Free The World House by Guy Adams Page A

decided that crouching behind his bar was the only sane response to the situation.
      Tom hugged Elise hard, burying her head in his chest, the hard corners of the box pressing between them.
      Terry worked his way along the floor to a strongbox he kept stashed beneath the till. Swearing repeatedly, he yanked the strongbox on to his lap and fished in his pants pocket for his keys. "What's the goddamn point of having the thing if you end up dead trying to get the fucker open?" he whined. He rifled through the keys on his bunch. "Fucking thing, fucking thing…" He picked the smallest out and tried to force it into the strongbox lock. It wouldn't fit. He heard the sound of shoes grinding glass to powder on the sidewalk outside. Panicking further, he emitted a high-pitched whine and started punching the lid. He picked another key and tried it. It turned the lock and opened the box. He grabbed the .45, stood up and pointed it at the man climbing through the window. Then he noticed the live rounds rolling out of the spilled strongbox at his feet. "Dumb fuck…" he whispered before deciding to bluff the situation out. "Drop the gun!" he shouted, "or I'll drop you ." That sounded so embarrassing he'd have turned the gun on himself were it loaded.
      The man clambered over the booth table and on to the floor. Terry was surprised to see how old he was – in his late seventies at least.
      "There's no need for anyone to shoot," the old man said, holding up his own gun. "I just want the box." He gestured to a small wooden box on the floor and Terry was baffled to see there was no sign of Tom or Elise. Maybe they'd got out somehow?
      "Take it and leave, real slow…" Terry said.
      The old man sank to his haunches, picked up the box, dropped it into his coat pocket and stood upright, keeping his gun levelled on Terry throughout. He looked at Terry's gun and smiled. "That ain't loaded," he said. To prove his conviction he turned his back on him and walked slowly out of the front door.
      Terry dropped quickly, grabbed a couple of rounds off the floor and loaded them into the Colt. By the time he'd stood up again he was alone in his bar. No sign of the old man, Tom or Elise. "Well…" he scratched at his baffled face and stared at the Thursday night pouring in through his broken window "…fuck me sideways."
     
    As far as Tom was concerned, he and Elise had fallen through the floor of Terry's bar. The impossibilities of that didn't occur to him; he was just glad to be away from mad bastards with guns. They tumbled through utter darkness for a couple of seconds before landing on what felt like a stack of rough pillows. Tom coughed as a cloud of dust erupted from under them. He pulled himself away from Elise, knowing he was going to be sick. His hands grabbed at rough hessian and he guessed they had landed on a pile of sacks, flour by the feel of the powder all over his face. He rolled off the sacks on to a cold floor and got to his feet just as he started to throw up. Blind to his surroundings, he hoped he wasn't upchucking all over his shoes.
      "Elise?" he asked, once done. There was no reply. Spitting his mouth clean he retraced his steps up the pile of sacks, pulling his cigarette lighter out of his jacket pocket to give him some light. "Elise?" he asked again, feeling her limp arm and starting to worry. He brought the light to her face to see a panicked look in her eyes that at least meant she was conscious. Conscious but unable to move… it occurred to him that wasn't a good thing at all. "Elise? Can you hear me?" Her eyes flickered but that was all the response she could give. Tom started to panic. It didn't help that his head felt strange… airy and brittle. He realised it was because he was sober, not an experience he had had recently.
      He needed to find some light. "Don't worry, Elise," he said, an empty promise and he knew it. He climbed back down, let the lighter go out and waited for his eyes to adjust.