Page 8 of Happy Krampus Xmas & the Meet Not Cute
“I’m sliding in a dusty, coffin-sized container. What do you think, Ollie? Pretty sure Batman never had to go through this shite,” I mutter.
“You’re hardly Batman. More Rodentman.”
“Sod off, Ollie!”
“Focus on your task,” Rague says.
“No shit, KKJ!” But he’s right, I can’t fucking get it wrong this time. I’m roughly sliding through the vent, when I let out a choked gasp at the sight of a belly-up cockroach. Why is he dead? Is there a mortal gas flowing around? Where’s Michael and his coroner’s skills when I need him?
“What now?” Ollie asks, his tone is annoyed, but I can hear a hint of worry in it.
“Just met your ex. Maybe you can revive him with a kiss,” I sarcastically tell him, chucking the idea of picking up the insect corpse and bringing it to Michael.
Rague lets out a growl, idiotic possessive fucker.
It’s December, and I’m sweating like a slag in church. My curls are flattened by the black hood around my head and the headband lamp, and I can only imagine how the toxic pollutants and the grime are attacking my skin. My tight and smooth pores must be yelping in horror.
“Stop. You’re right above the donor’s room.” I freeze at hearing Rague’s words. I glide toward the grate while turning off the headband lamp. The light coming through the bars shows a sumptuous bedroom. Burning wood is crackling inside the fireplace. There’s a round table covered in food, a silver Christmas tree exquisitely trimmed, and a few seasonal decorations.
Does this maggot have Christmas shite in every room of the very house he took from his last victim? The bastard is paying for all this lux with the bloody money he stole.
“Is the maggot still in the shower?” I whisper into the mic.
“Yes. Hurry down and wait for him. Remember your training,” Rague says.
During the last months, the bros have been teaching me the ins and out of the family business. I already knew how to defend myself, but they added more vicious tactics and killing techniques to my expertises, showing me how to use different types of weapons. Even though bats are still my number one choice, I like to add the…unexpected.
I pull a rolling pin out of my Prada fanny pack—the tranquilizer syringe is in a small bag inside it. It takes a few extra seconds since the wooden pin is quite long and keeps getting stuck in thebag’s fabric. When I finally extricate it I place it near my knee against the vent wall.
I’m so excited, my heart could slide out of my ass cheeks if I wasn’t a Kegel exercise enthusiast.
Dear maggot, death is slowly coming to your doorstep. Can you feel it?And I’ll make it so painful and so spectacular, I’ll have to write my name inside my TRB.
I slowly wrap my fingers around the bars of the grate, and with a hard shove, I push. Nothing happens. I push again and again. Stopping myself in case the slight noise warned the maggot of my presence. But I don’t hear anything.
“KKJ, are you sure you loosened the bloody screws?” I whisper-yell into the wrist band.
“Positive,” he succinctly replies.
“Press harder, Lor,” Ollie uselessly suggests. I’m doing it, but the grate doesn’t budge.
I pull down the bandanna from my mouth and take off the headband lamp. Suddenly there’s not enough air around me. It’s so bloody hot. The metal walls are too close to my body, and… Do I feel something crawling on my calf? I gasp as my body turns into a pillar of salt.
In the next second I’m impersonating an angry bull, breath rushes in and out my mouth.
“Lori, are you okay?” Ollie’s voice sounds far away.
“Take the infested hive off me!” I cry, thrashing my arms around.
“Wha…? I need context, Lori.”
“They are climbing me like fucking Mount Everest! I can feel their hairy, groping paws!” I kick my legs and twist my body as wildly as possible in such a narrow space, bumping the walls and making thudding noises.
“Who? What the hell is going on?” Rague hisses in my ear.
I slide further, my elbows dig painfully into the metal bars as I keep wiggling away from whatever is trying to cop a feel of my arse. In slow motion, I see the grate give in and drop down. For a moment, I feel an absence of gravity, only half a second before my body is pulled unforgivingly down, sucked toward the hard wooden surface of the bedroom floor.
As I slide down my bone-breaking fall is abruptly stopped with a sharp jolt—making me hiss in pain—not the grate’s, though. It starts a freaking domino effect. It lands heavily on the festively laid table, the delicious-smelling pasta flies on the floor, splashing and covering it in tomato sauce. The pasta plate bumps the bottle of red wine, which tips over, staining the white and golden tablecloth while dropping in the middle of a two-tier chocolate cake. The little statue of Santa on top jumps down and sinks slowly into the pumpkin soup bowl like the Titanic in North Atlantic waters.
