CHAPTER THREE: Bear Mace

Shattering the stunned pause, Stan exclaimed, 'Dude – Cartman! You killed Kenny!'

'You bastard!'

'That is not cool. Killing Kenny is not cool!'

'Ah, why the fudge not?' Cartman asked, casually taking a bite of another monocle. 'He's just gonna come back again.'

'That's not the point!' By now, the group had swarmed around Kenny's bloody form and sat tending, fanning or, in the case of Bebe, pickpocketting his corpse. 'You're not actuallymeant to kill anybody, ass-hat!'

Cartman scoffed and resumed his seat. 'Yes I am, dumbass. Why else would they call it a murder-mystery party?'

'Aw,' said Butters, lost somewhere in the throng of people guarding Kenny, 'now I got blood on my nipple tassels…'

'You're just meant to pretend,' Stan explained, ignoring the blonde for reasons of taste, 'and then we all pretend to figure out who pretended to kill the person who pretended to die! Did you never wonder why these parties have such low mortality rates?!'

'Look, Stan,' Cartman explained wearily, temporarily abandoning his accent, 'I invited you all here for a reason, ok? But if you guys don't want a sophisticated and high-class soiree with liquor and Pregnancy Blockers, then I can't help that! But riddle me this, Stan: how else am I meant to incriminate Kahl in a cold-blooded murder, huh? Tell me!'

'Aw, dude,' Stan muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose, 'that is not cool…'

Kyle glared between the two of them, eyes narrowed. 'Oh, for God's sake! Y'know what, Cartman? I'm sick of being the butt of all your evil little schemes! I'm sick of people trying to pin the blame on the nearest minority just because we provide an easy scapegoat – am I right, bro?!' He turned to Token with one hand raised in anticipation of a high-five.

Token viewed him with an expression of great distaste and said, 'Dude, don't say that.'

Wendy offered her two cents worth by screaming, 'This is stupid!'

'You're right!' Cartman agreed, retrieving his gun once more and waving it dangerously above his head, 'And you've got twenty minutes to figure out who did it before the orgy begins!'

Wendy promptly knocked the gun out of his hands, prompting cries of "AY you goddamn ho!" and the like.

'I can't believe you killed Kenny,' Kyle muttered angrily, as the blood reached his shoes.

'Yeah? Well you killed Christ!'

'Cartman—'

'Christ killer!'

'Everybody shut up!' Stan demanded, assuming his natural position of authority. The room obediently fell silent, save for the squeaking of Kenny's rat groupies and an occasional "ngh!" from Tweek. Once his thoughts had cleared, he continued: 'Ok, obviously somewhere between the weak British accents and the…weird leather outfits, things have taken a slightly odd turn.'

'Ya think?' Wendy mumbled, with a roll of her eyes.

'What we need to do,' he continued, speaking over her, 'is just forget this ever happened.' He glanced at Pip and Butters, in their matching leather short-shorts, and said, 'Really forget. If that's still possible.' There was a general mutter of agreement, and a mass movement towards the basement stairs; unfortunately, Cartman's impressive girth blocked their way.

'Oh, c'mon you guys,' he whined, batting Tweek away aggressively, 'we can still have a fun game! C'mon, let's pretend Bebe's dead.' Bebe made an indignant noise, but he continued, 'C'mon, you guys – let's play prostitute murder! Uh, I blame Token!'

'Hey!' said Token.

'Rules of the game, Token: always pick the black guy.'

'Hey!'

The discussion was interrupted by a quiet click which, silent as it was, still managed to subdue a room of Cognac-sipping ten year olds. There was a general shift of attention, until all terrified eyes were on Kyle Broflovski.

'Alright,' he said levelly, pointing the discarded revolver between Cartman's eyes, 'I hoped it wouldn't come to this, Eric.'

There followed a general intake of breath, as everyone (save for Tweek, who yelped and collapsed) focused their energies on moving from the potential line of fire. The only person unaffected was Cartman himself, who demanded, 'Oh – so first you kill our Lord and Saviour, now you shoot your party host? I nominate Kyle as prostitute killer!'

'I'll shoot you in the goddamn eye!' Kyle cried, warningly.

Butters tentatively said, 'Come on now Kyle, that'll blind him!'

'Kyle, I think you should put the gun down.' In the style of a Mexican stand-off, Wendy had produced a spray can from her bag and pointed it at Kyle's face.

He regarded her with a strange look, and said, 'Or what, you'll absorb me to death?'

'It's mace, dumbass. The kind they use on bears.'

Which presented the slightly more pressing question:

'Why the hell have you got mace in your purse?'

'That's irrelevant.'

'No it isn't,' said Stan, joining in the debate and temporarily forgetting about the fact that his best friend was pointing a gun at someone's face.

'Yeah,' said Cartman, also loosing interest, 'why have you got mace?'

'Uh,' she mumbled, all gusto momentarily abandoned, 'um…no reason.'

Bebe giggled and explained, 'Ronald McDonald freaks her out.'

'Shut up!'

'Really?' said Kyle, lowering the gun. 'Why?'

'No reason!' Wendy shrieked.

Bebe said, 'She had a sex dream about him – ARGH! She maced me!'

'I said shut your damn mouth!'

'Ow…it burns!'

The silence returned, perforated only by Bebe's squeals and desperate attempts to scratch the flesh from her hand. All animosity temporarily forgotten, the males of the room exchanged a glance universally recognised as, "PMS?" before remembering exactly what had happened.

Kyle pointed the gun; Wendy pointed the mace. Butters pointed his bowtie, because he didn't want to be left out.

Then Cartman shrugged and said, 'Whatever, there was only one bullet in there anyway.'

Kyle pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. And again.

'Oh,' he said, glumly, 'goddammit. What kind of gun only has one bullet, fatass?'

'Hey, don't blame me! Artemis Clyde frog's a Russian Roulette junkie.' He pointed to the abandoned chairs as he spoke; for the first time, Kyle noticed the presence of the stuffed lizard sat primly on the edge of an armchair. He was wearing a monocle.

'Oh, Christ,' Stan muttered, as all weapons were lowered and Bebe rolled silently around the floor, 'this is just great. I should've known this was a stupid idea.'

'I told you,' Kyle pointed out, smugly.

'Yeah?' said Cartman, still blocking their exit. 'But you still came, right?'

'Only because we don't want to eat our parents!' Token shouted, verbalising the unspoken thoughts of the masses. 'We all hate you!'

There was a brief, guilty pause. Then Cartman scoffed. 'No you don't, you guys.'

'Yes,' said Token, folding his arms, 'we do.'

He pointed to Wendy and said, 'The hippy doesn't; she was gonna mace the Jew to defend mah honour.'

Wendy glanced at the mace in her hands and pulled a face, as if she'd just realised the ghastly truth of the situation.

Stan sighed. His fingers would one day find a permanent home on the bridge of his nose. 'Look, it's getting late and it's a school night. I think we should all just go home.'

Cartman, confronted by what could now only be described as a mob, briefly considered his options. Eventually defeated by the murderous look in Kyle's eyes, he said, 'That's fahn. Screw you guys; you can go home. But I shall have my vengeance! I'll make you eat your—'

'Yeah. We know.'

With a final withering glare, he folded his arms and stepped aside. After a cautious moment of hesitation, the assembled kids made their way up the stairs and away to sweet freedom, with the exception of Wendy, who dutifully dragged the still-writhing Bebe by the wrist, and Butters, who still wanted his pants back.

As Wendy reached the door, however, she found herself face-to-back with a disgruntled crowd, rabbling around the front door. 'What's going on?' she demanded, dropping Bebe to the ground.

Kyle replied by screaming madly and hurling himself bodily against the door. Tweek exclaimed, 'We're snowed in! Ngh! We're all gonna die!'

'What?!' she screeched, barging her way through the throng. 'I can't stay here! Everything smells of pie!' She threw herself, shoulder-first, against the door, wailing with an unfamiliar desperation. The males around her, remembering the Incident of the Bear Mace, took a collective step back. 'No! God, no!'

'I knew this would happen,' said Kyle, with all the emotion of a man on the edge, 'I told you this would happen, Stan! We're gonna be stuck all night with the megalomaniac!'

'Calm down!' said Stan; not particularly easy when surrounded by a hysterical woman, a homicidal best friend, two guys in leather shorts, a man on a caffeine high with an underpants fixation and a recent victim of bear mace. It was under these circumstances, and these circumstances only, that the company of a near-schizophrenic fatass crime lord seemed suddenly preferable.

Speaking of which…

'Ah-ha, gentlemen; hos.' Once again, he'd reverted to the mock-English accent. Taking a bite of another monocle, he pushed open the basement door enticingly. 'It seems you will be playing murders with me, after all.'