48 Hour Short Story Contest

My mind flooded with panic, compounding the pain from my hangover by nearly a thousand percent. Having spent a few days with Lee, I was becoming more than accustomed to the experience.

What the hell was Lee arrested for? Soliciting? Carjacking? Firing randomly into the air? With Lee, literally any activity could quickly become a felony, so who knows? All I knew was that he’d left me to be the one to clean up the mess. Damn it, I don’t even know how to take care of a dog.

Of course, that was the least of my problems. I was still standing in front of the Japanese restaurant where Lee and I had spent the night, but otherwise I had no clue where I was, or how to get back to that car. I considered using the cell phone in my hand to call…

Wait a minute.

I left my cell phone at home. How could I possibly have it on me now unless…

A tight clump of memories slowly unwound itself in my mind. Most of the evening was little more than a drunken haze, but I was still coherent enough to recall a faint memory of Lee shaking me awake, a mere moment after I laid down on the comfy couch in the restaurant’s waiting room. Lee was frantically waving a letter in the air, and shouting something along the lines of …


…

“The Russian mafia!”

Lee vigorously shook Darrin awake with the enthusiasm of a twelve year old, while happily repeating in his drunk friend’s ear,

“The Russian mafia! I’ll explain on the way!”

Darrin obediently dropped off the couch, and wearily crawled along the tile floor, in the vague direction of the door. He was far too tired to question anything Lee said, which was a sorry condition to be in, all things considered. Lee wasn’t in the mood to put up with any more delays, so with one hand on the back of Darrin’s belt, and the other upon the collar of his shirt, Lee proceeded to hoist Darrin up with alarming strength, and carry him straight out the door, like an oversized briefcase.

As soon as the entered the cold emptiness of night, Darrin suddenly became aware of light popping sounds filling the air. He couldn’t see any apparent cause, and Lee didn’t react in the slightest. A few distant pedestrians were staring at them, but Lee was the kind of person to attract that, with his tan wiry frame, large black muttonchops, and oversized trench coat. Darrin was too drunk to even consider the fact that they might be looking at him, rather than Lee. Sure, he was fairly nondescript when compared to Lee, just a slightly chubby twenty-something year old guy in jeans and a t-shirt. He didn’t even consider the possibility that they might be distracted by the fact that Lee was carrying him around the same way someone would carry a large dog, or disobedient child.

That’s not what they were staring at though. In the dim streetlight, they were not only aware of the popping sounds, but the small impacts against the restaurant wall, kicking up dust and plaster. Eventually, one of the silenced bullets took out a window, and the pedestrians scattered away like mice.

That was enough to finally grab Lee’s attention. He turned and sneered at the shattered window, while hissing under his breath,

“Shit! My girlfriend’s going to be pissed! We might as well borrow her car then, since she’s going to be angry anyway. Oh and try to remain calm. They aren’t aiming to hit us. The shots are way too high.”

Darrin hoisted up his tired head and confusedly inquired,

“Whut?”

Lee’s tone was as professional and brisk as his stride,

“They’re just trying to spook us. No assassin has aim that bad. The best thing we can do is just play cool and act like it doesn’t matter.”

Lee’s voice suddenly became concerned, and perhaps a little hurt,

“Don’t you remember? I covered all of this in the fifth chapter of my…oh crap! I never finished my book! We’ll have to go back to the restaurant and find a computer with Word…”

Darrin tugged at Lee’s pant leg, just as his friend began turning back towards the restaurant, and quietly reminded him,

“Russian Mafia.”

“Oh right! The Russian Mafia! Thanks Darrin, that’s exactly why I keep you around. Well, that and I need you to hold a pair of scissors for me.”

True to his word, Lee popped open the passenger side door of his girlfriend’s Sedan, and tossed Darrin inside, where the drunk young man immediately fell asleep, with his head pressed against the dashboard. Lee let him sleep for the entire fifteen minute drive, and woke him by rapping the barrel of his pistol across the back of his head. Technically, it was a pistol whipping, but it was really more of a pistol ‘nudging’, all things considered.

“Ouch! What the…Lee, where are we?”

Even sober, Darrin would’ve had no clue. It just looked like a random, large apartment building, only with quite a bit of police tape, and more than a few broken windows, mostly near the top floors. Lee eagerly informed his roommate,

“I need you to go into my old apartment. I left something in there in my pet chipmunk’s cage. Everything’s explained in this letter.”

It was the same letter Lee had frantically waved in his hand back at the restaurant. More than a little curious, Darrin snatched it away. After a few moments of careful inspection, Darrin informed his roommate,

“Lee, this is in Japanese.”

“Thanks for playing.”

Lee hopped out the driver’s side door, and carefully looked for police. Sure enough, three police cruisers were sitting right outside the main entrance. The officers were all outside and chatting, as they kept an eye out for any suspicious people matching Lee’s description.

“Alright, Darrin, the coast is clear. Let’s move.”

Darrin wasn’t buckled in, so the moment Lee opened the door, he spilled out and fell all the way down to the ground, much to the surprise and amusement of the police officers. One of them even pointed and laughed. With a condescending shake of his head, Lee hoisted Darrin up to his feet, pressed a small key into his hand, and began giving the instructions,

“Your mission, which I’ve chosen you to accept, is to take the main elevator up to the tenth floor, and go to apartment one-two-seven-seven. The number on the door will just say ‘seven’, but I’ve carved the other numbers in by hand. Once inside, I need you to hold the scissors in your hand, as if you were holding a gun. Kind of like how kids used to in grade school, before it became a felony. Understand?”

“Barely.”

“Capital! Once inside, I need you to pick up a penny. It’s on the rug, beneath the window. You’ll know which one I mean. Now GO AND GET SOME REST FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!”

The officers laughed a bit, and watched Darrin drunkenly stumbled off towards the main entrance. One of them gave a glance at Lee, but he didn’t appear drunk…although he did look a little familiar. He didn’t look too long though. Darrin drew away his attention by hilariously trying to pull open the ‘push’ door. Eventually he managed to stumble inside, and the officers went back to looking out for suspicious characters.

No one gave Darrin a second glance in the main lobby either, and within a minute he was stepping out of the elevator and on to the tenth floor, with absolutely no idea which room Lee told him to look for. He strained to remember, but it proved completely unnecessary. Lee’s room wasn’t hard to find. It was the one with the numbers carved into the door, and all the police tape. Darrin quickly let himself in, and wasn’t the least bit surprised by the interior of Lee’s apartment.

The floor and walls were lined with water stains, dead goldfish, pennies, abstract paintings, broken glass, cans of pineapple juice, and more bullet holes than he ever could of possibly imagined. To his surprise, the windows in the apartment weren’t taped up or sealed, despite all being broken. The cold air blew straight in his face, sobering him up enough to remember his mission. He held the shiny metal scissors in his left hand, kind of like a gun, and looked for a penny that stood out from the others. He was still searching when his cell phone rang. For some reason, instead of the standard beeping ring tone, it played a digitized version of a Billy Joel song.

“Hullo?”

“It’s me, Lee.”

Darrin drunkenly fiddled with the phone, while muttering into the receiver,

“Didn’t I leave this at home?”

Lee’s voice was urgent, but professional.

“You didn’t forget it, I stole it from you shortly after we left the house. You just assumed you forgot it since it wasn’t in your pocket. Anyway, I only took it because I didn’t want you to use up your power and minutes before the mission.”

Before Darrin could give any kind of coherent response, Lee was already continuing,

“Listen, there’s something I forgot to mention. Fluff your hair out a bit.”

Darrin did so, while giggling.

“Stay with me Darrin. Now, there should be a trench coat behind the couch. Try it on.”

Darrin found it and slid it on. It fit nice.

“Great. Now, try and make yourself look even more like me.”

Darrin glanced around, uncertain what to do.

“Good job. Now hang up and go get that penny, Darrin. The clock’s ticking.”

In a slow yet careful stagger, Darrin made his way over to the window, and spotted a penny that seemed just a little bit shinier than all the others. He immediately hunched down to pick it up, just as the bullets began flying a mere few inches over his head.

Darrin was drunk, but not so drunk that he couldn’t tell his life was in danger. He flew himself onto the mass of broken glass and pennies, barely managing to avoid cutting himself up. While he was down there, he carefully retrieved the penny, and placed it into his pocket.

The torrent of bullets could hardly destroy the apartment any more than they already had, but regardless, the steel kept flying, fired rapidly from some sort of large machinegun, from the building across the street. After a few more moments of random destruction, the shots cut off unexpectedly, which was odd, since Darrin could still hear gunfire. It didn’t sound like a machinegun though. It sounded more like a pistol, kind of like the one Lee owned.

To make matters worse, one of the bullets pierced something electrical in the wall, leading it to smoke. Eventually the smoke became a fire, burning much more quickly than logic would suggest. It wasn’t long before Darrin’s cell phone began playing the digitized chorus of ‘You May Be Right’ once again. Darrin answered the call, and Lee’s voice was as calm and professional as ever,

“Okay, that was great. Now set the room on fire.”

Darrin fought through the drunken haze.

“Lee, the room’s on fire!”

“Good job. Now go into my bedroom and look for…”

Darrin was drunk, but not so drunk that he didn’t realize what was happening.

“Lee, did you just kill that guy?”

“Don’t change the subject. No in my bedroom you’ll find…”

Darrin’s brain was working slowly, but it was working.

“Lee did you just use me as a decoy?!”

“Will you remember this tomorrow?”

Darrin wasn’t quite sure how to answer that.

“I…think so.”

“Then no, don’t be silly. Now, go into my bedroom and look for a chipmunk cage. It’s like a hamster cage, only for chipmunks. Inside you’ll find my pet chipmunk Harold, and more importantly, a small hidden camera. Don’t worry, he won’t bite. In fact he’s dead. Don’t worry, he doesn’t smell, I had him stuffed.”

Too drunk to make any sense from Lee’s logic, Darrin pulled himself up and almost hung up the phone, but Lee suddenly interjected in a panicked voice,

“WAIT DARRIN! THERE’S SOMETHING I FORGOT TO TELL YOU!”

Darrin flew against the wall, looking for any possible danger or attack. After a few heavy breaths, Lee continued,

“If my dead chipmunk does try to bite you, then stab him in the brain with the scissors.”

“What?!!”

“That’s the only way to kill them! Honestly, Darrin, I’m beginning to think you haven’t read my book at all.”

*CLICK*


(Word Count: 2142)

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