In Laymon's Terms

The Big Sleep. Farewell, My Lovely. The High Window. The Lady In The Lake. The Little—

Mandy’s soft moans became louder and she started saying, “Yes. Yes. Yes.”

That did it. He spurted deep inside her and officially lost his virginity. She fell forward until her head rested on his chest.

I can’t believe that just happened.

“Mmmmm.”

“Does that mean it was okay?”

She raised her head and smiled at him. Her eyes looked sleepy and content.

That was when they heard the first gunshot.

4.

“What the hell was that?” Mandy jumped up. Their genitals separated with a wet popping sound.

Mike knew it was a gunshot, yet he said, “Firecrackers?”

There was a second gunshot. It came from the house and was followed by screams.

“Firecrackers, my ass.” Mandy pulled her sweater on as she headed for the house.

“Wait.” He grabbed her arms. “We don’t know what’s gong on. We have to be careful.”

“I have friends in there!” She pulled free of his grip. She turned back to face him. “You have friends in there.”

Great. I just had sex with a beautiful girl and now she thinks I’m a coward.

Truth was, Mike was pretty sure he was a coward. Which made him determined not to act scared in front of her.

“Okay. Let’s go. But be quiet. We don’t have to announce ourselves.” He pulled his pants up.

They crept up to the back of the house and around to the large window that looked in on the ballroom. They crouched behind a row of shrubbery. Mandy peeked over the top of the bushes.

“Can you see anything?”

She gasped and said, “Oh my God.”

He looked for himself.

The ballroom had become a slaughterhouse. The music still thumped. But nobody was dancing.

Bodies were stacked everywhere. Men and women, splayed in unnatural poses and covered with blood.

But how? They had only heard two shots. There must have been sixty or seventy people at the party.

There was movement in the back of the room. And Mike understood.

He saw several women walking through the room. They carried what looked like long daggers or short swords. At first he thought they must have been wearing some kind of skintight outfits, like red spandex. As they came closer, he saw he was wrong.

They were naked. And covered in blood.

The women were amazons, muscular, statuesque, and incredibly beautiful. Despite the carnage in front of him, Mike was getting aroused. He backed away from Mandy. He didn’t want her to notice.

“Look,” she whispered.

The blood-drenched women were kicking the bodies. Looking for survivors. Another figure stepped into the room. It was a man, also splattered in blood, though not as much as the women. He, too, was nude and covered with black, coarse hair. He carried two old-fashioned silver-plated .45 automatics.

Like The Shadow.

A body on the floor moved. An arm lifted and waved feebly.

Two of the women literally ran across the other corpses to reach the survivor. Their swords hacked into the flesh, sending fresh sprays of gore into the air. The hand that had been moving was sliced from the wrist and flew across the room, smacking into the glass just a few feet from Mandy. She and Mike backed away into darkness and hoped they hadn’t been seen.

“Oh, no,” she whispered. She sounded like she was going to be sick.

Mike crept back to the window. One of the amazons approached the man with the guns. She lifted the sword to her mouth and licked away the blood. She kissed the man and Mike could see their tongues touching, mingling the blood between them.

The man’s erection was huge and it jutted straight out from his body. The woman grabbed it with her blood-soaked hand and stroked it. The man smiled at her. He rubbed the barrel of one automatic across her left nipple, streaking the blood in the shape of a scimitar. There was a commotion on one side of the room, out of Mike’s line of sight. He couldn’t hear what they were saying. Only the steady thump of the dance music.

Another amazon was dragging a man into view.

He must have been hiding.

Mike recognized him. It was Greg.

He heard a whimper from Mandy. She was standing next to him again.

That’s right. They knew each other.

Mike wondered how well Greg knew her.

Mandy gasped and Mike saw two of the women holding Greg while a third prepared to run him through with her short sword. But Greg fell forward, throwing both of the women off balance. He managed to pull free and immediately ran away.

Right for the big window. Right at Mike and Mandy.

Mike didn’t know what Greg had in mind. Was he going to try to break through the window? It seemed pretty thick. He was probably running in a blind panic.

As he neared them, Greg’s eyes widened in recognition just as the man calmly raised one of his .45s and fired. The impact lifted Greg and threw him forward against the glass. It didn’t break.