Suckers - J.A. Konrath

Andrew
"Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Hee hee! Ow!" I said, as the ladies clawed and bit into my
arms, legs, torso, and an extremely ticklish spot under my right knee.
"Zesty, tangy blood..."
You wouldn't expect chained-up elderly women to be so freakin' strong. For the first few
moments I wasn't fighting back as hard as I could, simply because it still felt like I was engaged
in combat with my grandma, but once the biting and clawing started to really hurt I punched and
kicked with no regard to brittle bones or fragile dentures.
I couldn't get away. I kept straining to get out of chain-range so I could at least cower in a
corner, but there was simply no escape from these women. They'd been slurping steroid-laden
blood or something.
They were in no hurry to kill me. Though I tried to protect my throat, it was unnecessary—
they obviously planned to eat me alive, one tiny bite at a time.
I was definitely bleeding in several different places.
"Foamy, frothy blood..."
Was my blood really foamy and frothy? Or had they just run out of good adjectives?
I couldn't believe that I was going to die from being slowly eaten alive by chained-up elderly
ladies who thought they were vampires. I'd always kind of figured that I would go peacefully in
my sleep, after my wife dropped an anvil on my head.
One of the ladies bit my arm hard. This one actually took some flesh with it. I screamed.
(Not that I hadn't been screaming before, but I screamed a little louder at that one.)
They both stopped biting me at the sound of the shotgun.
The three of us listened.
Chaos outside.
Hopefully it was good chaos. Maybe the cops had burst in to save the day. They'd blow
away Vlad and his goons, and—oops, sorry, we bad—accidentally shoot down McGlade in the
crossfire. He'd lay on the floor, blood seeping from the hundred and seventy-eight bullet holes in
his chest, wondering why he'd been such a loathsome prick.
I could imagine his eulogy: "Fucker's dead. Throw some dirt on him. Let's go play some
poker."
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