“What’s wrong with you, Sarge?” the bouncer demanded, brandishing the weapon. “You finally gone crazy, or forgot how to knock?”
Harold wasn’t sure how to answer the man, so he said nothing. Okay, he was inside, but now what? The giant couldn’t think. His thoughts were muddled and confused. Looking about hopefully, he saw a group of men drinking at tables in the next room. The walls were covered with mirrors, and a pretty girl with garish makeup stood behind the makeshift counter, polishing a plastic tumbler, her red satin dress skintight, her bound breasts nearly spilling out for display.
“Mebbe he’s been smoking wolfweed!” called out a drunken tailor, who immediately regretted the words as the hunchback stared at him directly with eyes filled with death.
“You’re going to have to replace that door!” the bouncer stated.
“No,” he rumbled. “Where Laura?”
“She’s not here,” the girl behind the bar told him. “Pat sent her home.”
Was that true? Could it be? Harold felt even more confused when he saw the slut glance nervously at the steps leading to the second floor, and some small part of his brain that could still process information told him she was lying, that Laura had to be up there. Turning, he started for the staircase. The bouncer blocked his way, and Harold shoved him aside. The man flew across the room and hit the wall with a crunch, his limp body sliding to the floor, blood dribbling from a slack mouth.
“Laura!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs. “Laura!”
“She’s upstairs with a customer,” the tailor shouted callously. “Wait your turn. She’ll be down in a second.”
Screaming in fury, Harold took the stairs three at a time to the upper level. A long corridor stretched before him, lined with doors on each side. He could hear odd noises from the other side, squeaking and muffled cries. Choosing one at random, he kicked it open, the door coming off the hinges and sagging to the floor. Inside, two people were on a bed wrestling. They froze in surprise. Without comment, Harold went to the next door and tried again. That room was empty, but strange items made of leather hung from the walls and bedposts. He didn’t understand and left feeling oddly unclean.
In the room across the hall, Harold found three nude women lying on the bed covers, their limbs entangled to the point where it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. He grabbed a random leg and started to separate the moaning women. Each began to scream as he forced their faces upward to see which was Laura. None of them was.
Leaving the room, Harold shouted her name again as a skinny teenager appeared at the end of the corridor brandishing a homemade blaster, a thin metal barrel attached to the wooden grip by baling wire.
“Hold it right there, buddy!” the runt cried out, and slid a .22 cartridge into breech of the zip gun. With the other hand, he pulled back a nail attached to a rubber band. “Ain’t no fighting on the fuck floor allowed!”
His beleaguered mind couldn’t comprehend the full meaning of what was said, but he recognized a threat, and panic for Laura seized him worse than before. Finding he still held the broken handle from the first door in his hand, he threw it at the teenager, catching him in the stomach. The boy doubled over, vomiting, and dropped the blaster. The weapon fired as it hit the floor, a puff of dust exploding from the wall near Harold.
Not connecting the two events, Harold went unconcerned to the next door and kicked it open to find more people wrestling.
“What the hell is going on here?” shouted the man on top of a woman with raven-black hair. “Scram, gimp! I paid for this slut—she’s mine for another hour.”
But as the stranger resumed his actions, Harold saw in horror that it was Laura under him. Her slim arms were tied to the bedposts, her nude body splayed like a cow for slaughter. Her blue eyes were closed, a dirty rag stuffed in her mouth, and his new wife made little whimpering noises as the big man between her legs began pumping again.