Assassins (WIP)

She walked into the bus station, it was early, the sun was barely above the horizon. This was the first time she had been in one when she wasn’t killing someone. It felt like wearing shoes that were a size too small or pants that didn’t quite fit right. Nina tugged at the straps on the duffel bag on her back, it was chock full of weapons - she was on her way to a job, unfortunately because of some miscalculations and unfortunate hangovers this could be the last job she gets.

Nina hadn’t always been like this, she had been responsible well, a responsible killer. She did her research, found her marks and killed them according to the contracts.  The problem was she got too good and that made her a little too cocky.  She smiled to herself as she reminisced about her first couple of years going pro.

She laughed, the woman next to her in line gave her a sideways look - Nina could see her looking out of the corner of her eyes but never made contact - she could see the disdain the woman had for her but she didn’t care.  Yeah, she was good, she had a lot of kills under her belt but because of all those kills if you don’t keep your ego in check it can bite you in the ass - and bite it did.  Nina was a fan of the night kills, so when her adrenaline is pumping after a kill what a better way to work it off but dance and drink, sometimes there’d be some drugs but she didn’t need it - as long as she had something to drink she was fine.  She doesn’t have a boss, just a one-time employer and hopefully she never sees them again, and if she does for the same contract then there is a bigger problem.  Well, Nina started seeing some of her employers more than once and some of these employers are people you don’t even want to see a first time.

‘Next please’

‘Um yeah, let me get a one way ticket to New Hampshire please’

The young man behind the counter turned to type in some info into the computer,

‘$47.65 please’

Nina pulled out cash and dropped a $50, the young man took the money and gave her some change and dropped the ticket - he started to point to where she was going to go to take the bus but she had already grabbed the ticket and the change. She was kind of glad this happened - it wasn’t great that she was going to a job almost 2 weeks before to surveil before the target lands but apparently that is part of the cover. It also wasn’t great that she was supposed to spend an extra week after the target got there so it didn’t look suspicious that a hit was done right when they got there; so almost a month in the middle of nowhere.  She was taking a bus to Boston then driving up into New Hampshire from there - the details were in a car parked at the bus station -  so that made this whole trip one full long-ass day.

She made it outside to the line to get on the bus, the driver was already taking tickets and trying to coordinate the luggage that people were trying to put down by the under storage. Nina gave her ticket and held onto her duffel - nobody was getting her hands on this.  She made her way onto the bus and found a seat between the back and the middle on the drivers side.  The bus wasn’t full, a standard bus seats about 50 people, Nina counted 15.  She sat on the outside seat and placed her duffel on the inside seat, this way some random wouldn’t touch the bag or suggest to move it. People continued to file on, Nina had pulled out her phone and started to look at some app, she barely noticed it and shut off her phone. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, she heard the clicking of the large doors under the bus then the heavy steps entering the bus, Nina opened one eye and looked over at the driver who was reaching over to shut the doors. The driver shut the door and picked up a mic,

‘Good morning folks, my name is Shelly.  My job here is to get you from here to there. I am not here to take your bullshit and babysit you.  There is no smoking, vaping, drinking, fucking or just general bullshit from you from here to there. This is a 5-ish hour bus ride. There is a bathroom out back that can handle your number ones just fine and your number two’s - too many number two’s and we’ll all be in a world of hurt.  I will be stopping when I see a rest area so if you have to do a two, kindly hold it til then. Otherwise, be nice to one another, try not to walk around if you don’t need to and we’ll get there in no time - any questions?’

No hands went up in front of her, Nina looked back - a couple of people had headphones on and didn’t seem to be paying attention - the others were just staring blankly; no trouble on this trip?  Shelly sat in the drivers seat, put the bus in gear and got the trip started.

As soon as they exited the bus terminal, Nina pulled the hood up on her hoodie, put one hand on her bag and shut her eyes.  She wasn’t fully sleeping, just between that plane of full resting sleep and awake - she could still feel the bumps of the bus as it made its way out of the bus terminal and onto the highway - she began reflecting about her last job; it was supposed to be easy, well easy is relative when it comes to contracts.  She got a contract for another hitman that had really fucked up the last job, and by fucked up she meant that the hitman fucked the hit which is a big no-no, you don’t get close in fact they shouldn’t even see you until its too late.  So this guy gets the contract, makes contact and starts to bang his hit.  The problem is the contract expired and he never contacted his employer so they called her in to go check it out, Nina reported back and they gave her the go-ahead almost immediately.  She knew it wasn’t going to be difficult, she knew the guy and knew where he was going to fuck up, when he was trying to get laid.  So Nina followed him for a couple of days, figured out where and when he was doing the deed and then finally on the last day, when she was about to make the hit, the husband comes home and plugs the wife.  In all the confusion the hitman got away so needless to say, Nina’s employer was not impressed, she’s a professional after all and these things shouldn’t happen but how could she have known?  The husband was always going to be a wild card. Nina exhaled loudly through her nose, shifted in her seat, opened her eyes and looked out the window.  The leftover drops from a passing rainstorm dribbled down the windows, she could see the Boston Harbor as they were coming up Interstate 93 as she looked over to her right, Shelly got on the mic,

‘Alright folks, that was a relatively unremarkable trip - there was the one incident at the rest stop in CT but we all made it.  We’re about 10 minutes out, thanks for that. I’ll be pulling in, once I do that I’ll get your bags out and we’ll part ways.  If you need directions for something specific come and talk to me or else enjoy Boston or wherever your headed towards.’

Nina continued to look out the window as Shelly was talking thinking about the next steps, she was going to meet with a contact, get some keys for a rental car then head up to the top of the state, Coos County, those were all the details that she had so far.  She watched as Shelly pulled into the station and parked the bus then opened the door, everyone started to get up,

‘Alright everyone, I know it’s been a long trip but one at a time please.’

Nina looked back and people were already standing to get off the bus, she waited and motioned for people to just go by, she was in no rush.

The last person went by, she stood up and grabbed her duffel bag and walked down the aisle and out of the bus.  She put it on her back like a back pack and walked towards the car rental area.  As she made her way there she saw a young woman standing there with a sign that read, ‘Wildhorn’, her employer wasn’t going to use her real name and she had chosen something obscure enough that nobody was going to come up to the contact.

‘Hey, I’m Wildhorn’

The contact looked her up and down,

‘Where are you going?’

‘I was told Coos County and there would be a package to follow’

The contact looked around then back at Nina,

‘Follow me.’

They walked from the entrance to the car rental area to where the cars were, the contact reached into her pocket and pulled out a set of keys and handed them to Nina,

‘The car is gassed up and there’s money in the trunk for the duration of your trip for lodging and expenses.  When the job is complete you’ll get your contract money. Also in the trunk are the details of the contract; the who what and where’s.  There is a GPS in the car already set to where you are going so just follow that.  You have a place booked for you for the next month in Mooresfield and that is where the GPS is taking you - you’re pretty close to Canada if that helps you out with the length of the drive from here.  Any questions?’

Nina reached out and grabbed the set of keys in the contacts hand and hit the unlock button. The lights on a mid-size sedan had flashed and her hopes of a comfortable and somewhat enjoyable ride had quickly diminished when this basic cars lights had flashed. The contact saw the look on her face.

‘Did you think that your employer was going to splurge on something top of the line for you?  They heard about your last couple of jobs and going out on a limb hiring for your is the least they could do so consider yourself lucky they took a chance on you.’

Nina looked back at the contact again, ‘you’re not wrong, as long as it gets me there I’ll be fine - plus I don’t want to attract too much attention.’

Nina started walking away and the contact called out,

‘Hey, not for nothing but I’ve heard about you for a long time - you’ve done good work but from what I hear in the inner circles is this is your last chance - don’t kill the messenger but if you fuck this up you may not like the results.’

Nina had stopped with her back towards the contact as she was telling her all this then turned around,

‘When I chose this life I’m lucky I made it this far - we’ll see what happens next.’

With that she opened the trunk of the rental car, took stock of the items the contact talked to her about, it all checked out. There was about $50k there, should be more than enough for what she needed and a dossier for the job.  She put the duffel bag in the trunk, shut it, got in the car and started it.  Just as the contact said the GPS was set to her location, the Mooresfield Inn -

‘sounds lovely’ she thought to herself.  With that she back out and started on the trip up to what could be her last job ever.

As Nina was driving she was getting closer to Moorsefield, the GPS told her that after she got off the highway it was going to be at least another hour until she arrived at the Moorsefield Inn. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had been at a job that was so remote or even when she had willingly chosen to be at a remote location on her own.  Ever since she got through the White Mountains, she hadn’t seen many people and she had an inkling it was going to continue to be like this and possibly less people.  The GPS told her that she would be getting off the highway and taking a state road which would lead her into Moorsefield.

She pressed on an about an hour later, after seeing nothing else but trees and mountains she could see the makings of a small town as she crested over a hill.  As she was coming into town there was a river to her left which had run a pretty long way. She had noticed some dirt driveways which abutted the river as she was driving and how nice sitting on a porch at night listening to the rushing river might not have been a bad idea thing or even sitting by a fire outside but she wasn’t sure she could do it. She continued to drive and there were more houses, some were in a dilapidated condition and some looked brand new - some folks didn’t really care one way or the other. As she drove this eventually opened up into the town but she would’t be going into the town just yet as the GPS was taking her left from the houses, Moorsefield Inn was just on the outskirts.  She made it to the inn, turned off the car got out and stretched.  She turned around and looked and could still see the town from where she was, it was walking distance from the inn so that made things a little bit easier for her.  She walked around to the back of the car, opened the trunk and grabbed her duffel of guns and the extra bag her employer packed for her and walked to the reception area of the inn.

Nina opened the door, the sound of a cow mooing signified her arrival.  Nina looked up at the unusual entrance tone but figured it was typical for the area. She looked around as she entered, the room was small but full of character.  There was wood paneling all around, orange shag carpeting with a throw rug thrown over it.  A small seating area with a coffee maker and no coffee pot but they did have an electric kettle so points there. She turned and saw the person behind the desk - what she assumed was a younger person, a girl, definitely younger than her with their head down doing some kind of puzzle it looked like; Nina cleared her throat.

‘Hello?’

No response - she moved closer to the desk and leaned against it looking at what the girl was working on - looks like a crossword,

‘The answer to 22 across is Van Gogh, artist that leans more to the right. He famously cut off his left ear.’

The girl looked up at Nina, ‘thanks, I suppose you’re checking in?’ She turned around and grabbed the only slip and key on the wall, ‘this must be you…Nina?’

‘Yeah, that’s me.’

‘Driver’s license please.’

Nina got our her license and gave it to the girl, ‘what’s your name?’

The girl looked at her apprehensively, ‘Simone’

‘Hi Simone, I’m of course, Nina - I’ll be here for the next month so good to meet you.’

Nina figured that the person at the desk would be good to get information from if necessary so best to get one her good side now.

‘Nina Perkins - ok, I’ve got you here for one month, seriously? You want to be here for one month - I barely want be here now.’

‘I’m on a working vacation if you could call it that.  I needed somewhere quiet to go and this seemed pretty quiet.’

‘What do you do for work?’

‘I’m an accountant’

‘For who?’

‘A bank’

‘For how long’

’10 years’

‘Sounds boring’

‘If you love what you do, you never work Simone’

‘I guess that sounds right - so you can do that from here?’

‘Its just spreadsheets and numbers so I can do it from anywhere - I just needed to get out of the city for awhile.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘What about you - is this what you do?’

Simone seemed reserved about answering, ‘this is my family’s inn I just help out after school and on the weekends - its so boring but my parents have other jobs and do maintenance here.’

‘Ok, but what do you want to do?’

‘I haven’t really thought about it?’

‘Well you have time, tell you what - why don’t you think about it and we can talk some more - can I get my key its been a long day.’

Simone smiled at her and Nina smiled back, ‘we don’t really get too many people in here and they just go to their rooms, thanks for talking to me.’

‘Of course Simone, think on that and we’ll talk later.’

‘Oh hey, I forgot to tell you, all the rooms are around back’ she leaned back and grabbed the key hanging on the wall, your basic key but it had a wooden evergreen attached to it - ‘they are separate little cottages - there’s 8 total so you just have to pull your car around back and you’ll see it - it’s like a little horseshoe and parking is on the side of each one.  There are two other cabins taken, I think they are hiking somewhere locally and I haven’t seen them much so it’ll be quiet enough for you’

‘Thanks Simone’

Nina grabbed the key, opened the door - the cow mooed again and she headed off to her room for the next month.

Nina got to her car looked at the slip of paper and it told her that her room was ‘4’, she backed the car out and headed to her new home for the next month.

Nina pulled her car in front of the little cottage, ‘cute’ she said out loud.  She got out of the car, grabbed her duffel and other pack and made her way to the front door of the cottage and opened it up, she she shut the door and locked it. It was a small open concept cottage, there was a wood stove directly in the center of the cottage with a small stack of wood on the wall.  There were two doors directly in front of her, she could see a shower which deduced that this was most likely the bathroom. Then right next to it was the bedroom, she could see a dresser upon against the wall and the corner of a window.  To her right was a small kitchenette with a all the fixings, it even had a decent size refrigerator so she would have to make her way in town later to get some food.  She walked into the bedroom to see where she would be sleeping and if there was any closet space to store her things.  She walked in and dropped her stuff on the bed, pulled out her phone, decent signal surprisingly. She still had her VPN because you could never be too sure. She looked in the closet, it was small but she didn’t have that many clothes.  In fact, she had more guns and other accessories than she had clothes with her.  She hung up the scant amount of clothes that she had, put the duffel on the floor of the closet and then shut the door.  She grabbed the dossier that her contact had given her and walked out of the bedroom to the kitchenette.  She tossed them on the little table then walked over to the sink, she turned on the faucet to see what the water flow was like, steady.  She grabbed a cup and filled it up then sat at the table and opened up the dossier.

‘Jonathan Connors Age 46. Looks like he owns the towns store and deli but it also doubles as a bar after 2pm.  Our friend Jonathan has been in Moorsefield for about 15 years now, came on the scene out of nowhere and bought up the store after the previous owner went bankrupt during the ’08 recession.  He put some money into it and and added the bar and put in a deli as well - the town is small but people from other places heard about it and frequent it so it thrives.’

Nina pushed the dossier aside, how he came about the money is another story.  According to the dossier her and Jonathan share a similar employer - well Jonathan previously did.  He did a job for their mutual employer back in ’08 and didn’t end up giving him all the money back that eventually went to the bar.  He disappeared up here and nobody could find him until recently someone was traveling and stumbled into his little heaven - not sure if he knew or not but it was about to come to an end. Nina pulled out his picture,

‘it’s a shame, he’s kind of cute.’

She put the picture back in, look a little more deeply at the file, his name was William Davis but of course when you dirty like he did you need to re-invent yourself and get a new identity.  She looked at his picture again then closed the file, took a sip of water then headed back to the bedroom.  She opened the closet and tucked the dossier into her duffel, not that anyone would come in here but she needed to make sure that nobody found it. She also needed to find a hardware store in town, there was a lock on the door but she wanted to get a deadbolt to further secure this place. She stood up and walked over to the bed where the other pack was and opened it up - there were 5 stacks of crisp 100 dollar bills equalling up to 50k, she peeled off two of the hundred dollar bills to get some of the essentials from in-town.  She grabbed the cottage key and took it off the key ring then placed it along with her car key - she wasn’t going to carry around two sets of keys for a month - especially one that had a big wooden tree attached to it. With the keys fixed up and some cash in her pocket she walked back to the bedroom, this was a recon to get some food and other stuff but she should still be armed.  She went into her duffel and grabbed her trusty 9mm along with the lower back holster - she also grabbed her automatic knife and slipped that into her pocket.  She wasn’t expecting trouble but you never know. She closed the duffel, shut the closet and shut the bedroom door.  She headed out the front door, locked it then walked into town.

A New Arm (WIP)

HNNGGGGH.  I woke up with a start and grabbed my side.  It felt like something was trying to get out of me.  My whole body was covered in sweat and clearly my sheets had absorbed a good portion of the sweat as well.  I swung my legs off the bed still holding my side,

‘What the hell is this pain - I was fine when I went to bed?’

I got up and walked over to the bathroom, my dog Fionna opened her eyes and barely lifted her head, it was clearly too early to deal with whatever this was.

I made it into the bathroom, shut the door, closed my eyes and turned on the light.  Even with this pain I knew that I would have been blinded by this light - I gave it a second or two, covered by eyes with my hand and let the light filter in - there really is nothing worse then going from light to dark in the middle of the night. I looked down at my left side where the pain was and it looked red, like the kind of red if you get slapped but nothing else of note.  Against my better judgement I pressed on it and of course I gasped out,

‘What the fuck!’

The pain was real, it brought me to a half lunge, in the middle of the night. I popped a couple ibuprofen, covered my eyes again to prepare for the dark and shut the lights.  I opened the door back up and uncovered my eyes - it isn’t a perfect system but it helps with the blindness.

I made my way back to bed and my partner Leah rolled over,

‘What are you yelling about in there?’

‘I’ve got this crazy pain in my side, I just took some ibuprofen but I don’t think I’m going to get any sleep - I’m gonna go sleep on the couch so I don’t bother you.’

‘Ok, kiss me before you leave’

‘Sure thing my dear.’

I think she started to say that she hoped I felt better but it could have been any number of things and she was fast asleep again.  I looked over at our dog and she wasn’t moving either so I was on my own.  I went out living room but passed through the kitchen on my way out, I grabbed an ice pack and thought that might help things out.  I laid on the couch, turned on the tv.  There was a movie on, something that I think I wanted to watch but the pain was still there so I was barely concentrating on the movie.  The pills started to take effect and the pain was subsiding, along with the ice it was helpful enough that I was hopefully going to get some sleep - I listened to the movie for some time but apparently fell asleep because I woke up to my face getting licked and not in a good way.

‘Hey Justin, I didn’t want to wake you up but Fionna was getting impatient so I let her say good morning.’

‘Hi Fionna, i know I know I had to sleep out here cause I wasn’t feeling well.’ Fionna is our Golden Retriever that wants to play all day but when it is night time couldn’t be bothered with anyone or anything.  I sat up on the couch and Leah came up behind me and gave me a hug and kiss,

‘How’re you feeling?’

‘Alright, the pain has subsided but now I feel like I have a cold or the aches you beforehand, know what I mean?’

‘Oh yeah, those are never fun - well, can you work from home today - I’m sure if you tell your boss you have a cold they don’t want you in the office?’

‘Probably, I honestly don’t think they care either way but it’s probably better I stay home and relax.’

I got up, looked at the spot where the pain was, it still looked like someone had slapped me.

‘Leah, look here’ I pointed at the side of my body, this is where the pain came from - it just looks like someone slapped me really hard.’

Leah came over and bent over to look getting really close,

‘Oh yeah, that is strange and you didn’t hit it on anything?’  She got up and flicked it

‘Hey what the hell!’

‘I’m just seeing what your pain level is at and it looks like it is high.’ She gave me a kiss on the cheek, which I suppose makes up for the flick but I’ll get her back.

‘No I didn’t hit it on anything, I didn’t fall or anything either - I’ll take it easy today though.  I mean, maybe it was something I ate and I really need to fart?’

‘Yeah, yes that could definitely be a thing but if it is - make it count ok.’

‘Of course, if I’m in this much pain and it is a fart, I’m not going to just pass wind - waste of a fart.’

I walked over to use the bathroom, as I went Leah was telling me she had to meet someone that was interested in some paintings of hers so she was bringing them to show and she would be gone most of the day.  I made it to the bathroom, peed and farted.  I leaned out the door,

‘Hey, it wasn’t gas.’

‘Well, why don’t you wait to see if the gas release clears the problem up - also, I didn’t hear anything so it definitely wasn’t worth it.

‘I know, I feel like I let you down.’

‘You know Justin, you didn’t let me down, but you can try harder next time - also finish up in there, I need to use the bathroom to get ready to leave.’

I was probably another minute and Leah was able to use the bathroom

After I finished in the bathroom I called my boss and let him know what was going on - he was pushing me to take a sick day and I just told him that I was going to be online and available - whatever that meant. I wrapped up that call and Leah came into the living room with her paintings and other things,

‘I’m taking off, if you need anything text me - if not I should be home after 2.  If you’re not feeling well call me and I can come right home.’

‘I’ll be fine honey, good luck today. I have a good feeling about this!’

I leaned in and we kissed and she took off.

I posted up on the couch, work computer, tv on but sound so very, very low and got to it.  My side was actually feeling alright so I got something to eat.  I had some yogurt and berries and see how I felt.  I walked back to the couch and could feel a little bit of pain - I reached down to my side and felt heat emanating from what I’ve been referring to as the slap mark.  I looked over at Fionna,

‘This doesn’t feel great girl.’

I’m not sure what happened between me saying that and when I woke up but I opened my eyes and there was an overturned bowl completely licked clean licked clean and one Golden Retriever laying and staring me in the face.  Then the pain clicked, I grimaced and rolled onto my knees,

‘Well Fionna, thanks for cleaning up the mess on the floor’ her tail wagged slightly and I pet her head to know she was the best girl ever

I got up and looked at my side, the red slap mark had now turned from a light rosy color to a deeper shade of crimson - there was a slight bump there as well. I pressed on the side and the bump depressed a bit before raising again.

‘Well, that’s not great’ I got up walked to the kitchen and got an ice pack out of the fridge, walked over to the couch to lay down and see if the ice helped out.  With the ice on my side I immediately passed out.

I woke up about an hour later, what felt like I peed my pants but was just the ice pack condensation fully melted I peeled it off my side.  It was more red than it was an hour ago and there was a super white head on it, it looked like a giant zit.  Fionna was sitting on the carpet looking at me whining softly, I think she could feel my pain.

‘I know girl, this doesn’t feel great.’

I grimaced as I stood up.  It felt like if I did any kind of bending that whatever was on my side was just going to pop.  I figured a hot shower might do me good but wanted to wait for Leah to come home so didn’t pass out in the shower and whack my head it was just a little afternoon so I still had another couple of hours so I’d have to wait. I put my phone down and brought the ice pack back to the freezer.  I took some more ibuprofen, more than I should have and made may way back to the couch - I barely made it out of the kitchen when a sharp pain jolted my side and brought me to my knees; I clutched at my side. I tried to get up but any movement at all made the pain even worse.  I looked at my side and I could see something moving underneath the skin on the side. I tried to get back up again but another sharp jolt of pain sent me back down to the floor - I couldn’t move.  Fionna looked at me from across the room, whimpering and laid down half in the spare room and half out - not sure if she should come help me or run in horror

‘Thanks for the help’ I barely managed to squeak out and saw her fully retreat into the spare room

I looked over at my side and saw the skin cracking and blood starting to come out.  I pulled off my shirt and placed it on top of the now open wound but whatever I thought the shirt would do to sop up the blood it didn’t.  I could feel pressure coming from underneath the shirt as the redness of the area mixed with the blood coming out of the wound.  I was about 15 feet from the bathroom and managed to crawl there to get some towels.  Leah was not going to be excited about all the blood but I probably needed to survive this first.  I had to kick my way over because my arms were basically useless at this point, the pain coming from my sides didn’t allow me to move my arms over my head.  I was half in the bathroom and laying on one of the throw rugs, which was originally white but now covered in blood.  Through immense pain I reached up and grabbed both the towels on the rack and placed them on my side.  My mind blipped like a pinball machine tilted from being shaken so hard.  That is when I felt something pop out of my body, it was like popping a whitehead but a billion times worse.  The pressure from the side of my body went from intense to relief in an instant but I could still feel something.  I looked down and saw something coming out of my body,

‘Uh, ugh, fuck is that my intestine?’

I grabbed some of the towels and pushed against whatever that was but it was painful, I had some mobility back in my arms again and attempted to sit up and lean agains the wall in the bathroom, I was about a quarter of the way up the wall, leaning on the opposite side when I was able to get a good look at what popped out of my body.  The bleeding had now stopped and the skin that had cracked and opened up had fully closed around this protrusion - it was another arm.

‘What the fuck is this, what is going on?!’  I didn’t realize it but I was flexing the hand of the arm - it looked like a 2 year olds arm on a 40 year olds body.  I didn’t understand what was going on.  The blood and junk were still dripping from the arm, I reached over to touch it and in my mind the arm reach over to grab my finger and I snatched my hand away.

‘What the fuck is going on’

I touched the area around my new appendage, no pain - maybe this is what giving birth is like and now I can fully empathize instead of just saying that I do.

I got on my knees and looked around, there was blood everywhere. I looked at my side, there was a tiny child arm popping out of my body.  I stood up slowly and mentally prepared myself for the sight I was about to see.  I closed my eyes as I stood up, turned and opened my eyes as I was standing in front of the mirror.  It was just as I had expected, a tiny child’s arm poking out of the side of my body.  How was I going to explain this to Leah?  How was I going to wear clothes? How the hell did this even happen now?

I braced myself against the sink, turned on the water and splashed my face with water.  I looked down and the tiny arm was bracing against the sink, holding me up even though after 40 years I had learned to balance myself.  ‘This is going to take some getting used to apparently’ I figured the next best bet was to take a shower, before I did that I looked at the time, it was a little past 1, I needed to message Leah.  I couldn’t send her a picture of this but maybe just a warning that I’m cleaning up.’

I shot off a message about the floors being wet and to be careful if she came home soon, I poked my head in the spare room and saw Fionna there - she slowly approached me and I bent over and pet her.  My new appendage was also petting her and she licked it cautiously, not really sure what was happening.  ‘Sorry for scaring you back there but I’m not really even sure what’s happening.’

I took a shower, cleaned up and got all the towels and rugs that I bled out on and attempted to wipe up the excess blood that was on the floor.  I grabbed a big bag and threw them away - there wasn’t going to be any saving those.  I washed the floor, made some tea and settled on the couch.  Leah should be home soon so I put on a big sweater so I wouldn’t freak her out.

I took some more ibuprofen just because it had been that kind of a day - I looked at my phone and it was about quarter past 2 and I had a message - looks like she was stopping at the store and would be home soon.  I closed my eyes and waited.

What felt like 2 minutes was actually about an hour later I heard the front door open,

‘Hey Justin - I’m back, can you give me a hand with these bags?’

‘Yeah, I’ll be right there’

I got up, grabbed the tea but it was cold and decided against it, brought mug to the kitchen sink and walked to the front door.

Leah was walking in with a couple of bags, she kissed me and said,

‘Hey, there about 3 more bags in there, do you mind getting them? Also, why are you wearing such a heavy sweater - are you feeling ok?’

‘I’m fine, after you left I wasn’t feeling that great but I’m better now.’

‘Ok, grab the bags, we can eat and talk in a minute.’

I went outside to grab the bags.  I wanted to see if I could pick up one of the bags with my new arms and sure enough I could.  I didn’t think it would be a good idea if I walked in with a bag in each hand and then one hanging out of the sweater so I opted out of that idea.  I grabbed the bags and walked in. I put the bags on the counter,

‘So how did it go with the sale, did it all go as planned?’

‘It went great, sold a couple I knew I was going to and made plans for a couple more - all in all, a good day.’

‘Great news!’

‘Yeah, its just the unknown leading up to it - you never know what is going to happen or pop up.’

‘Don’t I know that.’

‘What does that mean?’

I didn’t know how I was going to tell her or show her, the only real was was to just jump into the deep end.

‘Well, remember this morning I was having that pain on my side?’

Leah nodded and I continued

‘Well, after you left it became more red and inflamed, I took some ibuprofen and napped but it kept getting worse and worse.

She nodded again, looking more concerned

‘Eventually it looked like a giant whitehead ready to burst.’

‘Oh my god Justin, are you ok - let me see it!’

I put my hand up,

‘Just hold on’

‘So it did eventually burst and there was blood everywhere and it was super painful

‘Really? When did this happen?’

‘In the past 2 hours, it ‘popped and I cleaned up and we’re all good now.’

‘Justin, what happened and what aren’t you telling me.’

I grabbed the bottom of the sweater, ready to lift it up

‘It wasn’t just blood or pus that came out - something actually came out of me - did you want to see it?’

‘Yes goddammit show me!’

‘It is not going to be what you think.’

‘Fuck man just lift up the shirt!’

I lifted up my shirt and there it was the little arm, waving at Leah.  I looked up at her and her mouth dropped open.

‘What the fuck is that?’

‘I know - I was thinking the same thing.’

Hell (WIP)

When the Gleeman Corporation started to downsize last year, it offered most if not all of the engineers that ability to relocate to other facilities that were still open across North America.  The Gleeman Corporation opened in the early 1930’s and specialized in military contracts, there was one that was still open in a rural part of New Hampshire that did especially well and employed a good number of people from that state.

Mark wasn’t overly impressed when his father came in to tell him the news,

‘Hey Mark, so it looks like were going to be moving, they are shutting down my factory here in San Diego and that is the only place that has an opening.’

‘There isn’t anything around here?’

‘Well sure there is but I’ve been with this company 30 years, I’m ready to retire in 5 years and I’d be losing out on a lot of things if I left now, we’d be moving there finishing up my time and most likely be moving back but I have to finish my time out.’

Mark was clearly upset by this and his dad could tell.

‘Look buddy, I know this isn’t great but at least it is at the end of the year and you can finish up here and start fresh with some new friends.’

‘I don’t want to start fresh with new friends dad, I like the friends I have here.’

‘Lets get out there and see how things are, we still have family here so we’ll be back at least once a year - plus you have so many ways to stay in touch!’

‘Its not the same Dad and you know that.’

‘I know Mark, it isn’t. But I am excited about the fact that we’ll have seasons and we’ll see the Atlantic Ocean and mountains.’

‘Woo-hoo’

‘You’ll take a shine to it soon enough. We already have a house that was bought and paid for by the company which is great, you and I will head out there early once school is finished and your mom will hang back here to wrap up with the house here.’

‘Why can’t I stay here?’

‘Well I thought it would be nice if you and I could spend some time together, I have a couple of weeks off to get settled and get the house in order - I figured we could explore a little bit.’

‘Whatever Dad.’

‘That’s the spirit! We leave at the end of the month so that gives you at least 30 days to pack, anything you don’t need I recommend donating; toys and clothes and other stuff.’

Mark’s dad left the room - Mark shut the door harder than he should have and his dad yelled out in the hallway, ‘We’re gonna have a good time.’

Mark hated that his dad had such a positive outlook on things all the time, like he never got mad.  He dropped a jar of pickles once that they were going to use for burgers and there was glass everywhere, most people would have swore or gotten angry but his dad just said, ‘now we’re in a real pickle’ and started to clean it up; like he never showed any outward emotion.  All his friends loved Marks parents, they were so ‘relatable’ and ‘down to earth’ but to Mark they were just annoying but I guess everyone’s parents were annoying. Mark looked around his room and fell face first on his bed, he wasn’t in the mood to pack anything.

Two weeks had passed and he might have put one thing in a box, his mother came in the room.

‘Mark, the end of this week I’m going to drop some clothes off for donation - think you’ll have anything?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you want me to go through and find things to donate.’

‘No Mom’

‘Ok then, so we’ll see some clothes and possibly toys and stuff to donate by let’s say Thursday since I’m headed there on Friday - you and your father are leaving in a little more than 2 weeks - how exciting!’

‘So very thrilling’

Marks mom left, he look in his closet and spotted a box of toys, kicked it with his foot and shut the door.

Thursday came and Mark had filled up a bag with clothes and pulled out the box of toys he hadn’t looked in for about 10 years.  His mom asked him to bring the stuff downstairs and she looked at the sorry excuse for a pile and looked at him,

‘Mark, I believe there is so much more just waiting to be freed from the stranglehold you have on it - wouldn’t you agree?’

‘Mom, I don’t know, if you think so then why don’t you do it.’

‘I don’t think you’ll be excited if I get rid of your things, you may be leaving this house with just the clothes on your back’

‘You wouldn’t’

‘Well, there is only so much room for packing the truck so I most definitely would’ she said with a sly smile. Mark knew she was joking but he also knew that this was inevitable and needed to be done.

‘Fine, give me like a half hour and I’ll look’

‘That’s the spirit, Philip, did you hear that - at the last minute Mark has found the gusto to find some things to get rid of.’

Mark’s dad walked into the kitchen holding a magazine on some science stuff he had been reading, ‘what’s that Pauline, is Mark finally coming around after all?’  Philip tossed the magazine on the table, grabbed Mark by the shoulder and gave him a hug.

‘Did you want any help with anything?

‘Nah Dad, I got it.’

‘Ok, if you need any help with boxes just holler - i’ll be reading in the living room.’

‘Thanks’

Mark knew this was happening and couldn’t stop the move, he didn’t have any sentimental value on any of these clothes or toys.  He’d been growing so much he had to get new stuff anyway so about 80% of it all went into bags knowing that he would just need clothes to get to NH. This all took him about 20 minutes and he brought about 5 bags filled with clothes downstairs, he explained it all to his mother but she already knew.

The day had arrived, Mark and his dad had one suitcase each to bring on the plane. They had hired a moving company to bring all the bigger stuff over and Marks mom was going to fly over after the sale was final in a week.

Pauline dropped them off at the airport, they said their good-byes and took off for their new home in Falls Hollow NH.

Mark and his dad arrived later that day, got a rental car and arrived at their new home.  It was a lot bigger than their other house, it was also in the woods and there were trees everywhere.  Mark had noticed on the way in from the airport that when they landed in a city, they meandered from city, to suburbs to even denser rural area.  He had never been this far away from a city.

‘Dad, we are so far from the city.’

‘Yeah Mark, about 20 minutes away is the town, there is a grocery store and a main st - it is actually pretty nice.  We can go check it out tomorrow or the next day.’

They walked up the front pathway and onto the large farmers porch, Philip pulled a set of keys out of his pocket, unlocked the front door and opened it.  Mark walked into the living room and then the kitchen right off that.  There was a mud room off that which led to a back yard, Mark opened the back door to a giant yard that had a sloping hill out in the back and what looked like a path which he was definitely exploring later. He came back inside and moved out of the mud room to a dining room.  There were large window all over the bottom floor which was also a nice touch.  From there he made it back to the front door and his dad was standing there texting with his mother,

‘Wow Dad, this place is pretty nice’

‘The pictures definitely don’t do it justice, there’s also a garage - let’s go upstairs and put our stuff down - I want to check that out - apparently there’s a work bench above the garage.’

Mark and his Dad went upstairs - right at the top was a linen closet, to the left was a spare bedroom then the primary bedroom.  Then off to the right was Mark’s bedroom and across from the hall was a study. Mark yelled out to his Dad,

‘Dad!’

‘Mark!’

‘This is really nice!’

‘I know right, are you looking out your window?’

Yeah, you can like, see all the way across the backyard, it looks like there might be a pond back there?’

‘I believe there is a pond somewhere around here, be careful if you go out exploring please.’

Mark was a little ashamed that he was so against the move but now he was really excited

‘Ok Dad.’

Mark and his dad made their way downstairs and to the garage, there was a door off the kitchen that led to the garage. Once Philip opened the door there was a light on the right hand side of the door - he flipped it on. It was a two-bay garage, in the middle was a stair case going up.

‘Jackpot!’ Philip said

Mark walked in with him but he noticed that there were two bikes hanging by the end of the garage,

‘Dad, help me get these bikes down - are they ours?’

‘Yeah, the house is ours now so I assume these bikes are too.’

They got the bikes down, one was a BMX bike, the front tire was flat.  The other was mountain bike, that looked like it would be perfect for the knotty terrain that NH had.

‘This is great Dad, would you mind if I took this out this week? We might have to get a pump if I can’t find one here.’

‘No problem, we’ll also have to get you a helmet too but we’ll make a list before we go into town.’

Mark was checking the bikes out while his father went upstairs,

‘Hey Mark, there is a workbench up here and it looks like a game room too!’

Mark leaned both the bikes against the far end of the garage and ran up to meet his dad,

‘Wow, this pretty cool, I guess we know where you’ll be spending your free time huh?’

‘Only if your mother allows it’ Philip said with a sly grin.  We’ve got more time in the next couple of weeks to hang out and explore this place - it has been a long day, let’s get some rest and we’ll get up go get a bite to eat and see what this bustling metropolis has to offer us.

Mark made his way to his room, there was a bed already in there. Mark got in bed and was almost immediately asleep when he heard the sound of kids laughing. It sounded far off but the sound died off right away, then he was asleep.

The next morning he got up to some noise downstairs, it was his father doing who knew what.  He got up, threw on the same clothes from yesterday and went downstairs.  His dad was moving the couch that was in the living room,

‘Hey good morning Mark’

‘Good Morning Dad, what are you doing?’

‘I checked to see when we are getting our stuff delivered and it looks like it should actually be here today so I wanted to move some of this stuff around and go out and get a bite to eat, get some food for later and get back - you want to go get some grub?’

‘Yeah, I’m starving actually.’

Mark hadn’t realized it but they didn’t eat since probably lunch the day before, with all the excitement going on it slipped his and his dads mind to grab something to eat.

‘Help me move this and then we can take off’ Marks dad motioned him towards the couch.  They moved it closer to the wall to make room for some of the other furniture that was coming in.

With that done, Philip grabbed the keys and said to Mark, ‘Hey, wanna drive?’

Mark turned to him, ‘you’re kidding right?’

‘Of course I am, you can drive in another 4 years!’

Mark shook his head and they headed out towards the car

His dad still laughing, they made their way into town to find a spot to eat.  According to GPS it was about 15 minutes away, not too bad. It gave Mark some time to consider when he was going to take that bike out and explore that path in the backyard.

Philip pulled into the Main Street of Falls Hollow, relatively quaint.  It had a hardware store, a grocery store, one gas station, two coffee shops, one large diner and two other breakfast nooks and some other little shops that made it a typical main street USA.  Mark looked at some of the reviews for the breakfast spots and chose ‘Breakfast Time’, because it was on the nose and he appreciated that.  They parked and walked in.

The hostess welcomed them to the restaurant and sat them immediately, it wasn’t terribly busy here until later in the week and they came at the right time.  The waitress came by and brought over some coffee for Phillip and asked if Mark wanted anything,

‘I’m fine with water’

She left and returned with the coffee and water, ‘you boys need another minute to decide?’

They both looked at each other and said they were ready,

It took them all of a minute to order, bacon omelette for Mark and a cheese omelette for Phillip, with bacon on the side.

‘Why don’t you just get a bacon omelette?’

‘I like to enjoy my bacon instead of having it wrapped up in the omelette, let me have this!’

While they waited they discussed some plans for emptying out their storage container when it came, what was important to get out before Pauline arrived - they both agreed that the bedrooms and the kitchen needed to be done.  After that breakfast arrived, they both agreed that it was the best omelette they had in some time and it truly was. Mark mentioned to his dad that he wanted to go check out the path behind the house at some point.  His dad was ok with it but they had to remember to get him a helmet before they did that.  While he was eating, Mark was checking the area to see if there was a sporting goods store around.  Outside of town there was a department store that would have what they needed, Philip agreed to stop there as there was some things they got rid of he needed to pick up so it all worked out.  Philip paid the bill, they thanked the waitress and left.  On their way back to the house they stopped at the department store,

‘Ok Mark, we need to grab the helmet and bike pump, I need to grab a couple of kitchen utensils and other things.’

They made their way through the store, they had 2 helmets available - one was a blue helmet with a pony on the side that was Mark’s size and the other was a kids helmet that was way too small.

Philip was laughing as he picked it up and put it on Mark’s head, ‘well buddy, looks like we have a match.’

‘Not funny Dad, are there no other helmets here?’

‘Looks like this is it.  If you want to go riding I’ll absolutely buy this for you and we can order another one for you but the stipulation is I have to take a picture and send it to your mother.’

Mark really wanted to go exploring, he couldn’t explain it but something about that trail was calling him and so what, it was just a pony - he might be able to peel it off.

‘Whatever - its just a pony, as long as the helmet keeps me safe then what does it matter’

Phillip clapped him on the his shoulder, ’great attitude to have - I’m proud of you.’

Mark looked up at his Dad, ‘i’m in no way excited about this but I’m not going to let a little thing like this graphic bother me.’

‘Atta boy, ok, grab that bike pump there and let’s go get those utensils!’

Mark grabbed the bike pump, tucked the helmet under his arm and they made their way around the store and picked the rest of the goods they needed.  They checked out, made it to the car and headed back home. On the way back Philip’s phone beeped with a message,

‘Mark, can you check that - it might be the storage container company.’

‘It’s Mom, just checking in.’

‘Let her know how we’re doing.’

Mark typed back to his Mom about their night, the house, breakfast and everything else.  Mark asked how things were there, she said things were good, she was cleaning the house now that everything was out and getting ready to head to a hotel until the closing. She was excited to see the new place; she loved and missed them. She told Mark to tell his father to have him call her later, she said she loved him again and said good-bye. No sooner did Mark put the phone back on the holder did it chime again

‘Dad, looks like the storage company is messaging’

‘Whats happening?’

‘Looks like they are going to be at the house at 1 pm today.’

‘Excellent, it’s only 1030 now so we have some time.  I want to stop by the grocery store and get some food, lets do that and head back home.’

Mark confirmed the time with the storage company, he searched directions for the grocery store which was 10 minutes from their current location and they headed there.  Mark and his dad headed inside, Philip only got some essentials, lunch meats, food for dinner and some chips; enough to hold them over for a day or two while they unpacked; they left and headed back home.

They got back home and unloaded the groceries, Mark brought the helmet and the pump into the garage.  He pumped up the tires and took it for a spin around the driveway, felt like the chain needed some lubricant.  He brought the bike back into the garage, looked around but it was pretty sparse in there and then remembered the workbench upstairs.  He went up, saw that there was two large benches as well as two cabinets.  There were also some shelves with bottles that looked like garage liquids - he started there.  He saw car oil and chainsaw oil, he moved around some other bottles then saw a small black metal canister that said, ‘chain oil’,

‘Well if this isn’t it I don’t know what is.’

He grabbed the can and held the nozzle up to his nose, it had that oil smell so this must be it.

He made his way downstairs, took the bike outside and put the bike on the grass.  He remembered what happens when you oil a chain on the driveway and adults aren’t always happy about it.  He put some drops on the chain, got on the bike and started to shift the gears, like magic the clacking of the chain disappeared.  He laid the bike down, took the oil can and placed it inside the garage door for safe keeping.  Then his dad came outside,

‘What’s going on out here?’

‘I was just oiling the chain, pumping the tires.  I did find the oil up in the work area.’

‘That’s good, want to make sure things are working smoothly. Anything else good up there?’

‘I was just looking for this but it looks like there are some other ‘garage liquids’ up there so it would be good to poke around.’

Philip taught Mark early about shop safety, knowing your flammables and keeping areas clean so he felt comfortable that Mark was poking around in their new work area.

‘its at least another hour before the storage container comes, did you want to take the bike out and check things out?’ Phillip said

‘Yeah, that would be great!’  Mark was going to ask but happy that his Dad offered

‘i’m going to make some sandwiches, just be back a little before one and we’ll eat then get things going.’

Mark ran and hugged his dad, ‘thanks Dad’

‘But before you go’ he pulled the helmet out from behind his back

‘Oh yeah, that’s right’ mark said defeatedly

‘Well, you were going to wear it and I wound’t want to deny Mom this. Plus, it shows her that you’re being safe so a win-win.’

‘Yeah yeah, I guess you’re right.’

Mark put on the helmet, gave his best fake smile and a thumbs up and Philip took a picture.  ‘If we still framed pictures, I’d hang this one up for everyone to see.’

‘You’re hilarious.’

‘Ok, be safe, be back before one and you have your phone so call if there are any issues.’

‘Bye Dad.’ Mark jumped onto the bike, pedaled into the back yard and down the path.

Mark rode down the path behind their new house, it went down a slight hill, past a stream then over the stream which then led by another huge field that had a razor wire fence with cows dotted throughout the field. Mark was amazed at how much more there was to explore here or really, how different the exploration was.  He kept going and ended up going past a graveyard in the woods which he thought was really strange but figured that people have been on this side of the country longer than where he was before so it made sense. He also made a mental note to come back and check on this at some point, it was in his backyard! He crossed another stream, but this one had a bridge across it - it looked like someone took some time to really build this up since the stream was pretty high.  After he crossed this he came to another large field and there were even more cows but this one had a large rock wall, he continued to pedal and the rock wall just kept going for what felt like like forever.  Then he came up to what looked like a bunch of new houses and the path twisted and the houses just disappeared but the path continued and lead up a hill.  Mark pedaled up this hill and saw a house, it was an old, grey house just sitting in this lot all by itself.  He was at the edge of the forest and looking out at this house and it reminded him of where he was living now, except this house was rundown, old grey paint peeling and had no life in it at all; the windows had been all boarded up  He pulled out his phone to take a picture of the house and realized it had been 30 minutes since he left his house, he didn’t even realize it had been that long. He was still looking through the camera on his phone at the house absent-mindedly when he finally took the picture.  He needed to turn back around to help his father out but something was drawing him to this house, he put his foot on the pedal and started to push forward but then clamped down on the right brake depressing his front brakes.

‘No, I have to turn around - I can come back and do some more exploring later - it doesn’t look like it is going anywhere.’ Some wind picked up and whipped around, Mark heard some whispers again and looked around, he dismissed it quickly as the wind going through the trees

He took one last look at the house and backed the bike up and pedaled back home, down the hill, past not one but two fields full of cows over the streams, past the graveyard and back to help his dad unload the trailer.

When Mark got back to the house the storage truck was backing up the driveway, he saw his dad standing there,

‘Oh good, I was getting worried that I would have all the fun unloading this without you!’

Mark rode past him and parked the bike in the garage, his dad poked his head in

‘Everything ok?’

‘Yeah, just been a while since I rode a bike so catching my breath.’

Mark didn’t want to tell him about the house, his dad would probably want him to stay away or give him some speech out being safe again which he got but didn’t need to hear it now.

The truck dumped off the storage container and drove off. The container was still open from when the driver had them inspect the contents and sign off that there was no damage - they took a cursory look inside, Marks dad spoke first,

‘Well, looks like we have some work ahead of us - I have sandwiches made - lets go eat those and get started- how’s that sound?’

‘Sounds good Dad’

After they finished eating they got started on the storage container, this particular container had  things sectioned off so they knew where they could grab things from; Mark made a bee-line for where his room stuff while his dad got started on his and his wife’s room.  They discussed over lunch the goal was to just get the stuff out and into the rooms, they would unpack after - with just two of them they could probably get the storage container unloaded today and at least their personal effects taken care of.  Philip also asked Mark about his bike ride, Mark mentioned the graveyard in the woods and the cows and the stonewalls but omitted the house - for now.  There was something off about it and he wanted to go back there and didn’t want his dad worrying when he went out for another ride.

It was almost supper time, when a car pulled up the driveway

‘Dad, are you expecting someone?’

‘I didn’t tell you but I ordered pizza for dinner - figured once that got here it would be a good time to break for the night.’  By that point they had some miscellaneous boxes left in the storage container which could wait until tomorrow - everything they needed had been pulled out and in the house.

Philip went out to the driveway, paid for the pizza and came back inside, they ate and discussed more of the plan for tomorrow but in the back of Mark’s mind he was thinking about that house and when he could get back there.

The next day, Philip got a call from work, they needed an engineer located in the northeast to visit one of their suppliers to help out on a project.  He was still on vacation to get the house settled but it was a critical call for what he was working on - he called Pauline to let her know that it would push the house setup by a day or two.  It wouldn’t be a problem, she was leaving in 2 days to come to the new house, Mark would be ok alone and could do some of the work of setting up while Philip was gone.  Mark wasn’t happy with this but it actually gave him some time to bike back out to the house to do some more exploring so he’ll take the win.

Mark’s dad left around noon that same day, they had finished with the balance of the storage container, the truck was coming to pick it back up that same day.  All the boxes were in the rooms that they needed to be in, all that was left was unpacking. The only thing that his dad had asked him to do was to unpack the living room and his room and they would take care of other boxes later on tonight.  Mark took the time to move the boxes around in those rooms and unpack a couple of boxes so it looked like he did something and his dad wouldn’t be so upset with him.  His dad had left the extra set of keys to lock the doors, he checked the front door and made sure that it was locked then went out to the garage to grab his bike.  He opened the garage door, walked his bike out and realized that they didn’t have a code set up for the garage yet.  Mark looked inside and figured he could just hit the garage door button and then hop out or step out, best not to hop and then hit your head on the descending garage door.  He laid the bike down in the driveway, walked back in, pushed the button then walked back to the entryway, stepped over the sensors while the garage door slowly closed behind him.  Satisfied with his footwork he grabbed his bike and headed down towards the path behind their new house.  He made his way down the slight hill like he did before and past the same stream then over the stream which then led by another that same huge field that had the same razor wire fence with cows dotted throughout the field.  He saw the same graveyard in the woods so he knew he was going the right way. He crossed that last stream that had the bridge on it, past the field with the cows then up the hill and saw the house.  It was an overcast day, as soon as Mark pedaled into the clearing there was a feeling of heaviness.  He had noticed the state the house was in yesterday but the weather of today was making it more foreboding; the peeling paint on the house was peeling and the boarded windows gave the impression that this house was not only keeping him out but also keeping something in.  He pedaled around the house to see what was going on when he heard a noise coming from the woods, he stopped, looked around and yelled,

‘Hello?’

He commented to himself that that was a good way to get himself hurt but dismissed it, he heard some more shuffling, and what sounded like some pushing and shoving in some bushes

‘No you go’

‘No YOU go’

Then two bodies fell out of the underbrush, tangled up in some bikes just like Mark’s

‘Hi?’ Mark said

The two kids spoke up,

‘Hi’

They got up and dusted themselves off and picked up their bikes while Mark walked over to them,

‘What were you doing in the woods?’

The first kid spoke up, a girl, she seemed to be the leader of this two-person group,

‘We saw you the other day when you rode up here and we were gonna say something but didn’t know what your deal was.’

‘Yeah’ said the other kid clearly mimicking the leader, ‘we didn’t know if you were gonna come back so we didn’t wanna say nothing but here you are. We also saw that helmet of yours and really weren’t sure what your deal was.’

‘Ok, well here I am - I’m Mark by the way.’ Mark unclipped his helmet, ‘I just moved from San Diego, I didn’t have a helmet and this is all they had at the store that fit me, safety first right?’

The two kids looked at each other and shrugged, clearly not caring what the helmet looks like

The first kid spoke up ‘I’m Liza and this Frankie, we usually come up here and throw rocks at the house, it’s haunted so we don’t go inside.’

Mark said, ‘Like what kind of haunted?’

Frankie dropped his bike and approached Mark, ‘like the kind where you stand outside and throw rocks at it and don’t go in the house kind of haunted.’

‘Ok - how did you hear about this?’ Mark inquired

‘Well you see that graveyard on your way up here?  Frankie continued

Mark nodded

Well that was the family that lived here but they all died or well was killed, like a hundred years ago.’ Frankie said with a tinge of fear

Liza chimed in, ‘yeah, The Rousseau family,  they were one of the first families in the area and supposedly what happened was a stranger was walking through the woods and needed some help so they did what the Christian thing was and helped the stranger out - lot of good that did because that ended up murdering all of them in their sleep. So now all their souls just wander in the house until someone can free them.’

‘That sounds crazy, and nobody has gone in there since they closed the house down?’ Mark said full of skepticism

Frankie turned around and looked at the house, ‘someone from the family still owns the land, they just refuse to tear it down because it and the land is haunted, don’t you get it?!’

‘Well then, I think we should go inside then and see what is actually going on.’

Liza threw her bike down and ran up to Mark, ‘you’re crazy! We just met you, what if you’re a stranger like the other one and you are going to kill us and then we are going to haunt the house or the land too!’

Mark laughed, if that’s what you want to think then ok, I’m going to go in the house with or without you’

Mark walked his bike up to the house and leaned it against the porch - he could hear Liza and Frankie arguing back and forth. He heard ‘murdered’ and ‘haunted’ and the phrase ‘I don’t want to be a ghost’, he laughed and turned around and said,

‘Is there another way besides the front door?’

Liza cupped her hands and shouted,

‘There is a bulkhead back here  - we’ve opened it a couple of times but never gone down.’

Mark walked up the front steps and tried the front door - of course it was locked.  He walked back to where his new friends were arguing about their next steps and walked past them, Mark saw the wooden bulk head.  He walked over and opened it up, unlocked as Liza had said.  There were 3 steps then another wooden door with a safety latch and lock that wasn’t clasped - Mark yelled back up

‘Looks like I found a way in, if you want to come in then this is the way.’ He pulled out his phone, turned on the light and then pushed his way in the door.’

The musty smell of the basement hit him right in the face - it smelled like this door hadn’t been opened since the house was closed up - he could smell the moisture hidden in the dirt and wood - the dead animal bones that have long since been consumed by the dirt.  There was a small amount of light that was coming through the windows and he could see a staircase just barely - he made his way over to the stairs and put his foot on the first step, a hard creak - he would have to take it easy on these stairs as the rot may have set in and he didn’t want to fall through.  He took his time going up the stairs, he was about halfway through when he heard Frankie call his name,

‘Hey Mark you down here?’

Mark called back to him,

‘Yeah, I’m over here on the stairs.’

Both Liza and Frankie had cell phones so they had the lights on and it better illuminated the basement, Mark could see some pipes coming through the ceiling joists so the house had been updated at some point. Liza and Frankie made their way to the stairs,

‘You’re really going up there?’ Frankie said

Mark looked over the railing, ‘of course, I wouldn’t have done all this for nothing.’

He continued up the stairs and heard more creaking behind him and smiled to himself, sometimes the mystery is greater than the fear.

Mark got to the door and turn the handle and the door opened, it was so quiet.  He peered around the corner into what looked like a hallway into a kitchen.  The walls were a dull grey just like the outside, the wood floors just the bare wood and unfinished - this whole house has been lifeless for so long until now. He exited the basement landing followed by Liza and Frankie and they all walked out into what was the kitchen.  They all began opening up the cabinets but they were empty, they turned and shrugged to one another.  Mark turned and walked out of the kitchen into another room, just as empty as the last and he yelled back,

‘Well, doesn’t seem that bad right?’

‘It doesn’t seem that bad right now, Mark…right now.’ Liza said

‘I guess I’ll give you that, I’m going to head upstairs and see what’s going on up there.’

Liza and Frankie followed Mark as he made his way through the living room and found a staircase heading upstairs.  They made their way to the landing and it looked like there were 4 rooms, Mark went right towards two of the rooms and Liza and Frankie went left towards the others.

The first room that Mark came across looked like it had been a closet but the door was removed, he saw bowls with some script on it that he didn’t recognize. His mom had a similar one at home, mortar and pestle is what she called it but it was much smaller and didn’t have this writing on it. He picked it up and it was remarkably lighter than he thought it would be for its size, it felt old as well so he put it down cause well, why be responsible for breaking this. There was also some chalk in the closet but he largely ignored this and moved on. He made his way to the next room which from where he was in the hallway looked like the main bedroom in the house when he heard Liza,

‘Hey Mark, I found a phone! Like an actual house phone!’

Mark turned around and walked over to where Liza was, there was a rotary phone just laying on the floor and a cord going to the phone jack in the wall.  That was weird, why would there just be a phone lying in the middle of this abandoned house? There were actually no lines coming to the house from anywhere, it could just be something that was left over from when someone lived here.  Mark looked at Liza and she shrugged - he walked over and picked the phone up - nothing - the line was dead.  Mark tapped on the little plungers on the top of the phone to see if that would get a response and then he heard some clicks and the phone started ringing,

He was holding the phone away from his ear, ‘Liza - the phone is ringing like it is calling out to somewhere…’

‘well hang it up!’

Frankie came and grabbed the phone out of Marks hand,

‘Let’s get out of here, this is weird!’

Just as Frankie grabbed for the phone, smoke started to pour out of the receiver, Frank dropped the phone on the ground and the kids back away to the wall - the door to the room slammed shut and the shades on the windows drew themselves down and pressed against the frame of the window, not letting any light in.  The smoke started to take shape, billowing like a giant cloud until finally it took the shape of a man in a business suit, busy wiping down his sleeves and making sure his suit looked tidy; all three kids looked at one another like they couldn’t believe what was happening. Mark spoke up first,

‘You guys are seeing this right?’

‘Yea, some guy just formed out of the smoke, is this for real?’

‘Oh I am very for real Liza thank you for asking, and Mark you are not seeing things at all!’ Frankie just stood there with his mouth wide open, ‘Frankie, it is for real so you can close your mouth.’ Frankie closed his mouth.  It has been awhile since I’ve had any company, Faust, William Faust. I see you’ve unlocked my little smoke show here so thank you for that.’

‘What the hell is going on here and how did you know our names? Mark said

‘Well Mark let me tell you exactly what is happening here, first off I’m here to make your dreams come true, its not everyday that someone pops out of a phone and says that right?’ The kids looked at each other and just shrugged, ‘I’ll take that as a yes and continue, this may be hard to believe but I can in fact grant wishes - you each get one wish. So that should answer the question of how I knew your names because if I can grant wishes and didn’t know who you were, it feels like I wouldn’t be that good - just my thoughts.’

Frankie spoke up first, ‘wait, so you want us to believe that you are some genie that came out of the phone that we picked up and we each get one wish? I thought genies gave three wishes?’

‘Very astute Frankie, but since each of you were touching the vestibule that I was in you each get one wish, sorry but those are the rules.’

Liza looked over at Mark, they hadn’t known each other very long but you could tell when someone gave you a suspicious look, Liza spoke up to William,

‘Do we need to make our wishes right now?’

‘You do not my dear Liza, you have 48 hours to make your wishes.’

‘Ok, give us a second while we talk about this.’ Liza pulled both Frankie and Mark aside and started to whisper, ‘ok, this is super weird right? Frankie and I have been throwing rocks at this house forever….

‘Actually Liza, for 3 years 6 moths and 88 days, I’ve heard it every day.’ William chimed in

‘See, super weird and now that we’re in here and picked up the phone this guy is free and wants to grant us a wish, seems sus to me; I say we sleep on it and meet back up here tomorrow and talk about it.’

‘I agree with Liza,’ Mark said, ‘I know we just met like an hour ago but who knows what this is and we really should talk.’

Frankie nodded and said, ‘if Liza thinks its weird I agree.’

The kids turned around and Mark stepped forward, ‘ok Mr. Faust,’

‘Please Mark, call me William.’

‘Ok, William, we just wanted to see what was going on in here not get wishes so give us a night to sleep on it and we’ll be back tomorrow.’

‘Very wise of all of you, I’ve had some people waste their wishes almost immediately and regret it right away.  I applaud your restraint young ones and look forward to seeing you tomorrow.’ Then the smoke started to suck back into the phone and William Faust was gone.  Liza walked over to the phone and picked it up, she put it to her ear and held it out, ‘nothing, like its dead.’ She walked over and hung it up.

Frankie went to go pick it up again but Mark slapped his hand, ‘no Frank, I think we’ve seen enough of that guy today - lets get out of here and talk about this outside.’

The kids agreed and made their way downstairs, into the basement and out through the bulkhead.  Once they were outside he reached Into his pocket and grabbed his phone, it was almost 3 and he had a text from his dad checking in to see how he was, it was pretty recent so it wasn’t bad that he hadn’t responded just yet. The kids started to talk about what just happened,

‘So what’s the plan here, I mean we all have a wish so we should use them right?’ Frankie said

‘It depends Frankie, said Liza we need to make sure we’re doing the right thing and also that we don’t regret our one wish you know?’

‘I guess, I really can’t think about one specific thing that I want, he said.’

‘Exactly as she raised her arms, why would you just waste a wish on something trivial when you could have something really great and meaningful. Hey, Mark, you’re being awfully quiet.’

Mark was staring at the house with his back toward Liza and Frankie, he turned around, ‘look, lets ignore the fact that a smoke man just came out of a phone and offered us a wish each but why is that here, like how did it even end up here?’

‘I don’t even know - the last time anyone lived here was when the Rousseaus’ built the place and let the stranger in but remember what I told you?’

‘Yeah, supposedly he murdered them. I don’t know - I need some time to think about this, which way are you guys going?’

‘We head the opposite direction from you,’ Liza said

‘Alright, then lets meet here tomorrow morning at around 10 - if something happens let me know.’ Mark gave them both his number and they texted so everyone knew what everyone’s contact info was. They got on their bikes and couldn’t leave just yet, something about the house was holding them there,

‘You know we can’t tell anyone about this right? Liza said

‘I was wondering that - I was going to tell my brother tonight but there is now way he would believe and he’d want to come here.’ Frankie said

‘Absolutely not Frank’ Mark said this has to stay between us, would you believe anyone if they told you what we saw today

Frankie shook his head and Mark continued, ‘alright I gotta go - text me if there are any issues but I’ll see you here tomorrow at 10am.’

They waved to one another and pedaled in opposite directions back home.

Mark got back home and his dad wasn’t there yet, he had gotten a bite to eat and was sitting on the porch when his phone went off, it was Liza,

‘I had fun today, that was pretty crazy but it was fun’

‘I’d say that was insane but you’re right, it was a lot of fun.’

She replied back with a smile and so did he.  Mark made it home and his dad still wasn’t there, Mark pulled out his phone and messaged his dad to let him know that he was home and was going to start diner. He walked over to the windows to look out, like his dad might magically appear; his phone started to buzz, his dad was calling,

‘Hey kiddo, I’m so sorry I didn’t call earlier, have you been trying to get in touch with me?

‘’No, It’s ok Dad, I’m just getting home actually and wanted to make sure you hadn’t gone out or something.’

‘I should have called sooner - things went sideways here really fast and I’ve been in a classified area all day so my phone has been locked away. I’ll be home late so you might want to go ahed and eat some dinner. You going to be ok there alone?’

‘Yeah Dad, I’ll be fine, thanks though.’

‘Alright kiddo, I’m going to text you the number for the facility, there is another engineer that is outside of the area - if you need anything at all call that number ok.’

‘Ok dad, talk to you later.’ Mark hung up the phone - he didn’t normally feel afraid in fact the last time he felt afraid was when he was underwater for too long, he didn’t think he would make it back to the top and was running out of air.  Now that his dad wasn’t there and after his run in with that William thing he was feeling a little creeped out.  He thought that maybe if he had something to eat it might help him out a bit.  He found some random stuff that his dad had bought; lunch meats, some dino nuggets and even made a salad.  The cable company hadn’t come yet but he still could watch some videos on his phone, his parents wouldn’t be excited about the phone bill though.  He finished eating and put all the food away, cleaned up and went up to his room - he looked out the window towards the house, he couldn’t see it but could definitely feel it. He picked up his phone and messaged Liza,

‘Hey - you awake?’

‘Yeah, it’s like 600, what are you doing?’

‘Just finished dinner, thinking about today - you heard from Frankie?’

‘Nah, he games at night, he’ll message me a little later but I don’t see him online so who knows what he is up to.’

‘I wish we could get this taken care of now’

‘Yeah, everything is unsettled - we could go back to the house, not sure what good that would do?’

‘You mean you and I go over there?’

‘Yeah, we don’t have to pick up the phone, we could just check it out, maybe we missed something that could help us out.’

Mark thought about this for a minute, it actually wasn’t a bad idea.  The house was bare and they didn’t spend any time going through the house at all, just the bottom floor.

‘Do you think it’ll be a good idea to be in the woods at night? I don’t have lights for my bike..’

Mark really wasn’t sure about this - he would have to tell his dad who would automatically be skeptical.  Also, if they were going to check things out what if something went wrong?

‘I have to get in touch with my dad and let him know’

‘Your dad isn’t even home and you’re going to tell him?’

‘Yeah Liza, what if something happens?’

‘Fair enough’

‘Give me a couple of minutes and I’ll see what I can do’

Mark called the number that his dad gave him but it just rang, it was late enough that either the person that was supposed to be there had left or didn’t care enough to answer the phone.  He messaged Liza back,

‘He didn’t respond, I don’t think its a good idea tonight, plus it’ll be better to look when the sun is up and we can see everything.’

‘Sure, but it isn’t everyday that a smoke figure comes out of a phone granting us a wish either’

‘Touche’

‘If I head over there I’ll let you know regardless’

‘You really shouldn’t’

‘I know but I’m bored and it seems like the best thing to do with my time tonight’

Mark smiled, he wanted to go, in fact everything was telling him that he should go.  He got up and walked around the house, it was still pretty early in the evening and he had nothing better to do so he started to unpack some boxes in his room when he heard a clink.  He looked up and looked around, then he heard another one, he walked over to the window - it was Liza, Mark opened the window,

‘What are you doing here and how did you know where I lived?’

‘We know where all the paths around here lead so when I saw you head down this one I figured this is where you lived?

‘And you knew which one was my room?

‘Oh no, I’ve been throwing rocks at windows for like 10 minutes, I’m surprised it took you this long.’

Mark laughed, ‘so what is this, are we going on an adventure?’

‘I messaged Frankie but haven’t heard back from him and I’m bored - we still have a couple hours of sunlight left so lets go back to the house and check out the rest of it - who knows what else we’ll find.  ‘Look’, she pulled off her back pack - I brought some flashlights, headlamps and snacks and water.’

‘If anything you came prepared, what about the first aid kit?’

‘I’ve got a little more room in here if you have one of those.’

Mark groaned, ‘alright, give me a minute to get some stuff together.’

It took Mark about 10 minutes to get some stuff together, that first aid kit, an extra sweatshirt cause why not and another flashlight. He grabbed his bike out of the garage and met Liza up front and headed towards the Rousseau’s house,

They talked on the way to the house as they made their way way down the  slight hill like, past the same stream then over the stream which then led by another that same huge field that had the same razor wire fence with cows dotted throughout the field.  They went past the graveyard in the woods then crossed the stream that had the bridge on it, past the field with the cows then up the hill and saw the house, not only did they see the house but they saw a bike laying out in front of it,

Liza spoke out, ‘that’s Frankie’s bike’

‘Did Frankie tell you that he was going to come back?’

‘No, but he must have thought of some reason to come back - you saw him - he was scared out of his mind so this is unlike him.’

They put their bikes down and made their way to the bulk head door and headed in. In the basement Liza turned to Mark,

‘Do you think he is ok?’

‘I don’t know, this whole situation seems suspect so lets just be quiet going up and see what’s going on.’

Mark and Liza made their way upstairs to the first floor, they could hear voices - it was definitely Frankie and William Faust talking. Liza turned to Mark, we’re going to have to go up there and see what’s happening,

‘Ok’ Mark said, ‘let me go first’ Mark put his foot on the first step and it groaned loudly then the voices stopped upstairs and he heard Willam Faust speak to Frankie,

‘I think we have visitors, perhaps you should go see what is happening..’

Mark turned to Liza, ‘shit, I wanted to see what they were talking about - well lets go then.’ They could hear Frankie coming out of the room and was already saying their names, ‘Liza? Mark? Is that you?’

Liza spoke up, ‘yeah Frank - it’s us’

‘What are you guys doing here?’

‘Better question Frank is what are you doing here?

Frankie came down the stairs a little bit and started to whisper, ‘i couldn’t get it out of my head, we each got a wish and he gave us no other details about why he was stuck in a phone so I wanted to find out and so that’s why I’m here.’

Mark looked at Liza then at Frankie, ‘So what did you find out?’

‘It sounds like the previous owners made some wishes but they were too greedy and well, we know the story.  The guy that came here that night was just a traveler but took everything from them. In the altercation the vestibule that the Faust was in broke it ended up in the phone - the Rousseau’s never finalized their wishes.  Essentially, this house and this land are enchanted but Faust so everyone just stays away from it and the town recognizes it as protected land - it’s actually kind of cool to be honest; aside from the murder parts of it.’

Liza scoffed, ‘yeah, I supposed, but what if Faust wanted the murder to happen?’

‘You mean he made them wish for things that would result in their murder and then Faust would then be trapped for years until someone came and freed him? I don’t know, seems a little too far-fetched on top of the already far-fetched scenario we are in.’

Mark walked down the stairs and into the living room and paced around, ‘is Faust still out or back in the phone?’

Frankie looked up towards the room, ‘I think he is still out.’

Mark looked at Frankie, ‘have you made a wish yet?’

Frankie sheepishly looked away.  Liza grabbed Frankie, ‘Frank - come one - did you make a wish?’

‘Lizzie, I’m under a lot of pressure next year going into varsity baseball and I wanted to have an advantage over everyone.’

‘What does that mean Frankie?’

‘I don’t know, I just wished that I could be the best player possible and have an advantage over everyone going into baseball next year.’

‘So did you think that was forever or just for next year?’

Frankies face fell, ‘oh, I don’t know, it sounds like when I say being ‘the best player possible’ that it just keeps going right?’

‘Maybe to you but Faust may interpret it differently which is why we were waiting to do our wishes!’

‘Then why did you guys come here?’

‘We were going to search for more clues as to why this is happening and we couldn’t get in touch with you and now I know why.’

Frankie slumped to his knees but Mark piped up, ‘listen guys - the wish has been cast and there is no reason to argue now - lets find out what’s happening and figure this out.

Mark headed up the stairs to the room, Faust was standing there in the smoke form that Mark remembered looking out the window, ‘I see that not much has changed in the area which is good to see.  Now Mark, what can I do for you?’

‘I heard Frankie made his wish, to be the best player possible and to have an advantage over everyone next year; tell me, does that only mean for next year or is that forever?’

‘What do you think it means Mark?’

‘Well it was a two part wish and you’re not in the business of happy endings I think so it is only for next year.’

A smile spread across Fausts’ face, ‘Master Mark - you are a smart one, we’ll have to watch out for you. Unfortunately for Frankie he wasn’t very clear on what he wanted.  Yes, he wanted to be the best player possible but only for next year.  As you know if he had said something like, ‘I want to be the best baseball player to ever live’ then we could have arranged that but he didn’t so here we are.’

‘I get it, so we have to be extremely clear and not mince words with our wishes?’

‘Precisely’

Mark called back to Liza and Frankie, they came into the room, Mark gathered them into a huddle and they all nodded in agreement,

‘Well I think I’m ready to make my wish then.’

‘Oh this should be fun, how exciting.’

‘I wish the Rousseau’s never discovered you’

The smile disappeared from Fausts’ face, ‘no, no you cannot.’ As soon as Mark said the words the flooring and walls started to change, the colors brightened and furniture started to fill up the room.  Faust was screaming, ‘how could you, I could have made everything better for you!’

Frankie was smiling, ‘it looks like you only wanted to make everything better for yourself!’

His smoke form started billowing back into the phone, which was itself disintegrating.  Faust was clawing to stay out of the phone.  Mark, Liza and Frankie were backing away while the house was changing around them, Liza looked at them all and said, ‘we should probably go.  They moved into the hallway and things there were just the same, the walls were all getting coats of paint, pictures were being placed on the wall.  As they made their way to the stairs they could see beds taking shape in the rooms, he pointed at them for Frankie and Liza to see.  They bolted downstairs and more to see here, the living room had couches, chairs and a tv on the wall.  The kitchen was up to date, they continued outside and there were two cars in the driveway, they heard voices around the back yard where their bike were, Frankie whispered,

‘What do we do?’

Mark said, ‘well, we can get out bikes and just get out?’

‘Liza replied, ‘seems like the most straightforward plan, lets peek around the corner and see what’s going on.’

The creeped to the corner of the house and a family was outside, unaware of the chaos that just ensued inside.  Here were the Rousseau’s, or the next generation of them after the horrible incident that never occurred.

Mark turned to his friends, ‘I know, we’ll just say that we dropped our bikes to go explore the woods and didn’t think it would be an issue cause you know, we’re kids.’

Mark walked forward, one of the kids noticed them first and called out to their parents, the father, Mr. Rousseau came forward,

‘Who are you?’

‘Oh hi sir, my name is Mark, this is Liza and Frankie’ they both waved.  We usually bike back here and we dropped our bikes to hike around and didn’t realize that it was in your back yard, we’re sorry about that.

‘We were wondering whose bikes they were. There are an awful lot of trails back there, plus the ones behind our family graveyard, have you seen those?’

Frankie chimed in, ‘not yet, that’s why we dropped the bikes cause the trails are too rough for us to bike so we just walk down from here - we’re awfully sorry for trespassing.’

Mrs. Rousseau piped up, ‘Well you’re here now, lets introduce ourselves and if you are going to be in the woods it would be nice to know who is there and that you’re safe.’

The kids and Rousseau’s made their introductions, the Rousseau’s said that they were welcome to use the trails behind their house whenever they wanted to but to let them know first.  The kids thanked them for being so kind and understanding, they also needed to get going as it was starting to get dark and the woods weren’t going to be any lighter.  As they were leaving Mr Rousseau asked if they had lights, both Mark and Liza had flash lights and he suggested that they duct tape it to their handlebars - they went to the garage to set this up.  As Mr. Rousseau opened the garage door, he told the kids to ignore one side of the garage, there was a lot of junk they were trying to get rid of and it all ended up here.  They moved their bikes inside to do a little work on them.  He found the duct tape and Liza and Mark got their flash lights out.  As Mr. Rousseau was busy concocting a solution Frankie elbowed Liza and nodded his head towards the junk Mr. Rousseau said they were getting rid of and saw the same phone that William Faust came out of,

‘Do you think?’

‘No way, Mark wished it away - this family is here so he’s gone right?’

‘I want to pick it up.’

‘Frankie, no’

‘It’ll be fine right?’

Frankie made his way over to the phone, picked it up and put the phone to his ear, his hear was jack hammering, no dial tone, ‘see Liza, no dial tone.’ He removed it from his ear slightly then heard, ‘who is this’ and smoke started to billow from the phone.

Toothache (WIP)

I think I’ve been chipped

Today was a big day for Shaun, he had been waiting almost 5 years for these implants, these dental implants.  He had been in an accident when he was younger, as a result 3 of his teeth got knocked out. It was a good thing they weren’t front teeth but it also sucked because they made eating a little bit harder and took a bit longer but all that was over now, he was finally getting the teeth back.  He was sitting in the chair after he got the posts put in 6 months prior, the dental assistant was talking him through the process of putting the actual teeth in which wasn’t as painful as the posts and they’d be done within the hour, then the dentist walked in.

‘Shaun, how’re things?’

‘They’re great, looking forward to eating something and not chewing 5x as long.’

‘What’s your first meal going to be?’

‘I was thinking tonight I was going to have a steak but right after this, maybe a steak and cheese sub - so steak is on the menu for today.’

‘I like it man, it all sounds great - well lets get started.’

The assistant showed him the teeth, everything was re-checked and they got started.  The teeth all went in in what seemed like 30 minutes, the dentist actually needed to use a ratchet to get the teeth settled in but it all worked out in the end.  They checked his bite out and took some measurements and finished up.

‘Shaun, how does that feel?’

Shaun opened and closed his mouth a bit, ran his tongue over the teeth, ‘it feels great.’

‘Now the tongue is going to take a couple days to get used to the teeth so be careful.  Also, be aware of biting it, otherwise you’re good to go, if you have any questions or concerns please call the office or the answering service.’

‘Thanks Doc, I’ll keep you posted on anything that goes on and I really appreciate your help with this,’

‘No problem Shaun, it’s my pleasure - I actually have a couple more implants to do today so I gotta run - take care!’

The doctor took off and the dental assistant helped Shaun up, she walked with him to the front and saw the other person getting ready to get the implants.  They looked exactly like Shaun, in fact if he had a doppelgänger than that was them.  He heard the assistant talking but was half not paying attention when he heard his name,

‘Shaun?’

‘Oh hey, sorry - that person looks exactly like me - I got lost for a second there.’

The assistant came back and looked, ‘oh wow, you’re right, you guys could be twins!’

‘Here, let me walk you to the front and we’ll go over aftercare.’

The assistant discussed the pain for the next couple of days that would dissipate, also the possibility of tongue biting and the tongue getting used to the teeth.  Shaun confirmed all of this and paid for the balance of the work and left.

He made his way out of the office and rubbed his jaw.  The pain actually wasn’t that bad but he’ll see how the next couple of days went.  When he got out to the parking lot where his car was there was a woman in a suit in a car next to his in dark sunglasses looking at him, actually staring at him, he acknowledged her,

‘Hows it going?’

She continued to stare at him, not averting her gaze.

‘Ok, have a good day’

Shaun unlocked the car door and started to get in when the woman spoke,

‘How’d the dentist go?’

He stopped his inward motion to the car and stood back up,

‘Excuse me?’

‘I just saw you walking from the dentist, just asking how it went?

‘Fine, I had some work done.’

‘What kind of work?’

‘Um, just some work that I had been putting off.’

Shaun didn’t even know this woman and she was giving off some weird vibes, he had to get out of here.

‘I’m out of here, see you later.’

‘Have a good day.’

Shaun got in his car, started it and backed out of the spot, he looked in his rearview and saw the woman in the mirror, she had been facing Shaun but turned and had her hand up to her ear, was she talking to someone - Shaun didn’t know what that was all about but he had to get out of there.

His drive home was relatively short and he went by his favorite sub shop on the way.  He stopped in and got the steak and cheese sub that he had been looking forward to for some time, got back in his car and headed home.  He had some dull pain in his jaw but nothing was going to stop him from getting home and eating this sub.  He pulled in a couple minutes later, Shaun rented a house and had been for sometime.  He didn’t want to buy anything at this time and enjoyed this set up.  He rented the bottom half and there was an in-law apartment that an elderly woman rented, it looked like she wasn’t home right now.  Shaun got out, grabbed the sub and went inside.  He put the sub on the table in the kitchen, went over to the fridge and grabbed a seltzer out and placed that on the table.  He walked to the kitchen sink to wash his hands and looked out the window, the kitchen window looked out onto the street, he could see the same car that the woman outside the dentist office that confronted him was in- he looked a little closer and could see her sitting inside with her head down and looking at a tablet.  Shaun wasn’t sure what was going on here but chose to ignore it while he sat and enjoyed his sub. He was about to take his first bite, the sub mere inches from his mouth but he couldn’t get the image of that woman from earlier in the day out of his mind and also from her sitting in the car outside of his house.  He sighed, put his sub down and walked over to the sink and looked outside, she wasn’t in the car anymore.  He leaned over the sink to look further left and right, he didn’t see her.  He sighed again, ‘what the actual fuck is going on here.’ He pushed off the sink, looked left toward the living room which offered a better view of the street and made his way into there.  This room had a bay window which afforded him a view of the woman’s car but also of the next street.  Shaun stood in the threshold between the living room and kitchen looking out the bay window, he could see the woman walking across the lawn towards the other street with her hand up to her ear.  Shaun was watching the situation with a quizzical gaze, not really sure what to make of this.  The woman had short dirty blond hair, a dark suit and sunglasses - now that she was away from her car, she really reminded Shaun of an agent of some kind, come to think of it, he really wondered if he was being tailed by a government agency for some reason.

He watched the woman make her way across the yard to the other side of the street, she was by a telephone pole, she was looking at his house and pulled out what looked like a scope and was peering towards Shaun’s house scanning the area - Shaun ducked out of the window.  He scrambled into the kitchen against the wall that led into the living room. He stood back up and grabbed his phone out of his pocket, he figured he could see if the agent was still out there if he turned the camera on his phone on then flipped the camera - it would minimize the area of him being seen, maybe. He turned on the camera and flipped the camera, after some time figuring out the angles, he found the window, the distance from the kitchen to the window wound’t allow him to see outside - he needed to get closer.  He got on the ground and crawled towards the couch - he might be able to hold his phone up a little bit behind the couch and see, it would be even better if he could stand next to the window and catch a glimpse that way.  He crawled towards the couch, held up his phone, but yanked it quickly down.  A small black object would be seen quickly he thought.  He crawled over to the window, attempted to peek over the window frame and saw her briefly but there was a person walking the dog that was chatting with her.  Shaun wondered what about, ‘hey, why are you surveilling this house?’ ‘Do they know you’re doing that?’ But Shaun was sure that she already had other excuses cooked up.  He looked again and she was still talking, now was the time to make his move while she was distracted, but wait, was there a better place to go?  He briefly thought about just making a break for it, but then wondered why he would be running from his own place and for what reasons?  He peeked out again and it looked like she was tucking something back into her jacket and the dog walker was leaving with a wave, the woman resumed her spying activities. Shaun leaned against the wall again, closed his eyes and thought about all the things that he could have done that warranted being observed by the government. He couldn’t even remember the last time he got a speeding ticket and now this?!  Just then he heard a car door close, he looked out the window and the woman was gone, he ran into the kitchen and past his cooling sub.  He got to the window over the sink and looked out the window towards the car, it was driving away.  Shaun hung his head and quietly said, ‘what the fuck.’  He looked back at the sub, getting colder still at this point and lost his appetite.

The next day, Shaun had taken off from work.  He knew he didn’t need to since his implants weren’t a major surgery but he had time to use so he did.  He got up, went out to breakfast then planned on seeing a movie around noon - the first showing of the day.  The movie theater was down the street from the breakfast place, he had planned to walk from there.  After he left breakfast he walked the 1/4 mile to the theater but something didn’t seem right.  It actually hadn’t felt right since last night but it had been nagging him more so since breakfast.  Shaun quickly stopped and turned, he saw the woman again who also quickly turned but she ducked into one of the many vendor carts that lined the stretch of street with various wares and services for sale.  Shaun wasn’t sure if he should confront her or try to lose her, he opted for losing then confronting.  He walked quickly towards the theater ducking between carts, into stores and then out of them but she was always right there.

Shaun out of breath and confused, ‘how does she keep finding me?’

The movie theater was just ahead and there was a pretty big group of people, Shaun figured that he could lose her in there.  Then when he got into the theater it would be dark enough then she couldn’t find him, hopefully.  He moved ahead quickly, there were about 4 or 5 groups of people milling about outside the theater waiting to go in. Shaun looked back to see the agent bopping up and down attempting to locate where Shaun was at,

‘I think I’m losing her’

A woman turned around, ‘what did you say?’

‘What? Oh nothing, I was talking to myself.’ He blushed and started in the opposite direction. He heard her say, ‘what a weirdo…’ as he continued towards the theater.

He made it to the front, he looked back and could still see her looking around, her hand up to her ear but he ducked inside to get his ticket and hopefully where she couldn’t find him.  Shaun went to the ticket counter, got a ticket for the 12:00 showing of ‘Monsters in Plain Sight’, which was supposed to be good but he hated to read the reviews so he would see it just to be sure.  No popcorn or anything today, he had to get in there and out of plain sight.  He got in, third row center from the top, about 3 minutes left from showtime, pretty empty and that was pretty good. Only two more couples came in and that all sat on opposite ends so Shaun had the whole row to himself, he smiled contentedly.  The lights went down and the previews started.  No sooner had the previews started and the door opened and the outside light flooded in - one of the worst things when you’re in a darkened theater.  Shaun saw the shadow but couldn’t tell how it was, then he saw it was the woman.  She put her hand up to her ear and walked up the steps to where Shaun was sitting.  She put her hand up in a calming gesture but Shaun couldn’t do anything but just stare.

‘Hi Shaun, My name is Agent Summers - can I sit here?’

Shaun just looked at her with his mouth slightly open and nodded her head.

She whispered since the movie was starting…’Listen, I’m sorry for all the cloak and dagger for the past couple of days but it was necessary given the situation.

One of the couples shhhh’d her

‘Could we get out of here and talk, I’ll get you tickets for another showing anytime or even a private screening we just need to talk.’

Shaun again just nodded his head and they both got up and left

Once they were outside Agent Summers introduced herself again,

‘Hi, Agent Amelia Summers, I’m with the CIA and I know you Shaun.’

‘What is going on here?’

Agent Summers went on to explain that the implants that Shaun had contained tracking devices as well as launch codes and data that were to be carried to a secure facility. What Agent Summers failed to mention at the top of their conversation was how the tracking device and government secrets got into Shaun’s mouth.

‘The day of your surgery there was an agent in another surgery suite at that dentists office that was supposed to be getting the implants that are in your mouth in their mouth.’

‘Wait, why were they even at a normal dentists office, doesn’t the government have a dentist that can do this stuff.’

‘Ha, no - by the time we get a dentist in house to do the work it is months later which is why we use private doctors.  Ha ha government doctors, you’re funny.’

‘I wasn’t trying to be? So what does this have to do with me?’

‘Ok, you’re funny but apparently not smart.’

‘Spell it out for me like I’m stupid then please.’

‘So you were both there to get implants on the same day, we didn’t know that you were there, we only just used that doctor to do our implants.  The problem is the teeth got mixed up and you got our teeth and the agent got yours.  What’s more strange is that the your implants were an exact match for the agents teeth, talk about a one in a million chance.’

‘That’s ridiculous, aren’t teeth like snowflakes - no that’s not right but really it would seem like that you would think?’

‘You would think but the doctor did both procedures and neither you nor him knew the difference so here we are. So now we need to figure out where we go from here.’

‘Can’t we just get these out and to your agent friend?’

‘The only problem is the people that were looking for those secrets were onto him already, so he, my partner Agent DeWitt is running interference while I’m here talking to you. At some point he will contact me but it is too dangerous for him to meet us or even attempt to contact me right now.’

‘About what comes next right?’

‘Right, so about what comes next - the launch codes and data cannot be sent encrypted, they cannot be sent over any transmission lines due to the highest sensitivity involved with this data.  Which is why we put it all in those two teeth which will be extracted then uploaded upon arrival.’

‘Where do you expect me to go - I guess a better question is what do you expect me to do?’

‘This isn’t easy to ask because it could be dangerous but I’ll be with you so it will be manageable.  My partner that is currently leading the others away from us now, well, the others are actually CIA agents, right now, us and some other agents have been seeing some bad actors within our organization.  My partner received some information that was too sensitive to transmit across normal lines.  He brought it to me and we discussed.  We had already known that there were too many other agents that were against what the CIA was all about so we made a decision together.’

‘This is crazy, like you’re talking about taking sensitive information from the government and leaking it and the way you’re doing that is via dental implants?’

‘Look Shaun, this is highly unorthodox but this is what is happening right now.’

‘How can I even believe you? Like, what if you’re the bad agents and you’re trying to smuggle the information out to overthrow the government?’

‘I guess you can’t and I’m asking you to trust me but ask yourself this - if someone wanted to leak information, would they go through the trouble of putting the information into dental implants to then de-encrypt it later to show to everyone?  It seems like a lot of work for the people already on the side with a lot more to lose.’

‘Fair point - I’ll go with this for now but I was really looking forward to having these teeth fixed.’

‘After this, I’ll personally pay for new teeth if I have to but we need to move.  The mall that is only currently being used as a Halloween store - well one the other side of the mall is the department store that has been closed down for some time.  We were able to get some unused funds to turn that into a safe house.  Agent DeWitt knows to meet there and we can go from there.’

‘I have work and well my life that I also need to worry about - what do I do about that?’

‘Already taken care of, we have some other agents that are sympathetic to the cause - you’re getting paid for your time off from work and there won’t be any questions about why you were gone.  As far as they were concerned, you had a relative out of the country that was ill and needed emergency care - end of story.’

‘Ok, I guess you’ve thought of it all.’

‘If anything we’re thorough. I’ll have your car brought back to your house but right now come with me and we’ll get things sorted. The last thing we wanted was for you to be brought into this but here we are.’

They got into Agent Summers’ car and took off.  The ride to the mall was fairly quiet, the Agent had been talking about how they had gotten into this situation - issues within the government, problems with other countries and ultimately insurgencies from our own.  Shaun had heard what she was saying but he was trying to piece it all together - he just went to the dentist this morning to get implants and was looking forward to the sub that was now sitting in the fridge.  At some point today he could be shot at, fall from a building or all three - for him the future was now even brighter since he had these awesome new implants in his mouth.

They got to the mall and pulled up in front of what was once a popular anchor store on malls across America.  This one had a car repair shop on it so Agent Summers was able to activate one of the doors and pull her car in so it wouldn’t draw any unwanted attention.  Once inside it looked like the shop had been abandoned for 10 years.

‘Hey Shaun, don’t let the looks fool you, everything is underneath.’

She stepped over to one of the other bays and grasped the hydraulic lever on the car lift and pulled it down - the arms that would normally lift cars up pushed the floor down in a downward stair case format and started to reveal step after step and revealed light below. Shaun looked over at the agent,

‘Seriously - like this is actually a real thing like not just a movie thing?’

‘Where do you think they get it from - come on lets go, once we get down there it stacks back up, even cooler to watch it go back up.’

They walked down the steps of the car bay/secret lair that was the dried up remains of America’s mall.  As promised once they were down the steps and clear Agent Summers pulled another lever and the stair retracted back up.

‘Just in case anyone were to come in, you know.’

‘Yeah, cause this is all totally normal.’

The agent led them down a small corridor which opened up into a thirty by thirty room.  The room mainly consisted of control board that had screens that allowed the user to view the CCTV across the country, there was a workbench for weapons and some other gadgets. On the opposite side of the room was a small kitchenette and bathroom, underneath the table there were two cots folded up. Overhead there was so much wiring running through the ceiling,

‘This was not an easy job to get funded I’m honestly surprised that it got done.  What’s nice about this place is it has proximity sensors so we can see what is going on and we can see who is doing what anywhere.  I can also check on Agent DeWitt so lets start there.’

‘What can I do to help?’

‘Well, if you’re hungry there is food in the fridge - I can’t remember the last time I was here so I can’t promise anything ground breaking.’

Shaun made his way to the kitchenette to see if there was anything, he opened the fridge and found a quarter gallon of milk left and judging by the smell when he opened the fridge it had been in there for quite some time.  He closed the door and looked in the cabinets, he found some saltine crackers and thought to himself, ‘even stale these are still good.’ He found a bottled water and munched on some of the saltines.

‘So, any luck finding your friend?’

‘Not yet, he turned off his phone but he has a tracking device on him - I’m trying to locate it now.’

‘So once he does get back here and you get the teeth out of my head and oh by the way, who is taking them out…but on top of that, who do you plan on bringing the info to?’

‘So the last part of your question, who are we bringing it to - there are people within the current government that can take this info and do the right thing with it.  We believe that people all the way up the chain have been corrupted by foreign governments but there are some that is someone within National Security that can be trusted.

‘So wait, you think there is foreign interference in our government?’

‘I don’t think, I know and we found evidence of it along with some incriminating documents and phone calls - it goes all the way to the top.’

‘Wow, this feels like a lot.’

‘It is a lot which is why it is important to make sure Agent DeWitt gets here safe and we get that info to the right people.  As far as getting them out, well the implants themselves are just ratcheted in so we could do it ourselves but we wouldn’t put you through that at this point.’

‘Do you do stand-up in your free time?’

‘I consider myself somewhat of a funny person, don’t you think?’

‘Making jokes like that, I would say no.’

Shaun looked at Agent Summers who was busy minding the screens, turning knobs and dials - adjusting the contrast on some of the monitors to get a better picture.  If he didn’t know any better she might have been serious.

‘Are you serious?’

‘Of course not! It may be on the fly but that same dentist will be performing it, after hours like really late at night but it is all taken care of.  I just have to find out where DeWitt is.  Hold on, I think I’ve got him.’

Looking at the bank of monitors, Shaun could see a couple different spots around town that he recognized, for one he saw the dentist office that he was just at.  There were two monitors that were surveilling the major intersections in town, a third monitor was watching a spa for some reason.

‘Why is this one pointed at this spa?’

Agent Summers hit a button on the console, the screen flipped to another camera on the feed, this time it showed another intersection but in the next town over.

‘Don’t worry about that, that was just some research on, um, some questionable activity that was happening there.’

‘Ohhh, it sounds and looks a lot like you might have been spying on someone, maybe someone close to you?  Does that sound correct, Agent?

‘This is not the time for any of that right now.’ The computer had just located Agent DeWitt and showed on the map where he was, Agent Summer pointed this out,

‘Well its good that I switched the camera to that intersection because we’ll be seeing him come through there right about….’

They were both looking at the screen, Shaun wasn’t sure what he was looking for but Summers  was aware of both the location of the signal and what her partner was driving,

‘There, in that blue sedan that was him and he looks ok - for now. I don’t see anyone following him but we don’t know that yet.  Based on the direction he is going I would say that he is coming here, lets get ready to go - we’ll be taking the car we came in on.  Also, knowing him he’ll be ditching the car and hoofing it the last mile or so.’

Agent Summers got up from the console, she headed to the work bench and grabbed a couple of extra clips.  She opened up the cabinet above the bench,

‘Have you ever shot a gun before?’

‘No, will I need to?’

‘I don’t know but good to find out in case we need you to.’

‘I’d prefer not to if I can.’

‘We’ll see if we can avoid it.’

She grabbed an extra gun and placed it in a holster on her ankle.  She checked the computer one last time and saw that DeWitt was still headed in this direction,

‘Time to head up, we can see out of the garage doors so we can be ready to go as soon as he gets here.’

Agent Summers pulled the lever and the lift descended to form the stairs to go back up.  They made it to the top of stairs, she pulled the lever on the lift to conceal the secret hideout underneath. Shaun moved to the back and looked at all the stuff that was left behind in the mechanics drawers; wrenches, sockets, air tools - you could start a business with what was left here. He was over by the tire machine, there was a heavy wrench for getting the tires on and off the rim, he was swinging it like a bat when he heard tires screeching,

‘That is not right, he should have arrived without his car - something must be wrong.’

She looked out the window and could see him sitting in the drivers seat, he couldn’t see her and she didn’t want to open the car door.  Shaun bent down and picked up the wrench, he felt more comfortable with this than with a gun. Shaun walked up by Agent Summers but she pushed him back against the door out of the line of sight,

‘I don’t know what is happening and why he is just sitting there.’ She could see him just sitting there with his hands on the steering wheel staring ahead when all of a sudden she could see an gun point to his head, he started to mouth something but it was indecipherable. She turned back to Shaun,

‘Shit shit shit, he has been compromised, someone is in the back of his car and they know we are here.’

Shaun peered out the window at Agent DeWitt, he could clearly see that there was another angry agent pushing a gun against DeWitt’s head.  He could hear Agent Summers screaming at him to hurry up and get in the car but it all happened in slow motion, Shaun looked over at Agent Summers who backed away from the door to move toward her car.  He looked out the garage door to see Agent DeWitt slam on the accelerator and the angry agent in the back get pinned against the back seat and the car lurch forward.  Shaun then screamed out, ‘get out of the wayyyyyyyy!!’  Agent Summers looked at him but also heard the screeching tires and looked out the window and dove out of the way just as the car hit the garage door and zoomed through and hit the workbench in the back.  Shaun took a step back from the car and attempted to located Agent Summers in the debris, he heard some coughing and also a door open; it was the back door.

‘Agent Summers!’ Shaun said very loudly and with as much emphasis as he could

The agent got out of the car dazed but still holding his gun, Shaun looked inside the car and Agent DeWitt was moving his head from side to side still coming out of his stupor from crashing the car.  ‘Agent Summers, a little help over here!’ But it seems like he was on his own for right now.

The agent looked at Shaun,

‘Not sure who you are but collateral damage was never a problem for me.’ The agent raised the gun and Shaun swung the massive tire wrench and hit the agents arm knocking the gun out of his hand.  The agent half-stunned leaned back and kicked Shaun in the stomach and he doubled over and dropped the wrench; the agent walked over and picked it up. He took aim and connected with Shaun on the side of his face knocking him to the ground. Shaun rolled over onto his back.’

‘Hey DeWitt, who is your little friend here?’

The agent wheeled and kicked Shaun in the side of the face once, then in the ribs. Shaun couldn’t remember the last time that he had ever been hit by anything and the impact was brutal.  The agent tossed the wrench and picked up his gun, aimed it at Shaun’s head,

‘Sorry you got brought into this but wrong place wrong time I guess.’

The last thing that Shaun heard was what might have been the loudest bang ever - especially being in such a closed space. He looked up and saw the agent just staring at him then bring his hand up to his chest and a blossom of red appear on his white button up shirt,

‘Fuck, that actually hurt.’ He turned around and saw DeWitt leaning back and had fired one shot that hit him in the middle of the shoulder blades, the agent fell on top of Shaun.  Shaun still dazed pushed the agent off as quickly as he could.  As soon as he stood up he saw stars, that hit with the wrench really did a number on him.  He rubbed his jaw, something was wrong.

‘Agent Summers!’ One of the teeth was missing, the hit with the wrench must have knocked it out; Shaun was looking everywhere.  He heard Agent Summers calling out,

‘Shaun, are you hurt?’

‘I’ll manage but one of the teeth got knocked out.’

Shaun heard her scrambling to get up, ‘do you need some help?’

‘No, keep looking, I’m going to help DeWitt just find that tooth!’

Shaun continued to look on the floor around the agent, where Shaun was previously standing and where he fell after he was hit and nothing.  Agent Summers had pried the door open and got DeWitt out, she was standing him up and discussing the going-ons of the past 24 hours while Shaun continued to look.  He spun around a couple of times and his eyes set on the agent.  He didn’t want to move a dead body but it felt like that was the thing he was going to have to do.

‘Hey Summers, I’m going to need some help over here - I think the tooth is under the body and I can’t move it on my own.’

Summers and DeWitt both made their way over, they bent down and grabbed the body, Summers on the arms, DeWitt on the legs and there it was, the tooth was right under the agents back - Shaun grabbed it.

‘I got it!’

They dropped the agent back down, Summers turned to DeWitt,

‘So Agent Meadows caught up to you?’

‘Yeah, I was sloppy when I was trying to get away, but we’ll have to take care of this body.’

‘We can do that after, lets put it over against the wall.’

They moved the agents body against the wall, DeWitt came over to Shaun.  ‘Thanks for your help back there - I’m Agent DeWitt, I believe we got our teeth mixed up.’

‘Hey, I’m Shaun, not the best day for a teeth mix-up was it?’

‘Alright guys, we have to get to the dentist to get that last tooth out then we can get this info to our NSA friend.’

The Agents and Shaun all got into Agent Summers car, she activated the door switch and backed out of the garage.

Agent Summers handed her phone over to DeWitt, ‘that is the number for the dentist, give him a call and tell him we’ll be there around 9pm tonight; we should get something to eat first. Shaun, how is your mouth doing?’

‘It isn’t bad, I could use some aspirin - I don’t think I can eat but a smoothie or something until I get the right teeth put back in.’

’10-4’

Agent DeWitt made the call to the dentist and found some aspirin in the glove box and handed it to Shaun.  He swallowed it dry which was never the most exciting thing to do.  They had a couple hours to go until they had to meet up with the dentist, Agent Summers suggested a smoothie shop next to this spa she knew about so they made their way there.

They sat in the car watching the sun set over the business park, they took laps around the parking lot so they weren’t sitting in the car for three hours but now was the time to get going to the dentist office.  They had chosen to sit in the business park that had the spa and smoothie shop in it, if they got hungry then they could get something to eat; plus

Agent Summers had an ulterior motive with the spa but the wasn’t revealing anything to anyone else in the car.

They arrived at the dentists office, the lights were off but there was a light on in the back, Agent Summers turned to DeWitt,

‘Think we should go around the back and see if we can get in that way?’

‘He knows we’re coming right - drop me off here then circle the building.’

Summers dropped off DeWitt and she circled the building, there were two more doors out back but there was a total of six businesses out front so Summers wasn’t sure if they would even hear them knocking on a door.  Shaun was in the back seat looking around and nursing a cup of ice that he had gotten from the smoothie shop before it closed, it was more water than ice at this point but still cold.  Summers made her way back around to the front of the building and DeWitt was standing behind a pole like he was hiding from from someone, he saw the headlights from Summers car and waved her by. Summers was looking at him confused but noticed at that same time that there was another car in the parking lot that wasn’t there before.  The car was just sitting there with its parking lights on, she could see the silhouettes of two people in the front seat.  The sun was behind the car so it created eerie shadows of other agents that she knew she shouldn’t have forgotten about.

‘Shit, Shaun, get down.’

Shaun ducked down in the back seat of the car as Summers drove by at the acceptable parking lot speed that wouldn’t have drawn any attention.  She figured that they might not recognize her since there was a glare coming off the windows in front of the building.  She glided past the car without looking and they didn’t move, had they seen DeWitt looking in the building?  She exited left out of the parking lot and looked in the back of the car - both men or agents were still looking straight ahead.  She continued straight and pulled down the next street and parked the car.

‘Shaun, you’re going to have to stay here unless you want to be a part of this.’

‘I’ve already had my tooth knocked out once today, I guess if you want the other one knocked out I can come with you.’ He grabbed the wrench and held it up.

‘I don’t think lightning or a wrench will strike twice - here are the keys, I’ll call you if and when the coast is clear.’ Before she left she took her hair out of the tie that it was in, took off her sport coat and unbuttoned her blouse - maybe the distressed woman routine will work or maybe not but worth a shot.  She stuck her gun in her waistband and checked the gun at her ankle.

Summers tossed the keys to Shaun and she took off.  She made her way down the sidewalk and saw the car and the two agents sitting in it, she ran up to them screaming,

‘Help help, my baby, my baby! It was in my car and now she is gone! I think someone took my baby.’ She started banging on the window and she got their attention but she started to get other people’s attention from across the street as well.  The agents had rolled down the window and saw this occurring and knew they needed to shut this situation down.  They didn’t recognize her and she knew this so she continued with the charade.  She looked over to see if she could see DeWitt behind the column but nothing, she would have to move this around to distract the agents.

‘Ma’am, what is the problem?’

‘I was over there pumping gas’ she pointed next door at the gas station, ‘then I went inside to get something really quick and I came back out and my baby was gone!’

Summers was really playing it up, she tousled her hair and even turned on the waterworks, a top-notch performance if she thought so herself.  She turned and pointed and pulled the agents toward her to distract them from the dentist office and continued with her story,

‘I’m such a bad mother, I can’t believe I did this’

‘Ma’am, there are camera’s all over the gas station, we can call this in and see who did it, please relax.’

As the agent was attempting to relax Summers she noticed that DeWitt was sticking his head out from behind the column to see what was going on. He saw the distraction and decided now was the time to make a run for it, he ran in the opposite direction that Summers was distracting the agents and around the corner.  Summers turned back to the agents,

‘Are you going to call it in or do I need to?’ She was actually surprised they hadn’t recognized her yet, perhaps it was because she wasn’t buttoned up - most people at work hadn’t ever seen her with her hair down and were too self-involved they would even pay attention anyway. She knew both of these agents, Agent Adams and Agent Fields, two of the worst that she has ever worked with but now wasn’t the time for bad memory reminiscing.

‘Just go back to your car, we’ll call it in from here, and local police will arrive shortly.  Actually, how did you know to alert us of it?’

‘Sort of obvious aren’t you? Two men, unmarked car, sitting in a parking lot with glasses on at dusk - it sort of screams some kind of authority so I figured it couldn’t hurt to try. I can’t thank you enough for your help.’  With that Summers took off back towards the gas station, she looked over her shoulder to see if they were looking but the agents were already back in the car.  She then sprinted back down the street towards where she parked earlier; DeWitt and Shaun were both standing outside, she spoke up as she got closer,

‘That was so close, I’m surprised it worked.’

DeWitt came over to her, ‘I don’t think I’ve seen you out of your ‘normal attire’ for quite some time, good thinking plus we don’t see those fools very often.  But now we need to get in the dentists office, get those teeth out of Shaun and move forward.’

Summers was putting her hair back into the tie but left the button undone, she seemed to like this look for the time being, ‘agreed but we still have to contend with the agents up front.’

‘Did you check the doors out back?’

‘There are two doors for 6 business DeWitt, I didn’t bother checking.’

‘Well, I think now is as good as a time as any, lets walk over there to see what is going on.’

They walked behind the building and found the first door, Summers banged on it and waited.  Shaun moved ahead, ‘I’m going to go check this one out while you wait.’ Her and DeWitt stood and waited and they heard the loud metallic bang from the other door which was Shaun banging on the door.  Summers banged on the door again but as soon as she finished she heard the other door open, ‘Hi Dr. Feldman’. Shaun turned to the two agents - ‘looks like it was door number two!’ They both turned and made their way over to Shaun and the dentist and inside the dentist office.

Once they were inside the dentist spoke up,

‘First I must apologize for the mix-up, both of the teeth were so similar and I don’t normally have two implants in one day.’

Shaun held out his hand, ‘well it looks like the job is already done on one of them but we really need to get the other one out of my mouth for these agents.’

Summers pushed forward, ‘Doctor, we don’t have time to take the other implants out of DeWitt but at some point we’ll have to put those into Shaun - plus he got hit in the fact with a wrench so who knows if there was other damage.’

‘I can see that, you’ve got a nice bruise there along your jawline - I need to take x-rays before but lets get that other one out and on your way.’

Shaun got in the chair and Dr. Feldman got started on the removal, since they were just screwed in, it was relatively easy.  Now Shaun was back to square one with not having anything in his mouth. ‘Now Shaun, take it easy  - the posts are still in there and don’t appear to be damaged so that is a good thing.’

‘Thanks Doc’

The dentist took the teeth and put them in a little bag and handed them over to the agents, ‘well Agents I believe you have what you need. If all goes well then I’ll see you soon to get those other ones out and we’ll get this situation straightened out.’

Summers grabbed the bag that had the teeth in it, she turned and looked at DeWitt, ‘give Andrews a call at NSA, tell him were on the way.  Shaun, we’re sorry you got mixed up in all of this but it looks like it all worked out in the end.’

‘All I keep thinking about is that sub that is sitting in my fridge, lonely and uneaten’