A Little More Dead

by Jordaina Sydney Robinson

  “The situation of you trying to kill us,” Sabrina said.

  “You tried to kill me!” Alex cried but it came out more like a hiss.

  “I’m sorry. You just had your hands around my neck,” I said, rubbing where his fingers had gripped me. “How is that me trying to kill you? What was I going to do? Break your arms with my neck?”

  “You hit me!” Alex cried.

  “To wake you up. You were lying on the floor when we found you.” I jabbed my finger to the place where he’d been laying for extra effect.

  “I told you we should’ve just left him,” Sabrina said, disapproval heavy in her voice. “Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”

  Alex’s attention jumped between Sabrina and me. He looked at the stun gun in her hands, then to my neck, which I was pretty sure was starting to bruise. He’d grabbed me really hard. His head swivelled from side to side as he looked along the privet avenue.

  “You didn’t knock me out?” Alex sounded a lot more uncertain.

  “Okay, Alex, think about this for a moment.” Sabrina lowered the stun gun to her side but didn’t put it away. “First, why would we try and kill you? What would our motive be? Or why would we knock you out and wait for you to come back around?”

  “I just …” Alex’s voice came out as a whisper and trailed off into nothing. He stared at the floor. “I’m so sorry, Bridget. I just thought …”

  “These things happen,” I said, waving him off. I felt oddly glad Alex had been homicidally mistaken and not just plain old homicidal.

  “What is wrong with you?” Sabrina exclaimed, wafting a hand in his direction. “He tried to strangle you.”

  “And you’ve never accidentally stunned anyone,” I retorted.

  “I haven’t. I have, on occasion, probably stunned some people who didn’t necessarily deserve to be stunned but that’s totally different.” Sabrina turned back to Alex. “So what happened?”

  “I don’t know. Those two women dragged me off, then I bumped into Anna, who was monitoring one of the corners. She made a comment about me being released from Mendall and the two women scurried off.”

  “Anna’s inside the maze?” I asked.

  “Don’t you listen?” Alex asked.

  “Obviously not enough,” I said.

  “Anna, Burt, Dr Mendall, Eleanor. They’re all stationed at different points inside the maze in case anyone gets lost,” Alex explained.

  “It’s a maze. Isn’t that kind of the point?” Sabrina asked. “So, you’ve just been wandering around on your own?”

  “Yeah, I was trying to find the centre and then I think someone must have hit me over the back of the head because the next thing I know Bridget’s standing over me, slapping me, and my head’s throbbing.”

  “You didn’t see who hit you?” Sabrina asked and Alex shook his head ever so slightly as if the movement hurt. “Huh. Convenient.”

  “Okay,” I interrupted before Sabrina accused him of faking again. Or hitting himself over the head. “Let’s say Alex hasn’t returned to his murdering ways and someone did attack him, who is that someone? And why would they do that? What would they get from knocking him out but not killing him?”

  “Maybe whoever it is knows Alex is helping us,” Sabrina suggested. “Jason, Gary and Timothy all worked at Mendall, Alex is a patient there. Maybe this is nothing to do with Lily’s murder, after all, and all about the asylum. Maybe it is something to do with your drug baron theory.”

  “The drug baron was an example, not a theory, and will you please stop flipping back and forth with your assumptions?” I asked.

  “But I haven’t found one that fits yet,” Sabrina said. “You’re a patient there, Alex. Is there something hinky going on?”

  Alex shook his head. “For the second time, not that I know of.”

  “Okay, let’s discuss as we move,” Sabrina said and motioned Alex to walk ahead of us. “And less of the attitude.”

  He hesitated, as if he didn’t trust having us at his back. I could understand, but there was no way I was having him at my back. He seemed to weigh the situation and come to that conclusion himself.

  “Which way?” he asked and Sabrina pointed in the direction we’d been heading when we came across him. He nodded and walked slowly in that direction.

  “Maybe Burt or Mendall, or both, were trying to frame Alex to cover something up,” I offered. “Since everyone else works there it could look like Alex maybe had a vendetta against them. Alex already has a history of almost homicidal violence, so he’d be a good scapegoat.”

  “But then why would they knock me out?” Alex asked.

  “Maybe they were going to hide you until they’d killed someone else and then plant the evidence on you or in your room. Go left,” Sabrina said as we came to a T-junction.

  “I think it’s this way,” Alex said, pointing to the sky. “We need to head northeast to the centre.”

  Sabrina hesitated and I clearly heard the suspicion in her silence. “I think we should go left.”

  Alex turned back around to face us. “I was in the navy. I know how to navigate from the sky.”

  “Is that something they teach in the navy?” I asked. It wasn’t so much suspicion as genuine interest. “I thought they used precision instruments.”

  “It’s still daytime,” Sabrina said, pointing at the setting sun.

  “I can see the stars,” Alex countered, pointing to the faint twinkles in the rapidly darkening sky.

  “Why don’t you want to go left?” Sabrina asked.

  “Why don’t you want to go right?” Alex asked.

  “Because I want to go left.”

  I stepped in between them before they resorted to name calling and slap fighting. “How about we—”

  “Split up?” Alex asked. “That doesn’t seem like the smartest idea.”

  “Actually, I was going to say flip a coin.” I checked my pockets for loose change despite knowing I’d not actually handled any money in well over a month. “But since we don’t have money how about a round of rock, paper, scissors?”

  Sabrina won the best of five games so we turned left. I was pretty sure she’d cheated but I couldn’t see how. Alex stopped just after rounding the corner, causing Sabrina and me to walk into him. We peered around either side of him to see what was happening.

  Ginger Curls, one of the guys who’d given us some information at the lunchtime GA meeting, was lying on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. And Anna was standing over him. Holding what looked like a tyre iron. Blood dripping from one end.

  She held up her hands in surrender and stepped back from the body, tyre iron still in hand. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

  “Really?” Sabrina pointed to the tyre iron Anna was still clinging to. “Because right now it looks like you beat him to death.”

  “I found him like this,” Anna screeched, her hands visibly shaking as she held them in the air, blood dripping from the tyre iron with the movement.

  Alex turned and jabbed an accusatory finger in Sabrina’s direction as he backed up to put some space in between us. “You wanted to go this way!”

  “You didn’t want to go this way,” Sabrina countered calmly. “Why was that, Alex? Didn’t want us to run into yet another person you’d killed? Were you luring us away? Drawing us into a false sense of security so we’d let our guard down and you could try to kill us again?”

  “I didn’t try to kill you before!” Alex cried.

  “The fact you had your hands wrapped pretty tightly around Bridget’s neck would imply the opposite,” Sabrina snapped.

  “Oh my god! You tried to kill Bridget?” screeched Anna, pointing the tyre iron at Alex.

  “I wasn’t trying to kill her,” Alex cried as his head swished side to side like a windscreen wiper as he tried to divide his attention between all three of us.

  “I could’ve lost my job! At the least they’d have put me on probation if she’d died on my watch.” Anna pressed the hand
not holding the murder weapon to her head as if she were dizzy from panic.

  “Well, I guess it’s good to know she’s got her priorities straight,” I said to Sabrina. How no one was hearing her screeching and coming a-running was beyond me. The privet didn’t absorb sound that well.

  “I’m pretty sure you’ll lose more than your job when the police find out you killed Ginger Curls,” Sabrina pointed out.

  “I didn’t kill him.” Anna’s attention jumped around to each of us, clearly looking for someone to blame. She waggled the bloody tyre iron in Alex’s direction. “Alex did it. Alex killed him.”

  “What?” Alex jerked back. “I killed him? You’re holding the murder weapon!”

  “I picked it up after you dropped it,” Anna said, finding her stride in the blame game.

  “I didn’t kill him,” Alex stressed again. “Why would I kill him? I have no motive.”

  Anna pointed the tyre iron at Alex much more calmly now she had someone to blame. “And that’s exactly what the murderer would say.”

  “I didn’t kill him!” Alex held his hands up and turned from Anna to me and Sabrina. “Bridget, you believe me, right?”

  “No offence, Alex, but I didn’t suspect you the first time you tried to kill me. Fool me once an’ all,” I said with a shrug. “And you did just try to strangle me.”

  “I thought we’d gotten past that,” he said quietly and his shoulders drooped in what looked like disappointment. “I didn’t kill him.”

  “Er,” I said, holding up a finger to halt any sort of guilt tripping from him, “do you remember me telling you I didn’t kill Bertha?”

  Sabrina snapped her fingers and pointed to me. “Touché.”

  “Come on, Alex, you do have to admit it was convenient that you didn’t see who attacked you and that they left you alive when they killed everyone else,” I said. “See it from our perspective. I’m not saying that you did it but …”

  Alex nodded slowly as he worked that through. And then he frowned. “How do I know it wasn’t you two who knocked me out and you were trying to finish the job when I came to?”

  “You don’t,” Sabrina said simply.

  “Oh, that’s reassuring.” I pursed my lips at Sabrina when she didn’t add any sort of denial after the statement.

  “And it easily could’ve been Anna,” Sabrina said, gesturing to Anna.

  Anna shook her head. “But it wasn’t.”

  “How do we know that?” Alex asked.

  “Okay, this is getting us nowhere,” I said. “We can accuse each other all day long. It’s not going to solve anything. Let’s get to the centre of the maze and call for help.”

  “You want to finish the maze first?” Anna asked, her voice inching even higher in disbelief.

  I shook my head. “Not really but Eleanor’s put a block on the maze so nobody can cheat by tunnelling to the centre or misting through the hedges. We either have to find our way back to the beginning or to the centre so we can call for help. Don’t you listen?” I tutted.

  “What are we going to do with him?” Alex asked, pointing to Ginger Curls.

  “Take off his shoes,” Sabrina directed Anna.

  Anna stepped back and stared at Ginger Curls’ shoes as if they were going to bite her. “Why?”

  “I need the shoelaces,” Sabrina said, handing me her stun gun.

  “You’re robbing a dead man?” Alex asked, shock stretching his brown eyes wide.

  “Are you going to do what I think you’re going to do?” I asked Sabrina as we sidestepped toward Ginger Curls, keeping both Anna and Alex in front of us.

  “Look, we have no way of telling if he’s really dead and I don’t particularly want to leave him free to get back up and kill us,” Sabrina said as she bent over him to examine his head wound.

  “What about if you just stun him?” I asked.

  Sabrina looked up at me. “That is a good idea. He wouldn’t be able to fake being dead through that.”

  “You two are sick in the head,” Anna said, her mouth twisting in disgust.

  “As opposed to being sick in the foot?” I asked and turned to Sabrina. “How is she better adjusted than me?”

  “I’m not going to stun a dead man,” Anna snapped.

  “That doesn’t make you well adjusted, hon,” Sabrina said over her shoulder. “It makes you foolish. Unless we stun him we won’t know if he’s really dead,” Sabrina explained with more patience than I would have.

  “Why would he be faking being dead?” Anna asked.

  “Don’t waste your time,” I said to Sabrina before she could explain. “Let’s just stun him and find out if he’s the killer or the killee.”

  “Okay.” Sabrina stepped back and gestured to Ginger Curls.

  “Whoa, why do I have to do it?” I asked, offering her the stun gun back.

  “Because you’re already holding it and it was your idea,” Sabrina said, taking another step back.

  I looked from Sabrina to Ginger Curls and then back again. If he was dead he wouldn’t feel it and if he was faking dead then he deserved to be stunned, even if he wasn’t the killer because faking dead was just not a cool thing to do.

  I sighed heavily. “Fine, what do I press?”

  Sabrina pointed to the trigger. I aimed and pressed it. Two little darts flew from the stun gun and hit Ginger Curls in the side. He twitched. We all jumped back. Laughter floated on the air somewhere close by. And then the Alibie duo walked around the corner. It took them several seconds to take in the whole scene and then, somewhat predictably, they both screamed, turned and fled.

  “So, I think he might be genuinely doubly dead,” I said to Sabrina, totally ignoring the whole Alibie interlude.

  “I agree.” Sabrina took the stun gun from me and popped in a new cartridge. She turned to Alex and Anna, who were both staring at us in varying degrees of horror. “Okay, shall we go?”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you two crazy people,” Anna said, backing away into the privet.

  “You either come with us or I’ll hog-tie you and leave you here,” Sabrina said with a simplicity that made me smile. “What is it going to be?”

  “I’m coming with you,” Alex said.

  “Great. Anna?” Sabrina asked.

  “Just keep your distance from me,” Anna brandished the tyre iron in our direction and then at Alex. “All of you.”

  “Oh, Anna, I’ve been trying,” I said and gestured for them to go first, following in the direction Alibie had taken off in.

  “So, explain his death to me,” Sabrina whispered as we followed Anna and Alex along the privet avenues.

  I shook my head. “I can’t. Maybe he saw whoever hit Alex?”

  “Okay, that would make sense as to why they left Alex alive,” Sabrina agreed. “Especially if they heard us coming. They had to deal with Ginger Curls first and then thought they could deal with Alex later. Alex was unconscious. He hadn’t seen them attack him. He wasn’t as imminent a threat to the killer’s exposure as Ginger Curls. But then that implies that Alex knows something for them to try and kill him in the first place.”

  “So who’s the killer?”

  “Katie, maybe. Maybe Burt. Maybe Mendall. Maybe Anna. Maybe one or both or all of them,” Sabrina said, nodding at the arguing pair ahead of us. Both of whom kept checking over their shoulders at us.

  “Er,” Alex said as we rounded the corner and happened upon Ginger Curls’ body for the second time.

  “I hate mazes,” I mumbled.

  “You brought us back here on purpose!” snapped Anna, shaking the tyre iron at me. “You’re such a maladjust!”

  “Wow,” said a familiar voice from behind me. “This looks tense.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “What are you doing here?” Sabrina asked Warren.

  “Um, Eleanor tunnelled me here same as you so we could find our way to the centre of the maze.” Warren peered around Sabrina and saw Ginger Curls lying on the floor. “Oh my god! Who di
d you kill now?” Warren cried and stumbled back.

  “Why do you always think it’s me?” I asked. “I’m not even the one holding the bloody tyre iron.”

  “Well, I didn’t kill him!” Anna snapped.

  “So who did?” Warren asked, checking over his shoulder and moving away from the corner to put his back against the privet hedge.

  “We don’t know,” Sabrina said, turning her body to watch both Warren and Alex and Anna at the same time. “Don’t suppose you have any ideas?”

  “Wasn’t me,” Warren said with a shrug.

  I nodded. “Great. Thanks for that in-depth input, Warren. Helpful as always.”

  “Hey.” Sabrina gestured around herself and then gestured to the rest of us. I assumed she was asking if we had death shrouds or shadows or something else ominous.

  Warren took a moment to scan around the group. “Full house.”

  “Whose house is full?” asked Anna.

  “Think I’ll be on my way,” Warren said, edging back around the corner.

  “Warren, I don’t think you should be wandering around alone …” I let the sentence trail off since Warren had already disappeared around the corner. “So what are we going to do now?”

  “We can’t tunnel. We can’t mist.” Sabrina turned in circle evaluating the hedges. “Anna? Eleanor’s usually pretty thorough. Didn’t she give you any instructions on what to do in an emergency?”

  “Quite clearly she isn’t that thorough since she didn’t,” Anna self with a self-important toss of her head. I very much got the impression she was making a mental note to highlight this to Eleanor when we finally escaped.

  “We could shout really loudly for help,” I suggested. “Maybe that would draw enough attention to us.”

  “And possibly the killer,” Sabrina pointed out. “Which in most situations would be ideal, except—”

  “Heeeeeeeeeeeeeelp!” a voice yelled.

  Sabrina turned to me. “Was that—”

  “Warren?” I yelled and was rewarded with an answering call.

  “Briiiiiiiiidget!”

  We didn’t even need to discuss it. Sabrina and I barrelled back along the privet corridor turning left then right then left, blindly trying to follow Warren’s voice.