Free Death by Cliché by Bob Defendi Page A

happens if you leave? If you take their lives with you, isn’t that murder? How many murders? We know of two! Is it ten? One hundred? How can you live with that?”
    Lotianna stepped out of her tent, her brow furrowed, her face a scowl. “Shut up!” she shouted. “It’s too early in the morning.”
    “Stuff it, you shrew,” Jurkand shouted. “Did he touch you too?”
    Damico spun in fury just in time to see the throwing ax appear in Jurkand’s chest. Jurkand stumbled backward, blood flowing out of the wound in a sheet, his eyes wide with horror and agony. He batted at the weapon several times, spasmodically, then fell over dead.
    “Well, that was unexpected,” Damico said, facing Gorthander.
    “He was annoying,” Gorthander said.
    “You killed him because he was annoying ?” Damico asked, not sure what to think.
    “No. I killed him because he insulted the lady’s honor. I enjoyed it because he was annoying.”
    Damico shook his head. This was just a game, after all. No, Hell. This was just Hell, after all. The things Jurkand said, they were sheer fantasy. No one was “coming alive.” This was just some sick trick of Carl’s. Satan’s. This was all just somebody’s trick.
    He wasn’t going to sit here and let his killer or his tormentor play mind games with him. He might be dead. He might be in Hell, but this might be a game, after all. Maybe he was still alive. Stranger things had happened.
    Either way, he had to keep fighting.
     

Chapter Sevente en
    “Just use the word ‘said’!”
    —Bob Defendi
     
    hey packed up and started down the road, heading toward the Swamp of Unending Toil. Damico didn’t know what to think any longer, but he could feel the ground crumbling away beneath him like the argument of a flat-earther. He stumbled and clawed and struggled to keep his head above proverbial water even as the sharks circled and checked their menus and bribed the Maître d’.
    Gorthander trudged along happily with his battle-ax over one shoulder, singing “Whistle While You Work.” Damico followed, trying to understand anything that was going on.
    But those eyes, the eyes of Barmaid Barbie, kept haunting him. Could Jurkand be right? Not about giving life, that was ridiculous, but could he have caused that poor girl’s distress somehow?
    He shook off those feelings. He needed to stay focused, to get back on his game, no pun intended.
    He moved up to where Lotianna marched at the head of the party.
    “Feeling any better?” he asked.
    “Was that a PMS question?” she retorted.
    Damico stopped and blinked a few times then quickened his pace to catch up. Evidently he’d missed part of a conversation. Damico glared accusingly at Omar. What had they said to her before he’d woken up?
    “No,” he replied. “I just thought you were feeling off this morning.”
    She scowled at him. “Keep it in your pants, Leisure Suit Larry,” she growled.
    “Good grief, woman, what’s your problem?” he exclaimed.
    “You’re my problem, asshole,” she spat.
    What the hell was going on?
    “Great, maybe I’ll just get out of your damn life then,” he insisted.
    “Fine!” she ejaculated.
    “Good riddance!” he asserted.
    This conversation was positively surreal.
    He stopped and let her stomp on ahead. Arithian walked by him, shaking his head. Omar walked by, whispering, “Smooth move, Ex-lax.”
    Who talked like that?
    Gorthander came up last, and Damico fell in next to him. Gorthander shook his head and chuckled to himself. “That not go well?” he inquired.
    Damico shook his head. “We were doing so well yesterday,” he bemoaned.
    And now, he hated her. She’d treated Omar like crap. She had yelled at Gorthander three times while packing. She had told Arithian to stick his mandolin up his ass (that one was kinda funny). But she was one of the only people here he could talk to, and now she’d become this loathsome person. It just didn’t make any sense . It was one thing to have a bad day