Flicking

“All you have to do is let me free. When you leave, you close the door and leave me here.”

  “And for that, for leaving you behind, I can find out who killed my family?”

  “No, that one’s free.” Colonel leaned forward. “I killed your family. Me and my team.” He laughed again.

  Dorian’s finger quivered on the trigger. He should just kill this bastard right now. He man had killed Federica, and…Jesus, how could he be so casual about it. He would kill Colonel now.

  “But if you shoot me, you’ll never know who paid me to do it. Don’t you want to know that?”

  He should just kill him. Did it really matter who ordered it? Dorian breathed out slowly. “Yes. I want to know.”

  “Come closer and I’ll tell you. But first, promise to let me free.”

  “If I can find the person, then yes, I’ll let you free. At least so you can testify in court.”

  “There’s my little rodent. So, come closer. I’m not telling the whole world, just you.”

  Dorian moved nearer, his finger tighter on the trigger. He couldn’t let Colonel overpower him. The man had already done it once.

  “Closer.” Colonel’s voice faltered. He seemed to shrink against the trunk of the car, his wounds having taken most of his strength.

  “No.” But Dorian inched closer.

  “So, the person who paid me all this money was…”

  And faster than Dorian could ever have imagined, Colonel went from weak and bleeding, to an airborne bundle of muscle. The motion startled Dorian, causing him to slip and fall backward. The slip meant that Colonel missed him, and landed on the ground behind him with a crunch. Dorian’s back cracked against the ground, and his finger triggered a shot that whistled through the air. Colonel climbed to his hands and feet, swiveling. At the same time Dorian swung around on the ground, looping the gun so it pointed at Colonel again. Before Dorian could, Colonel grabbed hold of Dorian’s free hand, yanking hard and launching himself onto Dorian. In the last moment, Dorian, moving the heavy gun with all his force, placing it between himself and Colonel, and pulled the trigger. A black and red spot appeared just below Colonel’s right eye, and the whole charging bulk of the man crashed onto Dorian’s prostrate body, knocking the breath out of him.

  “What the hell is happening?” he could hear Striptz yelling. More voices came towards him.

  “I had to shoot him again. He jumped me,” Dorian gasped. “He was going to tell me who ordered all this.” The weight of the prostrate body crushed his lungs so he could hardly breath.

  Striptz appeared in Dorian’s view, leaned down, and, with great effort, managed to roll Colonel’s body off of Dorian’s chest. “Man, he’s heavy.”

  “Actually, he obviously had no intention of telling me anything. It was all to get me to lose control, drop my guard and give him a chance.”

  Striptz knelt down, and touched Colonel’s neck, feeling for a pulse. “There’s nothing. I think this time you got him. Fuck, this is crazy.”

  Trapping

  It took another twenty minutes until they found the jamming device. It was a PS3-sized black box under the seat of one of the cars. Ruutor disabled it using the prominent button on the front. “Not that hard really. I bet it’s mostly a battery anyway.”

  “Effective though,” Dorian said. He wandered obsessively from the living room to the side door to around the back and then to the front driveway, checking gingerly that each of the dead was actually dead, keeping the panic in his thoughts under tight control. He had to keep working forward.

  After his third round of checking, he came back to where the rest of the band were examining the extra phone they’d found. The one that could only have belonged to Colonel or his brutish friend.

  “I’ve got a number here,” Andrea said, staring intently at the phone. She was sitting at the kitchen table with Ruutor, Striptz and Early Bird. “It should be the last number they dialed. Right before trying to kill you all.” She paused, twirling some loose strands of hair behind her ear. “Now how do I take advantage of that?” She looked up. “Can one of you do an internet search on the phone number?”

  “I’ve got a r-recording of Colonel’s voice, if that would help,” Ruutor said. “It’s on my cell.” He clicked a button and the Colonel’s voice spoke brusquely from his tinny speakers.

  The others looked at him in astonishment.

  “I-I thought he was a bit suspicious. Thought it might come in handy, you know.”

  “I’ll say. That should help,” Andrea acknowledged. “Well, actually,” she looked at Ruutor, “So then, um, how does that in fact help us?”

  “Well, if y-y-you edit it to answer the phone, we can c-call the number and maybe record the person on the other end.”

  “Genius,” said Striptz.

  “And that’s something you can do, edit it to answer the phone?” asked Andrea.

  “Yep.”

  “So who has a phone that can record the call?”

  “I do,” said Striptz.

  “So we have a plan?” Dorian asked. He couldn’t help but think it was an extremely thin plan.

  “Hopef-f-fully,”

  Dorian watched as they spliced and snipped Ruutor’s recordings of Colonel’s voice, searching for phrases throughout the audio that they could repurpose to sound like someone answering the phone.

  “It will sound a bit weird, but not that much worse that a bad cell phone connection.”

  Finally, they had a recording that could simulate Colonel answering a phone call. The whole activity took about thirty minutes. Afterwards, they rehearsed how they’d handle the call, making sure everyone’s role was carefully choreographed. This was one of their few chances to catch the person who’d tried to kill them all, and possibly the only way Dorian would ever specifically find out who’d had his family killed. If this went wrong, or the person got suspicious, they could lose track of him or them forever.

  Or worse, whoever it was could keep on looking for them. One day, when they were least expecting it, someone would show up and kill them. They couldn’t afford to screw this up, could they.

  He looked around at his friends keenly focused on their tasks. He needed to keep these thoughts to himself. If his fear seeped out, what would they do?

  The constant practicing of the call had started working. They simulated a ring and each of them did their part, answering, recording, and playing back their various pieces. They tried out various possible directions for the conversation, some worked better than others. Then time ran out; Colonel’s phone rang.

  “Quiet everyone,” Andrea said. Then, “Three…two…one.” She clicked on the answer button, Striptz tapped his phone, and Ruutor tapped his.

  “Hello,” Colonel’s disembodied voice spoke out of Ruutor’s phone.

  “Hello,” said the voice from the call.

  Ruutor tapped again. “What do you want?” said the recording of Colonel.

  “What do I want?” said the speakerphone. “Are you fucking crazy? What do I want? Who are you trying to fuck with here, buddy?”

  Andrea looked thoughtful, signaling to Dorian that maybe she knew the person. Dorian shook his head. He’d never heard the man before. She pointed to Ruutor to play the next part of the recording.

  “Working on it,” the recorded Colonel said.

  “Well, that’s better. When will you be done? You know I want to get this over with as quickly as possible. I’ve got people breathing down my neck. No time to whack off boys, got that? Busy, busy.”

  Now Andrea was nodding. She looked sure she knew the voice. Dorian’s spirit’s rose.

  “Hello? You there?” said the voice. A pause. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”

  Ruutor shrugged and pressed a button. “Four hours,” said his phone.

  “Four more hours? That’s ridiculous. Just a few bullets, my friend. Have you shut down the servers? Look, you have one hour exactly; after that, I’m expecting an answer.”

  “Later,” the recordin
g said.

  “Later? Later? Are you kidding me?” Andrea’s eyes went wide. Her arms waved, signaling that she knew who was on the phone. “Don’t even get me started,” said the voice. “One hour. That’s it.” The call ended.

  Andrea made a chopping move across her neck and ended the call. Striptz halted his recording. She stared at the four Deep Noders in turn. “It’s Mel Boxton.” She stabbed the air. “That’s who hired these monsters.” She looked around at the blank faces. Dorian couldn’t make a connection with the name. “You don’t know him? Don’t you all upload movies?” She paused. “He’s only the head of Melbox Movies.”

  “No way?”

  “Yes way.” Andrea high-fived everyone around the table. “We take him down, and all this shit stops for good.”

  In the Frame

  Andrea stood up from the table. “Ok, we now know what we have to do, right?”

  “Y-y-yep.”

  “Any doubts that it will work?”

  “Tons,” Dorian sighed.

  “But it’s the best plan we got, right?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Then let’s execute.” Andrea glanced around the room. “No pun intended.”

  Dorian found the local Walmart, where he bought one pair of leather winter gloves, five pairs of rubber gloves, bleach, a vacuum cleaner and cleaning supplies. As he walked through the aisles he rehearsed a story about cleaning up an abandoned house in case anyone asked about his unusual purchases. In the end, however, the girl at the checkout didn’t care in the slightest, focusing all her concentration on maniacally chewing gum. It reminded Dorian of a cow chewing her cud.

  Back at the house, Dorian