One moment you could be looking at her, on the verge of an excellent witticism…
The next you would find yourself attacked by a feral mattress.
Too late, he saw the signs that must have been apparent to Imelda. The lack of strangers in the inn. The sign that suggested HAVE A DELICIOUS STAY. Ambrose couldn’t decide what he hated more: that a bed was about to kill him or that Imelda was right.
“Get! The! Hell! Off ! Me!” Ambrose shouted.
Ambrose saw that the red sheets had tangled their way around his leg, and now his torso. A pillow kept batting at his face. In his right pant leg, there was a small knife. Ambrose tried to inch his way toward the blade—
The bed tensed.
It knew.
The mattress folded sharply inward, and Ambrose gasped for air. This was it. He was going to die. Trapped in a bed that was quite possibly trying to eat him and without having done anything remotely exciting within it.
Heat flashed over his face. He squinted against the sudden brightness slicing through the red fabric. The bed gave off a metallic shriek, its iron hinges squealing suddenly as the silks drew back from his chest. Not enough room to see, but enough room to frantically gulp down air.
Finally, he could reach down his pant leg, pulling at the small knife tucked around his calf.
One cut, then two—
The silk sheets gave way to…fire.
Flames rippled across his sight, and he startled backward. The fire jerked away from his face, and now Ambrose could see that it belonged to a torch held aloft in Imelda’s hand.
“It was the only thing I could think of !” Imelda yelled. “Get out!”
The bed squealed and howled. Imelda lowered the flame to the pillow.
“That’s for being gaudy!”
Ambrose threw off the last of the coverlets, then rolled onto the floor, where he ran smack dab into the wall. He flung his hand upward, grasping the latch of a small window that overlooked a ten-foot jump to the ground. From the staircase came the sound of heavy footfalls and the delighted chortling of the innkeeper, followed by the hushed mutterings of a small crowd.
“What if the bed hasn’t ate ’em up yet?” someone said.
Imelda inched toward the door, holding the torch aloft.
Ambrose shook his head vigorously as he reached to unclasp the latch of the window. Imelda ignored him.
Now the innkeeper spoke. “Nah, the bed always finishes them off right quick—”
Ambrose shuddered at that, sneaking a glance at the giant crimson bed. Now it cowered toward one end of the room, as if trying to keep a wide berth from Imelda and her flaming torch. With a jiggle and a jerk, Ambrose got the window to swing open noiselessly.
He reached for his sword belt and the horse cloak. The cloak snorted awake.
“I need you to be a rope!”
But I’m a horse.
“I need you to be a horse rope.”
I don’t think that is a thing.
Ambrose ignored the cloak, hanging it off the side and gesturing wildly at Imelda.
But she refused to move as more voices gathered outside the door.
“But didhefinish off right quick? Meat’s always tastier when it’s had a bit uh tendering, if you know what I mean.”
