Okay, so I didn't win the metrical challenge. It's been amusing anyway. Some of my chapter titles are still planned out to somewhat meet it. Like this three-parter. It's a little short, but at least you don't have to wait till next Friday for it. Enjoy!
THESE THREE THINK SOMEBODY SAID 'RAHR:'
Hooking The Hooker
Two days later, sunrise peeked up through the mountains, reflecting off of windows in the four-story building. It was isolated, with a cracked blacktop driveway barely more than a turnaround circle only a single lane wide, and a parking lot only big enough for sixty cars. The vehicular bridge was out, having fallen some time ago into the small stream below. The weather-beaten sign on the side of the building said 'Corporate Somatic Maintenance Solutions.' Over in the distance, the ruined vehicular bridge across a raging stream cast shade on a small residential property with a boathouse. In the shade of the boathouse was a biofuel-powered car with a surprisingly bad paint job. It had been a bright green before uneven applications of olive and brown house paint had been applied in a crude attempt at a camouflage pattern. In back of the four-story building, away from prying eyes, a small, curvaceous, Asian woman was repeatedly and rather badly missing a homemade target with homemade arrows and a like-new compound bow. She was swearing quietly in three languages and occasionally rubbing her chest above her right breast near the armpit in obvious pain. A dead woman in curlers and a water-soaked housedress staggered out of the woods behind the target. The dead body shambled around the target, rotted flesh dangling off the legs. The pretty woman fired three arrows in rapid succession, missing all three times, before saying, "Fuck," and poking an arrow through the dead body's mouth by hand. A quick twist separated the head from the body.
A masked man wearing all black and a backpack stepped out of the shadows behind her sheathing a chef's knife.
The woman shook her head—and the new head off the arrow and stiffened as the masked man reached around her and squirted a small puff of aerated liquid onto the woman's lower face. The woman weakly threw an elbow, which he neatly caught. He bodily lifted her away from the twitching, chomping head on the cracked pavement as she went limp. The masked man paused there for a moment, listening. He zip-tied the woman's hands at the wrists and legs at the ankles, laid her gently down, and tried the door. Opening it, a legless dead man with ten stumps for fingers tipped over onto his boot. Sighing, the masked man pulled a bungee cord from a pocket, bound the dead thing around the neck, fastened the bungee cord to his boot laces, grabbed the woman by the arms, and towed her inside, limping with the weight of the dead half-body. He laid the woman on the reception desk. Bending down, he twisted the dead torso up towards himself and noted an odd texture on the bottom. Nodding his head, he let the torso fall and put a homemade bar across the door from where it leaned on the wall. He opened the first drawer of the reception desk and riffled the files. Pulling one out, he opened it and rapidly turned pages for a moment. He returned the files to their places. Nodding to himself, he drew a small toolkit from a pocket and crossed the lobby. He rapidly picked the lock of a maintenance closet, shouldered the woman, gently deposited her within it, bungeed the half a body to the rolling office chair behind the reception desk, stood up on the desk, attached a small device from a pocket to the wall above an abstract picture's frame, climbed down, and trotted down the hallway out of sight. The undead half-body tried unsuccessfully sixty-three times to pull the office chair through the gap between the wall and the desk before moving to the kneehole to thump at it incessantly.
Wilson Deflated
Wilson put on the over-sized rain boots and opened the stairwell door. He wore an expression of distaste as he peered around the lobby, holding a small pushbroom. He walked out, hearing the thumping behind the reception desk and frowned at the vibrating office chair. He looked at the bar on the door and frowned harder. He walked to the ladies' room door and knocked. "Ann?" He waited. He looked back at the exterior door. He walked to it and peered outside for a moment at the compound bow and arrows, the headless woman, and the head with the hair in curlers. Startling, he ran back to the ladies' room and knocked louder. "ANN?! Have you been bitten?" He reached down to push the door and paused. He looked over his shoulder at the vibrating office chair. He walked back over to the desk and pushed the chair back to the wall with the broom. He frowned at the mouth of the dead half-body. He let the chair go. He turned to walk back toward the ladies' room. He stopped. "How? . . ." He turned back around and returned to the desk. He pushed the chair back from the desk with the broom again. "Blue bungee cord? We don't have any—" His eyes went wide. He turned and ran for the stairs. The masked man stepped out of the hallway and seized the broom with his left hand, jerking Wilson around. The masked man's right hand darted forward with surprising speed and sprayed a mist in Wilson's face. Wilson crumpled, caught by the masked man, dropping the broom. The masked man dragged Wilson to an office chair in the hallway, zip-tied him to it, and wheeled him down the hallway out of sight.
Taking The House, All Scoped Out
House stared out the window with his small telescope at the seven bikers on the highway. They appeared to be slapping a man as they drove by him and cheering with each slap. House frowned. A chance readjustment showed it was a dead man. "Idiots," he muttered. One of the men miscalculated and came away with a bite. The cheering stopped as the bitten man dropped his motorcycle, angrily strode back to the dead man, and punched it, knocking it down. The bitten man stomped its neck, stilling it forever. A second biker stopped, dismounted, and walked over. The bitten man turned his back. The second biker reached up and neatly broke the neck of the bitten biker, then waited for him to fall and reached down and stabbed him up through the neck into the skull with something small. Chastened, the six bikers drove off. House heard a door shut. "Wilson?" he said.
"No," said the masked man right behind him, applying a medicine bottle to House's left shoulder blade as if it were a gun. "First things first, Dr. House. Confirm the name of the woman downstairs." He poised with the spray vial in his hand for House to breathe.
House frowned. "Why? What did—"
Between the words 'why' and 'what,' the masked man darted his hand around and sprayed the mist right up House's nostrils. Instead of collapsing immediately, House wobbled, eyes glazing. House opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He reached for his cane and missed. He stared, unseeing, at the telescope in his other hand for a moment. He closed it, sagged a bit, and tossed it backwards, hitting the masked man in the face with it. Only then did House collapse. The masked man grumbled a bit, holding his face, then zip-tied House to his chair and wheeled him out into the hallway out of sight.
Well now. House's team is down. What does the masked man have in store for them? Please read and review. Thank you to FanDance for your kind if kinky words. Don't worry. House the Snark WILL be as insensitive and characteristically awful as I can manage.