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Warren Bull is author of
Abraham Lincoln for the Defense (PublishAmerica, 2003.) He has short
stories in the anthologies Manhattan Mysteries (KS Publishing Inc. 2005)
and Grab Your tiger (Keen Publications, 2007.) He has also published in
Amazon Shorts, Great Mystery and Suspense Magazine, Mysterical-E,
Crimeandsuspense.com, Kansas City Voices, and DowngoSun.
Act One
I've died on stage before. I vowed that wouldn't happen again. Of course I didn't expect to wake up with an aching head, wrists tied together on my chest, lying on my back in the middle of the stage of a Greek theatre outside a remote village in the Pindos Mountains. I rolled to my side, bent my knees and pushed down with my fists to rise. I started flexing my wrists, testing the slack in the rope as I looked around. The building directly behind the stage was decorated as a temple. A pillar stood on each side of the building. Actors could enter the stage from any of three doors or, as gods, they could be lowered from a movable crane on the flat roof.
"You should not have brought your beautiful woman to Niko's village," said an old man dressed in ragged clothing sitting in the front row of seats. "Niko takes whatever he wants. He wants your woman and your money. This will be a tragedy for you. He will rape the woman before your eyes. Then he will kill you. I, Dimitri, will watch."
I noticed the villagers filing into the theatre and sitting down.
"Your strength and your magic tricks impressed the children, but the people will not help you. They are here so they will remember what happens to anyone who opposes Niko."
I asked, "So, is Niko afraid to fight men unless they are drugged and bound? Who is he hiding from in this tiny village? The police know about him and they are coming for him. No man can escape his fate. Untie me now, Dimitri, and you might get away."
Dimitri raised a club and lunged at me.
Act Two
The door on the left side of the building opened and Natalie stumbled through it. Her face was dirty and bruised, but her eyes flashed and she held her head high. She saw a slumped, bloody-faced figure wearing hiking boots and a Land's End travel vest tied to a pillar on one side of the stage. She called out, "Alec," and ran to him.
Niko stepped through the middle door. He strutted to the middle of the stage and stopped on the spot reserved for the leader of the chorus. He glared at the villagers in the audience. No one said a word. They were silent even as a sandbag suspended from the crane on the roof swung toward him. It smashed into Niko's back between his shoulder blades. He crumpled. The villagers swarmed over him like avenging Furies.
Natalie checked the ropes that held Dimitri to the pillar before she wrenched my hiking boots off his feet. She had them ready for me before I finished climbing down from the roof.
EXODOS Warren Bull © 2007 |