That was frigging sloppy, Isaac scolded himself. But considering that two reanimated monsters were marching towards them he wasn’t entirely disappointed with the group response. They held their pool cues like spearmen and stood their ground.

“What do we do?” Bianca asked hurriedly.

“Stab him with your pointy sticks.” Isaac pointed at Spartan. When all of them looked at him like he had two heads he repeated, “Seriously. Stab. It’s a simple concept.”

Stab at it they did. As it came around the pool table, they lined up in front of it and jabbed away, forcing it into a pattycake-like game of melee. Meanwhile, Isaac focused on the Mongrel as it marched around the opposite side of the room. From the Everbag he pulled his length of rope, the end still knotted into a noose. He whispered, “Hang,” and then tossed it up and over the exposed rafters.

The noose end dropped down just as Mongrel passed but couldn’t lasso around the neck. Instead, the loop snagged on the antlers, tightened, and then continued to follow its command, hoisting the stitch just far enough that its feet were mere inches off the floor. While it could have easily swung its axe through the rope it lacked the comprehension to do so. Instead, it just kept attempting to march at Isaac, which only made it swing back and forth like an undead piñata.

With that done, Isaac turned to the other battle just in time to see Wayne fall down screaming with a cut to the arm. But his companions rallied to him, stabbing at Spartan while they pulled him to his feet. Everyone that is, except for Angie.

Be it that she drank too much or just had her confidence snap at the sight of more blood, the woman bolted back to the bar, where Isaac figured she’d cower. Too late he realized she bypassed it to the door leading upstairs, which she unlocked and opened before he could do anything other than say, “Dammit.” He telekinetically grabbed her shirt and pulled her back a step, just enough to make Gasmask miss with the swinging pickaxe as it stormed into the room.

Now the stitches were two again and Isaac reassessed. Digging again into his bag he brought out a broken handled axe. It was the same weapon that had been used to kill Brit Knit, a blade now blighted by the blood of an innocent witch. He’d empowered it further with additional enchantments, including a coating of bone powder and crematorium ash over pine resin. He hung back, allowing the stitch to stay focused on Angie, who ran to the bar. Gasmask followed and as soon as it fully turned its back Isaac charged and buried the axe in between its shoulder blades.

The blow had the same result as if he had hacked into a tree. No blood flowed and the stitch barely shuddered, so Isaac took the opportunity not to strike again but to pound the heel of his hand against the axe head and drive it in as deeply as he could. Gasmask finally took notice, spun on its heels, and nearly planted the pickaxe into the magician’s skull. Isaac stumbled back and barely regained his balance for the stitch’s follow-up.

This time he stepped into the swing and with his fingers in a “V”, he scissor-spelled the weapon. The pick-axe end came free, sailed across the room, and embedded itself in the wall. He allowed himself a triumphant smile that faded immediately when Gasmask cracked him across the head with the other end of the handle. It put the magician on his ass, blood dripping down his face from a scalp laceration.

Gasmask reached down, took a fistful of Isaac’s coat, and drug him to his feet, drawing the handle back for another strike. Isaac, stunned and barely registering the peril, was bailed out when the decay spell from the axe finally kicked in. The stitch suddenly swayed on its feet and the handle fell from its hand. Unaware it had dropped the weapon it still swung on him, hitting him with a closed fist, which still hurt but not as much as a cudgel would have. And the fist didn’t come away unscathed. Several fingers broke on impact and flesh fell away from it, like dust being shaken off.

On the second strike, the hand disintegrated completely on contact, leaving Isaac with a coating of greyish powdered flesh on his face. The grossness of this helped nudge him from his stupor and he grabbed the hand that held him, twisted the fingers one way and the wrist the opposite. The limb came apart like tearing a scarecrow. Bones ground together and broke as the skin flaked away. He broke free and the stitch was literally disarmed. Isaac telekinetically snatched up the pickaxe handle and one blow caved the gasmask in, the head inside coming apart like a collapsing sand castle.

Gasmask fell, the impact with the floor causing it to break apart even further. Only the jumpsuit kept the decay in a human shape, otherwise, it would have been a pile of dust as death rapidly reclaimed its rightful property. The axe had admirably done its work and Isaac wished he had another, as the decay had taken the weapon along with it. The price of foul magic.

The other battle had spilled outside to the pool area, with his companions playing a deadly game of ring-around-the-pool with the Spartan. He started out to help, just as the naked stitch with the bladed forearms stepped into view. Blades effectively cut off the round-the-pool retreat of the others from Spartan, who closed in.

Peyton was the closest to the multi-armed stitch and he raised his pool cue in defense. Both upper arms chopped down, their twin axes hacking clean through the makeshift spear and into each of Peyton’s shoulders. The lower arms did as they were made and stabbed forward, both long knives piercing the athlete’s torso and popping through his back.

Isaac could tell immediately that Peyton’s wounds were fatal. The man was dead on his feet, his mind just a few seconds behind the massive internal injuries. It made Isaac’s next course of action easier, as he telekinetically grabbed Peyton’s body and shoved it into the pool. Spartan, still holding the weapons embedded in the man, was pulled along. As the pair sank Isaac dug into his Everbag and pulled out the foil-wrapped frostbite finger. He unwrapped it, held it close to his mouth, blew on it, whispered the word “freeze” and tossed it in after them.

The effects were spontaneous and dramatic. Ice formed immediately where it landed, spread across the surface first, then downward. The stitch, too heavy to float, walked along the bottom, making its way up the slope towards the shallow end. At the bottom of the deep end, a cloud of roiling red obscured Peyton’s body.

It became a race—the hardening water spreading, but the stitch emerging. Isaac swore, realizing his ice seemed destined to lose. Its shoulders and head were out of the pool now. Then something hit the stitch in the helmet.

Bianca had thrown a bottle, with perfect aim, and the stitch slowed to look for the source of the attack. It created enough of a pause that the flash freeze overtook it and encased its body in a perfectly fitted prison. Only its head remained free to move, and it stared at them, empty dead eyes watching from the prop helmet.

Isaac was about to say something congratulatory to Bianca for the quick thinking, but the ice had produced an unintended consequence. Blades now just walked across the hardened pool towards them. Isaac reached into his bag, unsure of what else to quickly do other than bring out Wilma and blast away. Much to his surprise, he was beaten to the punch when Kendra chucked a folded-up lawn chair at it, specifically at its gimpy legs. The chair hit it in the shins with just enough force to make it lose balance on the slick surface and down it went. Knives proved to be a poor substitute for hands, as it could do little to prop itself up and each arm simply slid out from under it with each attempt. It floundered around on the ice like an upended turtle.

“Ha. Well done,” Isaac said to the trio. To say he was impressed would have been an understatement. Sure, they had lost one of their own, but they had performed admirably under the pressure and now, amazingly, possessed the advantage in numbers.

Angie slowly emerged from behind the rec room bar. Isaac waved her over, but she remained rooted in place. “We’re doing really well,” he called to her. “We may just yet get that prize money. Come on.” While the possibility of riches helped ease her terror she still didn’t move. “Ok, just come here. Right behind me.” He pointed to the ground.

The presentation of an accomplishable task proved enough to get her moving and she slowly walked to the spot, giving a wide berth to the still swinging Mongrel. When she made it all the way she stopped and squared her shoulders at him. “Well done,” he congratulated her and presented an awkward thumbs up. “Nobody has ever walked from over there to right here quite so bravely as you just did.” The attempt at praise made her crack just a hint of a smile.

Isaac then turned to the others, who were currently using the reach of the pool net to slide Blades away from the edge, lest it make it to the concrete. They had the stitch temporarily incapacitated but Isaac couldn’t decide on how to take advantage. That’s when Angie screamed, and Isaac spun to see her enveloped in tentacles.

The Gorilla perched on top of the lodge and its unnatural appendages slithered down silently to capture her like any ocean-going prey. Then she was gone, pulled up and across the roof. The screams didn’t last long.

The magician let out a long sigh. The poor girl had been snatched from the very spot he had directed her to stand on, right behind him, where she was supposed to feel safer.

This was why he didn’t like playing bodyguard. He was no damn good at it.

***

The blonde girl’s death brought a smattering of unenthusiastic applause from the crowd. Prior to that it had been nothing but stunned silence in the room as the contestants had taken out stitches one by one in short order. For the surgeons, it proved even more demoralizing as not only had their stitches been thoroughly embarrassed, once again only the masterpiece of Dr. Menclewski scored a kill while remaining active. So, with well-concealed bitterness, each of them congratulated him.

Only Hutchins couldn’t manage the faux enthusiasm of his colleagues, nor could he hide his disdain. This was not lost on the observant Dr. Menclewski. “Something wrong Mr. Hutchins?”

“No. Your gorilla made an impressive kill,” he said.

“You don’t look impressed. You look annoyed.”

Hutchins’s frown deepened. Now he was on the spot with all the doctors eyeballing him. He knew they felt the same. They just hid it better. “Ok, I guess my jealousy is showing a bit. Where the hell do you even get giant squid tentacles? I have a guy that gets me cheap chicken wings for my bar. Another guy that gets me cut rates on barbeque sauce. Do you have a giant squid and gorilla guy? If so, I’d like to meet him.”

Dr. Menclewski tsk-tsked him. “I’ve told you before, it’s not about the materials, it’s about the construction.”

“Says the guy who always has the best materials.” Hutchins immediately wished he hadn’t said that. The doctors he stood amongst were powerful people, in more ways than just wealth, with Dr. Menclewski being the top of their chain. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I’ve had a few too many drinks. I didn’t mean to complain.”

“Not a problem. I understand,” Dr. Menclewski said with a sternness in his voice that made Hutchins thankful that he’d apologized promptly.

Not wanting to antagonize the surgeons any further Hutchins backed away from the group and retook his spot on the love seat with the Ambassador. He pulled yet another bottle of beer from within his coat and popped it open.

The Ambassador leaned to him, patted his shoulder reassuringly. “Easy, Mr. Hutchins. You may be out of the game but that doesn’t mean you still can’t win.”

Hutchins, eyes bleary with his own brew, thought deeply for a second and then said, “Huh?”, as on the main screen the four remaining contestants ran for the barns.