“Well, I’ve got to get ready to go diving,” Kurt said. He stood up with a jangle. “Thanks for the iced tea, Adam.”
“It was nice to meet you, Kurt,” Alan said, and shook his hand.
Alan woke with something soft over his face. It was pitch dark, and he couldn’t breathe. He tried to reach up, but his arms wouldn’t move. He couldn’t sit up. Something heavy was sitting on his chest. The soft thing—a pillow?—ground against his face, cruelly pressing down on the cartilage in his nose, filling his mouth as he gasped for air.
He shuddered hard, and felt something give near his right wrist and then his arm was loose from the elbow down. He kept working the arm, his chest afire, and then he’d freed it to the shoulder, and something bit him, hard little teeth like knives, in the fleshy underside of his bicep. Flailing dug the teeth in harder, and he knew he was bleeding, could feel it seeping down his arm. Finally, he got his hand onto something, a desiccated, mummified piece of flesh. Davey. Davey’s ribs, like dry stones, cold and thin. He felt up higher, felt for the place where Davey’s arm met his shoulder, and then twisted as hard as he could, until the arm popped free in its socket. He shook his head violently and the pillow slid away.
The room was still dark, and the hot, moist air rushed into his nostrils and mouth as he gasped it in. He heard Davey moving in the dark, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw him unfolding a knife. It was a clasp knife with a broken hasp and it swung open with the sound of a cockroach’s shell crunching underfoot. The blade was rusty.
Alan flung his freed arm across his body and tried to tug himself loose. He was being held down by his own sheets, which had been tacked or stapled to the bed frame. Using all his strength, he rolled over, heaving and bucking, and felt/heard the staples popping free down one side of the bed, just as Davey slashed at where his face had been a moment before. The knife whistled past his ear, then scored deeply along his shoulder. His arm flopped uselessly at his side and now they were both fighting one-armed, though Davey had a knife and Adam was wrapped in a sheet.
His bedroom was singularly lacking in anything that could be improvised into a weapon—he considered trying getting a heavy encyclopedia out to use as a shield, but it was too far a distance and too long a shot.
He scooted back on the bed, trying to untangle the sheet, which was still secured at the foot of the bed and all along one side. He freed his good arm just as Davey slashed at him again, aiming for the meat of his thigh, the big arteries there that could bleed you out in a minute or two. He grabbed for Davey’s shoulder and caught it for an instant, squeezed and twisted, but then the skin he had hold of sloughed away and Davey was free, dancing back.
Then he heard, from downstairs, the sound of rhythmic pounding at the door. He’d been hearing it for some time, but hadn’t registered it until now. A muffled yell from below. Police? Mimi? He screamed out, “Help!” hoping his voice would carry through the door.