer were both looking into the lab, now. I folded around the door frame into the store room and collapsed next to Aisha’s leg, clutching my shoulder, swearing. There was a fair bit of blood and whole lot of pain. I squeezed my eyes tight and clutched at my shoulder in agony.

“Junifer,” cried Silas. “Kill him.”

At this point I realised he meant me, stopped wincing and got to my feet. Junifer charged me, knife raised and pinned me to the store room wall. I held her back as she screamed like a wild woman, spittle spraying in my face.

Aisha, obviously smarter than me, pulled the lab door shut, grabbed her dropped flashlight and firmly struck Junifer over the back of the head. Unlike in the movies, a good crack on the head with a solid object rarely knocks people out. It does, however, really hurt.

Junifer, distracted now, turned to face Aisha and menaced her with the knife while holding her bloody skull. I grabbed the door handle as Silas made it to the other side. Despite his bulk, he wasn’t as strong as me and couldn’t get it open with me holding the handle this side. Not for want of trying. As we pulled back and forth it almost resembled a child’s game. Aside from the blood, language and strain on our faces, that is.

Aisha was struggling with Junifer on the floor. The knife lay spinning beside them. The girls were scratching, biting and generally doing all the things that make women’s fights so nasty.

“Hit her,” screamed Aisha.

“Would you like to hold this while I do that?” I cried, as the door pumped open and shut in my tug of war with Silas. I really didn’t want to hit Junifer, no matter how crazy she was. My mother had taught me never to lay a hand on a woman. But this was life or death. As they rolled closer to me, I kicked Junifer hard in the skull. She rolled off Aisha onto the floor, writhing slowly, clutching her bleeding head, sobbing quietly. For a moment I was sympathetic. But only for a moment. We still had a gun-toting torturer on the other side of the lab door to deal with.

Aisha was a mess, scratched and bruised. We were both sweat-soaked, dishevelled, drawn and bloody. She grabbed the knife and held the store room door open. “Come on,” she said.

I pulled hard on the lab door until it clicked. Then I let go of the handle and bolted after Aisha as she leapt through the store room doorway. We were in a narrow corridor with rough, rock hewn walls, illuminated by feeble electric bulbs every ten feet or so.

We ran.

To be continued…

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