Pong

It was a pitch-black night at the campground crime scene, only lit by red and blue police car lights. The fire pit and picnic tables were littered with dozens of red solo cups, beer cans, and ping-pong balls. A 17-year old boy had been kidnapped two hours earlier.

Tom, the lead detective, picked up one of the ping-pong balls. Memories of ping-pong championships flooded his thoughts. He would always win and incessantly brag. He also win against the same opponents, no less, folks who still lived in town and hated him for it. Tom was ashamed of his old arrogance. Working with dead bodies had humbled him. But he still always carried his lucky ping-pong paddle in his back pocket, even that night. He pulled it out and smacked the ball into space. Kids had no drive these days, Tom thought. It was beer pong now. Ping-pong wasn't cool enough. Tom shook the thought. He had to go to find the boy.

“Johnny wants to be a beer pong champion. He is the best in the state. You have to find him!” Courtney, Johnny’s girlfriend, screamed to Tom as he stared at the party wreckage. He went to Courtney for questioning.

“We were so drunk,” she explained. “The guy in campsite 6 kept yelling for us to be quiet. But Johnny, like, always gloats when he wins at beer pong, and he always wins so it was totally a disaster waiting to happen. After he won his, like, 7th game in a row, he shouted ‘you hear that, old man! Now you shut up!’ A few minutes later all the lights went dark. Nobody knew what was going on. Everything was, like, shut down and quiet. Then the lights came on and Johnny was gone. You have to find him! He said he was going to marry me if he wins State!”

Tom comforted Courtney and checked out campsite 6, 30 yards away. A trailer was parked in the space. No tents were pitched, no one was around. The site was clean, except for a red solo cup on the step of the trailer.

“What about the lights?” Tom asked the operations people back at the police van.

“Someone cut the main generator cord,” the tech guy explained. “The power stays out for five minutes before transferring to the back up. Then the lights go back on.”

“And the cut cord was right next to Johnny’s camp, right?”

“Yep. It could have been anyone within a few feet of Johnny.”

“Thanks.”

“Johnny!”

Tom turned to Courtney’s scream. She saw her boyfriend emerging from the woods, bloody, limping, and clutching his side. She and Tom raced over.

“That way…” Johnny managed to point back towards the woods before he collapsed. Courtney and Tom slid to his side.

“Okay, Johnny, stay with you me. You're going to be all right. Stay with him, Courtney. I need a medic here! Search team with me!” Tom rallied a party of five officers and a bloodhound to go guns blazing into the woods.

It was eerily quiet. The only light shined from the police flashlights held over drawn guns. Tom and the officers moved at a fast walk, sending the dog ahead. They shined their beams in all directions for about half a mile.

Yelp! The whimpering of the dog drew the cops into a sprint. They found their canine 100 yards deep. He was laying on his side under a tree and panting in pain. On the side of his coat was carved a crude picture of a cup and circle over it, presumably a ping-pong ball.

"He can't be far," Tom said. The search party scanned the area for direction. The night grew quieter. Then, a swift Cht! sound broke the silence. It was sound of a blade settling into a police officer’s back.

"Ah!" Tom ran to the injured cop. He dislodged the weapon and stared at it, holding the center with just his thumb and index finger. It was the inside chopper of a food processor, one with three circular blades around a sphere.

Cht!

Another officer went down to the same weapon.

Cht! Cht!

Two more cops got hit before Tom finally found the attacker perched in the tree above them. It was a man his age. With his thumb and index finger, he was tossing the food processor blades and picking off the search party like he was throwing ping-pong balls at beer pong cups. He aimed for the last police officer standing. Tom sprinted over to the target. as the weapon floated through the air. He pulled out his lucky ping pong paddle and smacked it just before it sliced into the cops back. Tom’s other hand un-holstered his gun and shot the man out of the tree. He fell the 20 feet and landed with a thud.

The man was barely moving, just strong enough still to roll over to look at Tom, who recognized him immediately. It was his oldest, greatest rival as a high school ping-pong champion. Tom had beaten him and beaten him and beaten him, and gloated every time. Just before he passed out, he managed, “Fuck you, Tommy.” The words lingered with Tom as he trudged back to the campground.

Back at the site, Tom found Johnny wrapped in a blanket, sitting in the back of a paramedics truck.

“Hey, kid." Johnny looked up as Tom reached to his back pocket.

"That girlfriend of yours, Courtney? She cares about you. Don’t leave it to a championship to let her go. Also, I know you’re good, but that doesn’t mean you have to remind your opponent about it. Trust me, they know when you beat them." He turned to go. Tommy sat there with his head down, in pain.

"Oh and one more thing - Don’t get stuck without a paddle. You might find this a little more rewarding.” Tom flipped Johnny his lucky ping-pong weapon.