AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, Rhoda Crwys, Welsh Student. Meanwhile, Wolfcastle and the fatal Librarian are under fire at the Ddwwchllyff residence.
The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 40

The first shot took them both by surprise, as did the second. By the time they had realized they were being shot at the fifth shot had completed it’s trajectory.

Reacting at last he yelled out: ‘Duck!’

One of the earlier rounds had dislodged an antique display case containing several stuffed aquatic birds. This was now crashing down under the command of gravitational forces previously held at bay by the fixings securing the case to the wall. She had seen the danger and sprang cat-like across the floor, landing, on her feet, on the deep pile rug next to the open fire. She dropped to the floor and rolled onto her back just as the display case completed it’s rendezvous with the floor and smashed to pieces. Turning to cast an eye or two over the debris she shouted back to Wolfcastle. ‘Guineafowl actually.’ she yelled, trying to be heard over the sounds of gunshots, breaking glass and general mayhem. She just had to be right all the time!

They were now at opposite sides of the room and the rounds were still streaming in through the gap where the window had been.

While this wasn’t the first time he’d been under-fire, Wolfcastle had grown accustomed to not being shot at as a matter of routine. He had to get across to the Librarian, that fire place, conveniently left open like that, seemed their only escape route. Timing his movements to try and not get shot dead, he lurched to the left. It was a bold move. A round whistled past him and he sprang back in the other direction.

Another shot rang out, hurtled past his right ear and lodged itself in the wall at the far end of the room, although not necessarily in that order. He was shuffling from side to side like a bat on a hot tin roof. With a further luckily timed tumble he hurled himself towards the fire place. The otherwise sickeningly hard landing he expected was broken by something unexpectedly soft.

‘Get off me you freak!’ the soft thing screamed in a timbre not altogether unlike that of the Librarian’s. She protested with words but her actions betrayed her true sentiment: pinned to the floor by a startled and gasping man…with gunshots ringing out all around - ‘just like the good old days’ she mused.

Wolfcastle didn’t move immediately. Nobody did. There was the matter of the inherent delay of approximately 250 milliseconds associated with all conscious action. It couldn’t be helped, it was just a fact of life connected to the amount of time required to process the intention to move with the amount of time it takes to conduct the tiny neural impulses around to the appropriate parts of the body.

Two hundred and fifty one milliseconds later Wolfcastle jerked upwards. At approximately the similar moment another round, they’d both stopped counting by now, hurtled past his shoulder. ‘What a stupid jerk’ she had thought as she’d observed his movements. He dived or dove (he couldn’t be sure) back down onto the soft thing, now positively identified as the Librarian.

‘I said…’

‘I heard you!’ He decided his next movement would be at a lower level to the last, he crawled forward, over her outwardly angry body beneath him, and towards the open fire place. ‘Come on’ he urged, turning back to her. ‘There’s a way out!’

At the moment a further shot was fired. The round entered the room and ricocheted off of the Grand piano, hitting a priceless vase located on the mantle piece above the fire. The vase rocked, tittered, tilted and then fell, crashing down onto Wolfcastle’s unsuspecting head. He collapsed to the floor unconscious.

The Librarian crawled over to where he lay, fearing he was dead, wondering if he was alive and unsure exactly what to do in either eventuality.