Liz in his arms.
But he was wrong.
Cowboy still stood on the grate. Liz was falling. He was bringing up his knife as something swept down at him.
A man. A naked burly man with a hairy back and a bald head. Swinging down headfirst like a live pendulum from the trapdoor in the ceiling. Ropes around his ankles. A meat cleaver in each hand.
He yelled, “Wheeeee!” as he flew toward Cowboy.
Cowboy hopped backward. The cleavers flashed, trying for Liz. But she was flat on the floor. The blades chopped the air above her, missing by inches. The man began his upward arc, going for Cowboy with the cleavers.
Cowboy lunged at him and leapt backward again. The body jerked, twisted on its ropes like a swing knocked crooked, and crashed against the wall. One of the cleavers sank into the wall. The other dropped to the floor.
Cowboy snatched that one up as the man swung downward. Swung over Liz, showering her. Swung toward Jeremy and Shiner, spinning. The handle of Cowboy’s knife jutted from his throat. He spouted blood and urine.
Cowboy jumped over Liz and threw himself against the man. Slammed him against the wall. Went at him with the cleaver. Shiner twisted her head away as Cowboy hacked him. The blow split him down the middle. Intestines slopped out like coils of wet snakes.
Jeremy doubled over, retching.
His vomit cascaded onto the grate at his feet.
Someone below him gasped, “Ugh!”
When he finished and straightened up, Cowboy was helping Liz to her feet. The body hung in the middle of the hallway, swaying and turning. Jeremy didn’t let himself focus on it. Instead, he watched Cowboy and Liz step past it.
Cowboy had a cleaver in one hand, his knife in the other. Liz held the second cleaver.
As she stepped past the body, she gave it a whack in the chest. The blow severed a small section of hanging guts, which fell past the man’s face and hit the floor with a soft wet smack.
Jeremy gagged and covered his mouth. This time, he didn’t throw up.
Cowboy grinned. His eyes and teeth were white. The rest of him was red. He looked as if a tub of gore had been dumped over his head. Jeremy could smell it. “Weak stomach, Duke?”
“You sure creamed him.”
“Massacred the son of a whore, huh? No quarter.”
“Thought you were goners,” Samson said.
“Are you both all right?” Tanya asked. Her voice came from close behind Jeremy.
“I reckon I could use a bath,” Cowboy said.
Liz laughed and slapped his chest. Blood flew off his shirt like red dust.
“Okay,” Tanya said. “Let’s keep going. Everybody look sharp. God knows what we’re gonna run into next.”
They started to walk. Jeremy stepped on gratings without any hesitation. They all stepped on the grates. As if the weird attack and Cowboy’s slaughter of the swinging man had numbed them to such matters as trolls lurking below their feet.
They watched the ceiling. They watched the walls.
They came to the end of the hall.
On the right was a closed door. On the left was a dark opening.
Tanya pulled a candle from its holder, knelt in front of the opening, and leaned forward. The candle and her head vanished for a moment. Then she stood up. “I don’t know,” she said.
“What is it?”
“A slide.”
“A slide?” Samson asked.
“This is a fucking funhouse,” Liz reminded him.
“Where does it go?”
“It goes down,” Tanya said. “I couldn’t see much of it. But it should take us down to the ground floor.”
“Yeah,” Samson said. “And whatever’s waiting for us there.”
“Better than being up here.”
“Why don’t we try that door?” Shiner asked.
“Good thought,” Liz said. “You try it,”
“No, don’t,” Jeremy warned.
“I’ll try the slide,” Tanya said.
“Don’t,” Jeremy told her.
“What’re we supposed to do, stay here? Let me borrow that chopper of yours, Cowboy.”
He held it out. Samson took it from him. “I’ll go down first,” he said. “You guys wait up here till you hear from me.”
Tanya kissed his mouth.
Jeremy expected to feel a pang of jealousy, but he didn’t. The guy deserves a kiss, he thought. Better him than me.
“Good man,” Tanya said. “This is one I owe you.”
He made a sick-looking smile. Turning away, he sat on the floor. He scooted into the opening. Tanya gave him the candle. “It’ll probably blow out anyway,” he said, but he kept it. He clutched the cleaver against his chest, hunched forward, and dropped out of sight.
Tanya knelt and peered in after him.
“Get ready to go fast,” she said. “He’ll need us.”
Suddenly a shriek welled out