Malice in Wonderland Bundle 2

by Lotus Rose

  The Knight shouts out in alarm.

  On the ground, the Jabberwock head says, “Seems I won this one, old bean. It’ll be over soon.”

  The Knight stares into his eyes, whimpering, “No,” as the headless body grabs the Jabberwock head on top, moves it a few inches over…

  The Jabberwock’s jaws clamp onto the side of the Knight’s neck as he screams in terror, but for whatever reason, he cannot move to escape. The Jabberhead suckles thirstily at the Knight’s blood—it flows out the bottom of the Jabberwock’s throat.

  “Ew, Yuck,” the Queen of Hearts says.

  The Knight’s body glows white and vanishes.

  The Horseman’s axe vanishes as well, though the Horseman’s body still holds the sword. The Horseman grabs and lifts up the frowning Jabberwock head. “He was an honorable warrior who shall be missed. Well maybe not the most honorable, but I’ll still miss the old sod.”

  The Cat mutters something about the Knight being a good friend. The brothers are silent.

  The Jabberwock says, “Since my former weapon has gone missing, I’ll be keeping this sword. Does anyone else wish to challenge me?”

  They shake their heads.

  The Queen of Hearts says, “Well, due to the Knight’s incompetence, we failed at this square. Seems we have no choice but to choose one of the side ones. Either Gingerbread or Food.”

  Chapter 32

  Malice realizes that the next square is on the third row, so if she can beat its challenge, she’ll win the game. After Malice turns the key in the door, it vanishes. As they walk through the archway, the view shifts to the Peas “square” for Malice, Tweedledee, Humpty, and the Cat. And this time around, it’s a rather strange sight.

  They see a stack of mattress upon mattress, so many mattresses that they reach twenty feet in the air. Sitting at the foot of the unconventionally stacked bed is a prince-looking guy sitting in a chair, facing it.

  The bed and chair is in a clearing in a field of pea plants, bristling with pods, as far as the eye can see.

  Malice looks up to see that on the top mattress, lies a girl in pajamas.

  The closed archway behind the bed is labeled: Win. The open archway on the left: Puss. The right: Hill.

  Humpty rustles one of the pea pod plants, causing the young man in the chair to look back at him. The guy stands up, holding a six-shooter pistol in his hand.

  Malice and her group, understandably alarmed, ready their branches (the dagger the Hatter had been carrying was nowhere to be found).

  “Oh, sorry,” he says. “This pistol only has one shot, and it’s meant for her.” He points at the girl. He sets the pistol on the chair. “There. I’m the prince. I take it you’re here to solve the square?” He smiles amiably.

  From atop the bed, the girl calls down, “Fresh meat!”

  Malice now notices something about the bed of many mattresses—it seems to be surrounded by a rectangular block of glass, from the ground to a couple feet above the girl’s head. There is even a ceiling of glass above her.

  Malice chooses to ignore the “fresh meat” yelling girl. “Yes, we’re here to solve the square. Are you that girl’s prince?”

  He rolls his eyes. “Yeah, unfortunately. She’s the ‘Princess and the Pea’ Princess. But she really screwed me over. Now I want to kill her.” He shrugs. “Oh, you should probably read the sign.” He points.

  As the group walks over to it, the princess yells at Humpty. “Hey, hot stuff! You look good, boy!”

  Humpty looks up with a puzzled expression, and Malice feels a surge of jealousy at that girl coming on to her Humpty!

  That girl should come down here, and I’ll show her what I think of her words when I slap them out of her mouth! And since my heart isn’t working right now, I wouldn’t hold back, that’s for sure.

  Malice reads the sign: “Solve the princess’s riddle and she’ll give you the key.”

  “Fiddle sticks,” Malice mutters. “You mean we actually have to talk to that loud mouth?”

  “Yoo hoo!” the girl calls down. “You down there! The hot guy and the two dumpy ones…”

  At Malice’s scowl, the princess gives a little chuckle. “That’s right, ugly girl, I’m talking to you! I got your riddle right here!”

  “Do you also have the key?”

  The girl dangles it in her fingers. “Right here. Answer the riddle and I’m bound by the rules of the game to slip it through the bullet hole to you.”

  “Bullet hole?”

  “Yes,” she points to a portion of the glass, “from when that stinky ol’ Princey poo tried to shoot me with one of his magical bullets.”

  Malice focuses and sees that there is indeed a small round hole in the glass, just big enough to slip the key in.

  Malice says, “It’s a shame he missed, but perhaps now I shall have the opportunity to climb up there and wring your neck!”

  “Ha! There’s no way you can reach me, because the magic glass protects me.”

  Malice looks to the prince for confirmation and he nods. She looks back up. “Perhaps I’ll just shoot you, then.”

  The princess laughs. “Best hope you don’t miss. The lummox only has one bullet left.”

  Malice looks at him and he nods and shrugs.

  The princess mocks, “Besides, the only way to solve this square is to solve my riddle, so you can’t harm me if you want to win the game.”

  Malice sighs.

  “Hey stud,” the princess calls down. “What’s your name?”

  “Humpty,” he says politely. He can be such a goody-goody nerd. Scared to hurt peoples’ feelings or be impolite.

  “Leave him alone, he’s mine!” Malice snarls.

  Humpty opens his mouth as if to say something but remains silent—there he goes, being meek again, but now that Hatter is gone, he’s the only cute guy left in my life.

  The princess says, “I think he’d prefer a girl whose face doesn’t resemble a monkey’s butt!”

  Malice shouts, “You’re lucky you’re behind that glass, or I would punch your face in!”

  “Whatever, buttface!” she calls down.

  The prince says, “She’s been a hundred times worse to me. That’s why I ask, if the opportunity comes up to kill her, you let me do so. I deserve to have my revenge for what she did.”

  “That bad, huh?” Malice says.

  “Uh yes, she cheated on me, manipulated and stole, treated me poorly. She’s evil.”

  The princess calls down to Humpty, “Boy, I wish your fine self could come up here and join me!”

  Malice grunts. “I can imagine. But she has a magic glass around her? You can’t reach her?”

  He nods. “Nothing can break the glass, except the bullets of my magic pistol. I tried to shoot her once, and it made the little hole in the glass up there. I missed her though, and I’m afraid to try again, since I only have one more bullet left, and the weapon is really not all that accurate.”

  “Hey, you idiots talking about me? I should tell you the riddle, then you’ll have five minutes to solve it!”

  Malice says, “I’m curious as to why there are so many pea plants about.”

  The prince says, “She is horribly allergic to them, so I planted them all around in the hopes of killing her, but the glass protects her. In fact, it all goes back to how I decided to marry her in the first place.”

  While he is talking, he’s interrupted by the princess saying, “Stupid cat, where’s your body?”

  Malice looks up to see the Cheshire Cat peering through the glass at her. “Lollygagging pajama-wearer!” he shouts.

  The princess screams and starts pounding on the glass as the Cat chuckles.

  The prince says, “As I was saying, when I first met her, I was looking for a wife. Well, my people came up with a test to help me find one. We put a pea under all those mattresses and had girls sleep on them. Well the princess is extremely allergic to peas, and the mere fact that a pea was beneath her made her severely ill and would h
ave have immediately killed her if she hadn’t gotten off. So I proposed to her. Worst decision of my life.”

  The princess says, “To hell with you, furball! I’m gonna tell my riddle!”

  Malice muses, “A pea almost killed her, you say? Just by being under her?” She glances at the area beneath the bed. She considers the magic glass protecting it, an idea running through her head.

  “Here’s the riddle!” the princess shouts. “Listen up! What can run but never walks, has a mouth but never talks, has a head but never weeps, has a bed but never sleeps? Now you’ll have five minutes to try to figure it out. I’ll be counting in my head, so don’t interrupt!”

  “Finally, she’ll shut up,” Malice mutters.

  The group gathers together in a discussion huddle. Even the prince joins in.

  They think and talk the whole five minutes, but no one can come up with a decent answer.

  “Time’s up!” the princess calls down. “Do you have the answer?”

  Malice chooses the group’s least-bad answer. “A penguin?”

  “Ha ha, sorry, you lose, dimwits. The answer was ‘a river’. No key for you. Now you’ll have to select one of the side squares.”

  Malice stares at her with intense hatred.

  “You got something to say?” the princess says. “You stupid prat?”

  Malice nods slowly while walking to the chair. She picks up the pistol.

  “What?” says the prince. “Don’t waste my bullet! Your aim isn’t good enough!”

  Malice says, “Boys, make sure he doesn’t interfere. Use your sticks.”

  Tweedledee and Humpty raise their branches threateningly, holding the prince off.

  The princess says, “You’re even dumber than you look. You’re no sharpshooter. You can’t hit me from down there.”

  Calmly, Malice says, “I don’t have to.” She kneels, aims at a portion of the glass at a level below the bottom mattress and fires.

  The prince shouts in alarm, “Aww, dash it all! You just wasted my last bullet!”

  The princess calls down, “What are you doing?” with a tinge of concern in her voice.

  Malice smiles up at her in a friendly manner. “I just needed a hole. And look, there’s two now, actually—an exit and an entrance hole.”

  The princess is no longer smiling. “What are you going to do?”

  Malice meanders a short distance away to one of the pea plants. “I hear you’re allergic to peas!” She smiles amiably.

  A frightened look on the princess’s face. “No, wait.”

  The prince shouts, “No! Please, you’ve got to let me do it! I’ve waited so long!” He tries to step forward, but Tweedledee pushes him back threateningly.

  Malice pulls open a pea pod and presses five peas into her hand.

  The princess says, “Okay, I was rude. I fully admit that, and I’m sorry.”

  “Too late,” Malice says.

  And the prince says, “Please let me do it. She’s hurt me so much more than you.”

  Malice says, “I’m a bit heartless right now, so I really don’t care. I shall have my revenge.” She kneels in front of the glass.

  “Oh come on!” the princess says desperately. “You can’t kill me over a few insults! They’re just words. How shall that sit with your conscience?”

  Malice shrugs. “I’m sure once my heart starts working, I’ll feel horribly guilty. But now, I’m curious…” She holds a pea between her thumb and finger. “Can one little pea under all those mattresses really cause so much harm?” She moves the pea toward the hole in the glass, relishing the anticipation.

  “Please!” shouts the princess. She’s crying now, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Have mercy! I’m so sorry!”

  “Then give me the key.”

  “I can’t! I’m bound by the Rules of Story!”

  Behind and to the left of her, Malice hears a loud thunk followed by the prince shouting in pain, then the sound of rustling.

  She looks back to see Tweedledee twirling—the prince is wrapped around Tweedledee’s torso, latched on with both arms and legs and he’s biting Tweedledee’s neck.

  Malice grunts in annoyance. “Dammit, Tweedle!” She puts the peas down and walks over.

  Tweedledee weakens, and is barely able to stand—his hands drop limply to his sides and the branch drops from his hand—their roles are reversed as now the prince stands, supporting his victim’s weight.

  Humpty smacks the prince hard in the back of the head, but it doesn’t dislodge his bite.

  Malice picks up the branch.

  All the struggle goes out of Tweedledee, his body glows white, disappears—and the prince is left hugging and kissing empty air, his eyes closed, now providing Malice a clear shot and she screams while shouting and swings the branch as hard as she can into the prince’s face—sending blood spattering from his nose and cracking the branch slightly. Moments later, Humpty slams his branch into the side of the prince’s head.

  The two strike him over and over in the head as the Cat shouts his encouragement.

  The prince falls to the ground, whimpering while weakly covering his bloody head. The branches are covered in blood as well, as they each take a turn striking the prince in the head and his hands covering his head.

  The prince glows and disappears.

  Chapter 33

  Malice and Humpty are catching their breaths.

  “Yeah!” yells the Cat. “That’s what he gets for killing my friend.”

  “Dammit!” Malice curses. “Another one of my teammates gone. I should’ve killed that prince in the beginning. None of these stupid fairy tales are to be trusted. I hate these blasted fairy tales!”

  Humpty is unable to speak. He has a horrified expression on his face. He looks down at the branch in his hand, dripping with blood. He lets out a little whimper, and tosses it to the ground.

  Malice raises her stick to show him—it’s bent 3/4 of the way up. “Ha, mine almost broke, beating his ass.”

  “It’s— It’s not funny,” Humpty says.

  “Posh,” Malice says. “I’ll bet the Cat thought it was funny, didn’t you, Cat?”

  “Well, yes, I appreciated the gory brutality of it, but I’m sorry Tweedledee had to die to bring about the brutality.”

  Malice looks at both of the sourpusses. “I say, you two are a couple of sticks in the mud, or is it blood?” She waves her dripping branch.

  They just look at her, and she mocks their scowly expressions with an exaggerated one of her own. “Oh, boo hoo. But now I can get back to serving peas to the princess.”

  Up above, upon the bed, the princess yelps in alarm.

  “You don’t have to do this,” Humpty says quietly. “We’ve lost this square. Let’s just move on.”

  “What? Tweedledee is dead, and you want me to just ‘move on’?”

  Humpty says, “It wasn’t really her fault.”

  “Jeez, Humpty, do you always have to be such a sap? I don’t know why I’m so fond of you, but I am. And she came onto you, but she and the world needs to know that you are mine, my very own, nerdy, sweet Humpty. And I’m about to show you how much I care about you…by killing someone who would love to take you from me.”

  “Please?!” the princess shouts. “I’m so sorry! I realize now! He’s yours, you’re right!”

  “Oh shut up, tramp!” Malice shouts. “It’s too late for you!”

  The princess begins audibly sobbing.

  Humpty says, “I’m asking you not to do this. Please, if you care about me as much as you say you do.”

  “Not bloody likely!” Malice says, cackles. “You’re my boy toy, my property, not the other way around, and I can’t have any trollop walking around bragging she’ll have you. Cat, what do you think?”

  The Cat is grinning again, in that way of his, with a twinkle in his eye. “I say she was asking for it, so give her what she deserves.”

  “See, the Cat agrees,” Malice says. She walks back to the hole in the g
lass.

  “Please!” the princess calls. “It shall be so painful! I beg for your mercy!”

  Malice ignores her as she carefully picks the peas back up from the ground.

  Behind her, Humpty says, “Malice, please, turn your heart back on. This is not the right way. It’s not like you.”

  Malice mutters, while picking up the third pea, “You’re such a wuss, but I guess that’s the reason my ticktock hearted self liked you so much.” She sets the fourth pea in her palm. “Request denied.”

  The princess is sobbing, screams out, “Please!”

  Humpty says, “As a favor to me, please turn on your heart.”

  Malice sets the fifth pea in her palm. “I said, request denied. Sheesh. I’m starting to wonder what my formerly-hearted self saw in you, but the heart wants what it wants, and I still adore you, though my heart isn’t working, but you know what I mean.” She picks up a pea in her thumb and finger, lifting it to just outside the hole in the glass.

  “Please don’t do this!” the princess cries. “Do you really want to inflict so much pain, to be so cruel?”

  “I implore you, for my sake,” Humpty says.

  “Poppycock,” Malice says. “After all, she’s just a fairy tale.” She presses the pea through the bullet hole in the glass. It drops and rolls a couple of inches under the bed.

  Atop the stack of mattresses, the princess writhes and screams in agony. “Ow, it hurts! Please!” She begins scratching furiously.

  Malice looks over at Humpty who’s watching on with a horrified expression.

  The Cat on the other hand rises up to the top of the bed and watches the princess. “She’s turning red!” he says gleefully.

  Malice meets Humpty’s eyes and shrugs. “Too late now.” She slips another pea into the hole.

  The princess shrieks and writhes. Her face is turning red, as if bubbling from an allergic reaction. She’s scratching viciously at her face.

  The Cat mocks, “That’s what you get for upsetting My Queen.”

  “Aww,” Malice says.

  Humpty turns away and covers his ears.

  “Such a wimp,” Malice mutters. “But that’s why my hearted self loved you so much, I suppose.”