Fergus broke eye contact. His gaze slowly drifted down, following my focus to the industrial stapler behind him on the desk.
“Oh, this thing?” He slowly picked it up. “I remember the way you stared at it.”
His eyes flicked back to me. I shook my head.
No no no no.
“You wanted to press it to my hand, didn’t you?” He put his hand onto the counter and pushed the head of the stapler against it. “And do this.”
With one smooth, squeeze of his trigger finger he fired the stapler and there was a loud, wet sch-unk.
CHAPTER 47
Fergus turned back to me, grinning and sweating. He pulled the industrial stapler from his hand, its metallic mouth red and wet with its feed.
“You wanted to teach me a lesson, didn’t you?” he said.
“No…” My voice was small and pathetic.
“Yes, you did.” He nodded at me, teeth and gums bared. A trickle of blood ran down the side of his hand. “Oh, he’ll never make fun of me again after that, you thought. No one will ever make fun of me again.”
He moved the stapler up to his wrist.
“No—!” I tried to stop him.
He pulled the trigger again. Sch-unk! This time with a faint crunch. He shuddered. A guttural exhale escaped his still-grinning face.
“Well,” he said. “Do you feel better now?”
He raised the stapler from his wrist. I shook with horror at the blood pooling round his battered flesh. He paced closer, pressing the teeth end of the stapler to his neck.
“What about now?”
He fired the glinting payload into his neck.
Sch-unk!
I backed away.
He moved the stapler down to his collarbone.
“Or now?”
Sch-unk!
My fingers shook over the axe.
He carefully undid the buttons of his flannel shirt then placed the stapler over a hairy nipple.
“Or now?”
Sch-unk!
He kept approaching me, metal staples in his flesh catching the light, blood blooming on his clothes.
I frantically searched the shop around me, looking for something to make him stop.
He raised the stapler up to his eye. The world went white-hot.
