have work to do.” He turned and pulled a dough hook down from where it was hanging.
“Maybe there is something we can do,” I said, reaching for my shoulder holster.
But the pudgy baker was faster on the draw. He swung the big aluminum hook. There was a flash of pain behind my left ear and everything went dark.
* * * *
It was cold, really cold. And my head felt as if somebody had been using it to split firewood and left the axe sticking in it. I groaned and opened my eyes. Ann was looking down at me. Her face was upside down and had a slightly out of focus, worried look to it.
“Are y-you all r-right? I w-was afraid he m-might have k-killed you.”
I blinked my eyes and my vision cleared. I realized she was holding my head in her lap. While that was not an unwelcome place for it, this wasn’t the time for playing footsie. I sat up.
My head told me it thought that was a bad idea. Looking around I saw we were inside a walk-in freezer. Piles of frozen baked goods lined the shelves. Ann was sitting next to a big white bucket labeled, ‘Eggs, Bulk, Five-gallons.’ Her arms were wrapped around herself and she was shivering.
“After he c-clonked you in the head he took y-your g-gun and l-locked us in here. It’s so c-cold. I’m s-sure he m-means to f-freeze us to death.”
I nodded, then thought better of the idea.
“Yeah, he’ll be back tonight to dispose of the bodies.”
“B-but what are w-we going to d-do?”
“Don’t worry, Sweet-cakes. You’re with me, remember? I didn’t spend all that time working the night shift at that restaurant without learning a thing or two.”
Standing was easier than I anticipated. Maybe my head was finally getting better. Or maybe it was the freezing air. Don’t they always say to put ice on an injury? Whatever.
I tried the door. It was locked, just like she said. Then I turned back to the freezer unit it the back of the room. The fan was blowing an icy breeze.
She stood and gestured at it.
“Can you jam the fan blades?” She asked. “I t-tried but there’s a m-metal grille in front of them. F-frozen muffins aren’t exactly the best tools to try and break through something like that.”
“Why bother?” I reached up alongside the unit and cranked the temperature setting all the way up. The blower shut off immediately. “It’s going to be his hard luck in the morning when all this stuff defrosts but we’re in no danger now.”
“But w-what are we going to do w-when he comes back? He’s got your pistol.”
I was going to shrug but figured my head would not approve. Instead I asked, “What have you got in that purse of yours?”
I pulled out a handkerchief and laid my key ring and a handful of pocket change in it. Out of the female flotsam she had available I added some more change and a nail clipper. Then I tied the whole mess up inside the handkerchief.
“What are you making?” She asked.
I hefted it in one hand, dangling it menacingly.
“I guess you’d call it a white-jack. I figured I’d return the favor for that dough hook. He ought to be back around midnight.” I glanced at my watch. “That’s maybe six hours from now.”
“What’ll we do until then?” She asked with a little grin, snuggling close.
I put my arms around her.
“Just try to keep warm, I guess.”
* * * *
He was a little early but we were ready anyway. There was a rattle at the door as he removed the padlock, and then it swung open. My pistol in one hand, he peered inside looking for a pair of corpse-sickles. I hit him behind the right ear with my white-jack. It burst, scattering keys and coins. But the blow staggered him. I followed it up with an uppercut that knocked him back into the next room. We pushed out the door after him.
He was laid out on the floor of the kitchen. I picked up my pistol.
“Feed me,” a strange buzzing voice said.
“Eh?” I looked up just as Ann screamed. Standing in the doorway to the storeroom was a little person about two feet tall. The head was disproportionately large for the body, like that of a baby and it had big, liquid eyes. It was almost cute.
“Feed me,” it repeated in that same strange voice. Then it opened its mouth.
The mouth was the width of its head and its jaw opened so wide you could almost see down its throat. It had three sets of teeth, each one inside the next, big teeth that narrowed down to points like those of a shark.
“Feed me,” it repeated. Then it started moving toward us, little arms outstretched. That’s when I noticed the claws.
It ran its tongue across its grotesque lips; the tongue dangled several inches outside its mouth. It was like watching a snake waving over a picket fence.
My gun barked twice and it snapped its jaws shut, then chewed for a moment.
“No metal,” it said. “Want Meeeeeet.”
From the doorway to the storeroom came two more.
“Want Meeeeeet,” they echoed.
“Run,” I told her. I put another bullet into the closest one. It snapped its jaw, then spat the bullet onto the floor.
“Meeeeeet.”
Three more shambled through the door from the storeroom.
“Meeeeeet.”
“Meeeeeet.”
“Meeeeeet.”
The first one was almost upon us. Ann grabbed a box off the spice shelf.
“No, you run,” she said. “I’ll cover our retreat.”
She pulled open the little pour spout on the box and shook it out at the little monster.
The creature gave a yelp and jumped back like she’d been using boiling water.
“What’s that?”
“Salt,” she replied. “It’s an old folklore remedy against evil spirits. Now run!”
I turned and ran back into the front of the bakery past the display cases laden with sweets. But the front door was locked. The keys were probably back in the Muffin Man’s pockets.
I grabbed a chair from the stack where he’d brought in the outside tables when he closed for the day. I put it through the plate glass window. Behind me Ann ran out of the kitchen. She flung the depleted box of salt behind her as she ran. She didn’t even slow down, taking the window like a Olympic hurdler. I caught up to her in the parking lot. She still had her car keys and we laid rubber all the way to the road. I didn’t think that old Buick had it in it.
This time we went to the police.
We parked cross-wise in front and ran through the doors to the desk sergeant. He seemed distracted, with a phone in one ear.
“Yeah, hacked to pieces, he says. Get some detectives out there, pronto.” Then he yelled across to someone back behind the partition, “Hey, who’s on call tonight from CSI? Tell ’em to get out to that bakery down on Dury Lane. There’s been a murder.”
He hung up the phone and noticed us for the first time.
“Yeah, what can I do for you?”
“Uh, we couldn’t help but overhear. Who’s been murdered? It wasn’t the baker, was it?”
“Yeah, the baker. Somebody hacked him all up. A patrol car just found him after somebody called in a complaint about kids hot-rodding in the parking