Time of the Meatheads

Mitchell rushed through the Krim main gate, through the central plaza, across the street, then paused in front of the King’s Arms to catch his breath.

It was Wednesday, so Mitchell had the day off. For a while, he puttered around in his garden, watching the dragonfly drones nibble at the grass. Once in a while one would spot a weed and dive bomb it. But after a while, even watching the grass grow got boring.

The door to the King’s Arms banged open and Donna, startled, dropped the stack of souvenir coasters she was in the process of distributing to all the tables. The woman who stepped in was tall, easily a head or two taller than Donna. Muscular. Her metal armor was dull and banged up. She was a real warrior, not a noob wannabe. And she looked familiar.

The coach rolled down one street, made a turn, and down another. Mitchell peered out the window as the gate faded from view. The gate that would have taken him off of Krim and back to civilization. “I’ve got the plague, you know,” he told his captor.

“I couldn’t be any clearer.” The tavern’s day manager slapped her hand on the table in front of Donna. “The salt goes into the white bowls. The pepper goes into the black ones.”

Michell crossed the street to the Dirty Apple. There were more bars further down, he was sure of it, but he was equally sure that he hadn’t walked that far on Saturday night.

“I’m not a weirdo stalker,” Mitchell told the bartender at the Bouncing Octopus. The tavern was about twenty-minutes from Krim’s gate. That was about how long it had taken to walk to the bachelor party on Saturday. Wasn’t it?

Fried skirrets and egg, skirrets and cabbage, and slaughtered cow parts. Donna rattled off the lunch menu like an old pro. Her fourth day and she had it down cold.

Everyone was staring. The other party attendees. The wenches. The musicians. Charlie. And Harmon, of course.

Donna leaned over the bar to peer into the mirror on the back wall. One of her curls was starting to droop. She wet a finger and twirled the strand back into shape.

The four of them — Charlie, Mitchell, and two other guys — walked through the gate and into Krim proper. The rest of the bachelor party was already waiting for them at their destination, Charlie had said.

Donna looked at her reflection in the shop window. It was dark inside, so it was almost a perfect mirror.

Mitchell got to McMeaty’s the normal way. He walked out of his real house, through his very real gate in his real white picket fence and turned right.