Don't Bet On It

by J. L. Salter

  "O-o-ow! Stop yelling! My head's about to explode." Closer. Man's voice. Could be good news… or bad.

  "Well, you'd better show yourself. And get some light over here." Take charge, Kristen.

  "I don't know where the stinkin' lights are. And stop yelling." Closer… I could almost smell him.

  "Don't you have a lighter or something? I thought all guys carried lighters."

  He groaned a bit more. "Only the ones that smoke."

  "Terrific. The one non-smoker in Verdeville has finally arrived to let me out."

  "Out of what? Where are you? Ow! Crud! What is this?" He'd finally found the left side of my cage.

  "I'm in the fund-raiser jail. Quit stalling and get me out. I need a restroom. Come around to the front and watch out for the…"

  "Ow! Splinters!"

  "…splinters."

  "Thanks for the warning." He sighed so heavily I could smell his breath. He'd drunk the punch too.

  "Come around and let me out."

  "Where's the door?"

  "Just follow the splinters and turn to your, uh, right when you run out of bars."

  With a few stumbles, another splinter, and some uncreative curses, the mystery man finally reached the door. "Okay. I'm here."

  I already knew that because I smelled his breath again as he panted from the exertion. "Can you un-do this latch thingy?"

  "Where is it?"

  I realized he couldn't see my hand pointing directly at the latch. "I'm holding it. My arm's through the bars and I've got the thingy in my hand." I realized that could sound, um, unusual if overheard by anybody. I heard his hands roam over the outside of the cage door. He was too high. I sighed heavily and gave back a whiff of punch-breath.

  Suddenly his fingertips touched my forearm. He yelped and recoiled.

  It startled me too, but I wasn't going to act like a sissy. "That's nearly my elbow. Go the other way about a foot or so and my hand's on the latch dealie."

  "Okay. It threw me a bit to touch flesh. My fingers expected wood." Yeah, mine too.

  This stranger was tall — I could tell from the source of his breath, which surely needed a mint. His hands gently explored my forearm to re-establish the location of my elbow. Then he walked his fingers the other direction, toward my hand and the latch. If he intended to grope me like this, he owed me dinner. Large hands and long fingers. Short nails. Some calluses on his fingers and the pads of his palm, but not like a lumberjack. Just a man who knew how to work with his hands but probably didn't rely on those skills for his paycheck.

  "Will you get on to the latch?" I truly needed a restroom. I would have been hopping by then if I weren't worried about that spider web above.

  "Well, let go of it and give me a chance at the mechanism." A slight bit of spittle when he sighed again. Not sure I wanted to share spit from a tall stranger in the dark. "Okay, I have it in my hands, but I don't understand how it goes."

  I thought men could undo anything except left-handed buttons. "It felt like a doo-hicky that latches the overhead door on a rental van or something."

  "Oh!" The light came on — in his head, that is. "One of those. Okay. No sweat." Two smooth movements and it was open. Of course, it took two hands like I said before. Humph.

  I reached down for my shoes, quickly found them, and then pushed on the door, apparently before he'd moved away. It caught him somewhere on his trunk.

  "Ooof!"

  "Sorry. Like I said, I need a powder room."

  He made noise backing up. "Okay, take off… for wherever."

  "Where are you going to be?" Didn't want a strange man lurking in the dark.

  "On your tail or as close as I can, without tripping."

  "I don't want a stranger following me."

  "I need to use that same facility."

  There wasn't much I could do about that. "Whatever. Well, the door ought to be way over there where that exit sign is." It was the kind with three or four small bulbs normally, but that particular one had only one dim lamp glowing. The signs over the other doors must have burned out completely. They didn't spend much on maintenance in abandoned armories.

  "Oh, yeah. Switch by the exit door. Makes sense."

  So the tall man also had some cognitive powers. Wonder what he looks like? "Do you remember what's between us and that door?"

  "Nope. Never been here before. I'm new in town. Plus, I don't know what part of this place we're at right now." His feet made a shuffling sound as he changed the subject. "So how come nobody let you out of that cage?"

  "Karla was supposed to call my brother, but I guess Eric couldn't be bothered to drive over here from Marrowbone. I can't believe Ellen didn't double-check with Karla and both left me locked in that dark cage!"

  "Who's Ellen?"

  "Used to be my best friend. But now, she's made the top of my hit list." I'd moved forward a few careful paces as we talked. "So what are you doing here, if you've never been in the armory before?"

  Another heavy sigh, from slightly farther behind me. "Long story." His lengthy story also sounded like it might be sad.

  I focused on the dim, distant exit light and the restroom not far beyond it. "Yeah, well, I'd like to hear it sometime. But for now, we need to speed up before I bust open a bladder gasket." I held one shoe in each hand as I stretched my arms forward. I remembered a dunking booth against one wall and a huge overhead door nearby. Several small booths around the perimeter. A large inflatable castle dominated the middle of the space.

  Whap. The shoe in my right hand grazed something. My fingers felt coarse rubberized fabric. "Found the castle. I think the area right around this is clear, unless somebody stacked something on the floor. We'll bear left to reach the corner." I sped up a bit, figuring we had a good forty feet after turning the corner of the inflatable.

  Suddenly his hand touched the side of my neck and gripped my shoulder! "What the…"

  "Sorry. I'm a little dizzy and my head's pounding. Just had to steady myself a bit."

  "Well go steady with that castle wall. I don't want strangers groping me in the dark." Actually his touch made my heart beat faster, but the extra adrenaline didn't help my bladder any.

  He'd pulled his hand away quickly. "Good grief. You act like I grabbed something."

  "You did. My neck and shoulder."

  "I meant something else."

  Hmm. Interesting conversation. But I'd need to see his eyes before I let him anywhere near my else… or my others. "Look, buddy, I appreciate you opening that latch thing, but you don't go grabbing women in the dark." Actually, that's precisely when most men do grab women.

  He didn't respond.

  When my hand ran out of castle wall, I knew it was time to turn right and head toward the distant door. I focused on the incredibly dim exit lamp, slightly nearer with each tentative step.

  My left foot struck something which my outstretched hands didn't detect. Must be low. Checked it out. "Uh, there's something like a big trash can here, right in front of me."

  "Where? Ow!" He found it.

  What a baby. I'm the one with no shoes. But I was ruining the feet of my patterned black hose — another seven bucks down the drain. Sheesh. We were probably within thirty feet of the door now, and I struggled to remember where the registration tables were. Slowed down and reached lower. There. "Table here. Just to the right of me. We'll scoot along the edge of this and ought to be right at the door."

  "Well, hurry. If you know what I mean."

  I knew. My eyeballs were sloshing. Both leather pumps in my outstretched hands reached the cinderblock wall at about the same time with loud clacks. Don't know why I did this — reflexive, I suppose — but I clutched both shoes in one hand and tugged up my bustier with the other. Modesty? Vanity? Then I groped for the light switch.

  He did too, around to my left. "Okay, I'm in the doorway. Where's the light?"

  "Can't be far. One side or the other." I felt his hands on my left arm as we both groped blindly for the switch.


  "Oh. Sorry."

  "Okay. No sweat." I lied. His touch was electric. I wanted to think about it some more, but my kidneys had short-circuited my brain. "Switches are about chest high on me. It's got to be here somewhere."

  I heard one of his hands whap against the wall as the fingers of his other hand grazed my bustier. Yep, that's chest high. "Hey, buddy!" As I spoke I found the switch and flipped it vigorously. It was just for the entryway. The rest of that huge space would have a whole bank of switches, probably not far away. The bright light immediately overhead made both of us shut our eyes reflexively.

  His must have opened first. "Uh, you're a witch!" He gasped as though that notion actually frightened him.

  When I opened my eyes, he was staring at the goose-pimples among the décolletage created by my bustier. "Well, you're…" It took me a second to identify someone in a brightly striped shirt, breeches with a sash, a dagger — hopefully not real — tucked in his waistband, and a disheveled headscarf. Plus, a black eye patch dangled from his left ear by a strand of cheap elastic. "…you're a pirate!"

  "Aarrgghh." He dashed away toward the nearest buccaneer's room.