The Gorgon Slayer (4 page)

“I suppose it’s evolution,” Warren said. He was leaning against the basement door like a prisoner awaiting execution. He had Helga, who was now puttering around in her garden, to thank for that. “After three thousand years, one of them has finally figured out the Perseus method of Gorgon extermination.”

“But why did the one have to be ours?” Rick asked. “Why couldn’t evolution have waited until after I got my new bike?”

Warren shook his head. “Asking questions like that won’t do us any good. We need to figure out how to make the best use of our assets, plan our attack, and then get down there and cut old Snaky-brain’s noggin off. Let’s begin with our assets. We have two brains, both of which are better than the Gorgon’s—”

“Or should be,” Rick said.

“Okay, we have two brains that
should
be better than the Gorgon’s. We only have one sword—I dropped mine in the basement.”

“And we only have one shield. Mine is lying next to Harper.” Rick leaned back against the refrigerator. “A shield won’t help, anyway. You saw what the Gorgon did to them.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Warren rubbed his chin. “But maybe you aren’t. Did you notice how the Gorgon always flew to where she would be in line with the shield, so she could throw dust on it?”

“I didn’t have time to notice anything.”

“Well, she did. If the Gorgon follows shields, we can use the one we have to control where she flies.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s say we want her by the water heater. If I hold the shield so the water heater is reflected in it, then that’s where the Gorgon will go.”

“So what you’re saying is that you can position the Gorgon to where I’ll be standing with the sword.”

“You got it.”

“I don’t have anything. How am I supposed to aim my swing when I don’t dare look to aim it?”

“I’ll tell you where to swing.”

“You can’t tell a rockhead anything, and that’s what I’ll be. You know how hard it is to keep your eyes closed down there? If you don’t, ask Chen, O’Rourke, or Harper.”

“We’ll think of something.”

The back door opened and Helga stuck her head into the kitchen. “When are you two going to get to work, hey? I have a yard to trim.
My electric weed trimmer is in the basement.”

“We’re just about set to go, Mrs. Thorensen.”

“Ya, ya, sure you are. Lollygagging around is what you’re doing. Don’t expect much of a tip.” She thumped back outside.

Rick shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know about this plan. It sounds pretty risky.”

“You want that new bike, don’t you?”

Five minutes later, Warren was peering into the remaining shield and leading Rick down the basement stairs. Rick was carrying the sword and wearing a grocery bag over his head that they’d borrowed from Helga. The dust still in the air tickled Warren’s nose, making him sneeze.

“Is that the Gorgon?” Rick swung the sword. Warren had to duck to avoid a permanent crew cut.

“Will you be careful with that thing?”

“Sorry. I’m a little nervous.”

“Don’t swing until I tell you to.”

Warren flashed the shield beneath the stairs.
No Gorgon. He flashed it at the water heater, and at all the rockheads. No Gorgons there, either. He checked behind the furnace, Rick stumbling along blindly behind him. The Gorgon seemed to have disappeared.

“I don’t understand it,” Warren said. “I don’t know where she is.”

“Don’t ask me to help you find her.”

Something was wrong with the wardrobe—the door was barely cracked open. Warren had opened it wide the last time they were in the basement.

“I think I know where she is,” he whispered.

“Do you want me to swing now?” Rick whispered back.

“I’ll tell you when.”

A flicker of tongue licked by the edge of the open door—a flicker of a snake’s tongue. “She’s in the wardrobe.”

“What’ll we do?”

“When I say ‘leap,’ leap straight ahead about three feet. I’ll open the door and use the shield to position the Gorgon right in front of you. When everything is right, I’ll yell
’swing,’ and two seconds after I do, I want to see twenty snakes and one very ugly head rolling across the floor.”

“No problem,” Rick said. “You can count on me.”

Warren crouched, his legs as tight as steel springs. “Leap!”

Warren bounded ahead, with Rick right behind him. The Gorgon exploded from behind the door like a grenade. Warren whipped the shield around until Rick was reflected in it. The Gorgon followed the shield’s movement until her scaly green neck was only a foot away from the sword’s gleaming blade, which was held like a baseball bat over Rick’s shoulder.

“Now, Rick. Swing!”

Rick just stood there. The Gorgon shrieked and hissed only inches from his face, and he just stood there.

“Swing, Rick, swing!”

Rick stared at him stonily. Warren froze as if he’d suddenly been shoved into a freezer. Rick, he realized, shouldn’t be staring at him at all.

Warren turned the shield to look at the floor. The grocery bag was lying there. It should have been on Rick’s head. One of the ceiling pipes must have knocked it off when Rick leaped toward the wardrobe.

“Oh, no. Not you, too, Rick.”

Rick didn’t answer. He had turned into a rockhead.

I wonder
, Warren thought as he dropped to the floor, lost his shield, and covered his eyes,
if it would be possible to have a worse day
.

The Gorgon’s feet pounded up and down Warren’s spine, her fingers tried to tear his hands away from his eyes, and her mouth poured screams into his ear. Snakes slithered across his eyebrows.

“Get off me!” He rolled over. The Gorgon lifted into the air, and a blind but very lucky kick sent her careening off what could have been the furnace. Warren scrambled to his feet
and took off in what he thought was the direction of the staircase. He ended up in the wardrobe.

The door closed behind him and he gained a second of peace. Outside, the sound of the Gorgon’s wings got louder, then softer, then louder again before their beating stopped altogether.

She’s waiting for me
, Warren thought.
Out there, somewhere. I’ll peek out and see her grinning, nasty face, and I’ll be a stone Warren in a wardrobe, like an overgrown knick-knack on a shelf
.

“I wish things were like the good old days,” he said aloud, fear raising his voice an octave too high, “when all I had to worry about was being a pig.”

What I need
, he thought after he’d swallowed his panic down far enough so that he could think,
is a sword
. Of course, having a sword hadn’t done him much good so far.
What I need
, he rethought,
is a hundred guys with a hundred swords
. But he only had four guys, and they were all rockheads, and their swords were trapped in their stony grips.

My sword is still out there
, he remembered.
Somewhere
.

He had to find that sword. It was hidden in a dark basement filled with lawn tools. He had to find it with his eyes closed. A dragon lady with enough ugly on her to pave a parking lot would be screaming and clawing at his face.

Impossible.

I could flee up the stairs instead
, he thought,
then get fired by Princey and have to live with the knowledge that I wasn’t able to do a simple thing like exterminate a Gorgon. I’d rather be a park statue
.

Faced with a choice between the impossible and the unwanted, Warren chose the impossible. So what if there was no way he could ever find the sword? He would just have to.

And he would just have to do it now.

He burst out of the wardrobe, his hands covering his eyes, shouting a battle cry he had heard in an old war movie. He tripped over something—probably Rick’s granite foot—scrambled back up, and ran into the wall. He fell into a pile of tools.

The Gorgon was all over him, as usual. Warren kept his eyes covered with one hand and searched frantically through the tools with the other.

He found a hammer. No good, it didn’t cut. He found a pair of pliers. It didn’t cut either, and pinching her head off would take too long and be too messy. Where was that sword?

He stood and the Gorgon pushed him back down. He landed on Helga’s electric weed trimmer.

Weed trimmer
, Warren thought,
hmmm
.

He felt down the trimmer’s shaft to its business end, the Gorgon gnawing at his fingers as he did. He found the motor, then the safety guard. He felt beneath it to see if the shaft was loaded with trimming line. It was. He worked his hand back to the other end, found the trigger, and pressed it. Nothing happened.

You have to plug it in, you dummy
, his mind shouted over the Gorgon’s screams.

He found the plug, then felt along the wall. Miracle of miracles, there was an outlet right next to his shoulder. He couldn’t get the plug
in. Without thinking, he opened his eyes to see why.

He had the plug sideways, with the tongs on the top and the bottom. He straightened it out and fitted it into the outlet. As he did, a snake dropped down and hissed in his eyes. Warren was face-to-face with the Gorgon.

His nose suddenly went numb. When he touched it with his finger, he heard a clink.

Hurry
, his mind shouted at him,
before it’s too late!

When Warren pressed the trigger, he couldn’t feel it. The only way he knew the trimmer was working was the zinging sound the trimming line made as the motor twirled it in the air.

“Not yet, Snaky-brain!”

He rolled on his back, his eyes clenched shut again, and kicked his suddenly very heavy legs straight into the air. They hit something solid. He swept the weed trimmer in an arc over his head as if he were taking out the biggest thistle in the world.

Zing!

Something splattered wetly beside him. Something else thumped to the floor at his feet. He thought he knew what they were, but he didn’t want to risk looking. He didn’t open his eyes until he heard Chen groan something about his nose and heard Harper say, “Oh man, who belted me in the forehead?”

Princey scowled even more than usual. His eye searched the five embarrassed faces of O’Rourke, Chen, Harper, Rick, and Warren. They had good reason to be embarrassed. Princey didn’t like bungled assignments.

“WHO SHOULD I BLAME?” he roared.

“Blame them all, boss,” Rank Frank said from the bleachers. “Especially Piggy.”

“Go kiss a troll, Frank,” Warren said.

Rank Frank laughed. “Nothing you say can ruin my mood, Piggy. I have a date with a princess tonight.”

“Are you going to take her watermelon hunting?”

Frank grinned. “I’m thinking about it.”

“CAN WE GET BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND?” Princey bellowed. “WHO SHOULD I BLAME?”

No one answered.

“WELL?”

Still no one answered. Princey shook his head and cleaned out his ear with one huge pinky, after forcing the bristles aside. “THEN I GUESS I’LL BLAME YOU ALL. HALF PAY FOR ROCKHEADS.” His big mitt slapped a wadded ten-dollar bill into each of the first four employees’ hands, then slapped one into Warren’s.

“But I’m not a rockhead,” Warren said meekly. “Not really.”

“YOU GET HALF PAY FOR VIOLATING PROCEDURES.”

“Huh?”

“YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO KILL GORGONS WITH SWORDS, NOT WITH WEED TRIMMERS.”

Warren sighed and took his pay. It was best not to argue with Princey.

Princey paid everyone else his twenty dollars. Poor Rodriguez would have to spend half of his on a manure fumigating service.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Princey,” Warren said.

“RIGHT, TOMORROW. LET’S SEE IF YOU CAN MAKE IT ON TIME TWO DAYS IN A ROW, OKAY?”

Warren was going to tell Princey about how Happy Harry was ripping him off, but decided not to.

Princey hacked, spit, and lit a cigarette. Still scowling, he closed the garage door, then crammed himself into his pickup and thundered away.

Warren joined Rick in staring glumly at their pay. “Not much for all we went through today, is it?” Rick asked.