Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2001 08:51:31 -0600 From: Robyn Herrington Organization: University of Calgary Subject: [WRITERS] SUB: CONTEST: No Time for Terror Our second Halloween contest entry -- keep it going, people! Critiques to me at rmherrin@ucalgary.ca. I'll pass them along to the authors. ------------------------------ No Time For Terror As the detective in the brown coat approached me I sighed and removed my hands from my pockets for the inevitable handcuffs. For I knew full well I had shot Jeffrey Gibbons two times and hit him on both occasions. There was no way I could have missed as I watched various parts of his face turn into a bright blob of red each time one of my bullets hit. Then there were the many witnesses to my very public commission of murder, almost twenty by my count. Still, when the cops finally showed up and stopped the madness, I didn't run right out and admit my crime. I figured they'd find me soon enough. Meanwhile, who knew, maybe the country would be attacked again like on September 11 and I'd get a break for the mayhem. Though Jeffrey Gibbons deserved to die and I'm quite sure all of the other Halloween party participants would vouch for this. Quite frankly I could almost have murdered Jeff had he not committed the horror he thought of as humor for his "happening" Halloween party and for pretty much the same sort of behavior. "You hear that?" Jeff asked me as we walked from his car to my apartment after and evening at the movies. I stopped and listened but heard nothing unusual. "Over there," Jeff pointed, then grabbed my arm and pulled me along to somewhere. "I think it's a paladian." "What's a paladian?" I whispered, now quite jittery. I'd just moved to Florida three months ago and was having a tough time adjusting to the state's scary animal life so unusual to a person from Minnesota. Snakes of bright hues, alligators, bugs so big I would never have thought genetically possible. Jeff walked stealthily towards a parked car, holding a finger in front of his lips for silence and waving me along with his other.. I stood frozen and watched Jeff continue on his mission. Suddenly something long, serpentine and bright pink came out from under the car, with the help of Jeff's two hands, and flew through the air to wrap directly around my legs. My stomach drops two notches at only the distant memory. At the time there was no terror on earth as the kind that enveloped me, ripping through my gut like an angry fire, welling up through my chest until I feared my pounding heart would thunder up through my head. I screamed with every built up breath I had in me, screamed until there was none left, then gulped mightily for calming air. Jeff stood and laughed at me the entire time. No, he didn't laugh. He guffawed. His shoulders drooped from the animation robbing his muscles of strength. His eyes poured tears of mirth. At some point during our date talk I'd mentioned my fear of the snakes and bugs of Florida. Already he knew my weak point and at first opportunity he used it. Of course I told Jeff not to terrify me any more like that and he didn't. Instead he came over to my job one day and told me my mother had died. "It was a terrible accident, Maddie. I'm so sorry." My knees buckled instantly and my wheeled executive chair slid out from under me when I grasped its arm to catch my fall. I fell on the floor but with the total lack of reaction that only shock can bring. The sounds of loud guffaws pulled me from the shock. This time I told Jeffrey Gibbons I never wanted to see him again. What can I say? The guy went and bought me a brand new laptop computer and a Palm Pilot. He cried and begged and swore he didn't know why he did some of the things he did, that he knew he was politically incorrect, that he was a misunderstood soul marching to a different drummer and that he loved me more than life itself. I'd stopped dating Jeff almost two months when he invited me to his party. The relationship ended the day he pretended to drive us off a bridge. By this time the terror was diluted as I was suspicious but it still wasn't fun and while I wasn't amused, Jeff, of course, was. "It's just a group from work. My new girlfriend. Bring a guy if you want. I've got quite a surprise planned not to mention a superb buffet. You gotta wear a costume, though." Naturally I knew Jeff would plan some sort of humorous terror for his party but hey, it was Halloween. This was perhaps the one day of the year that Jeff would be considered politically correct when I thought about it. On a whim, I agreed. I was already on to Jeff. My curiosity was to what he had planned. I underestimated Jeff. There were no lychee nuts posing as fake eyeballs or spaghetti purported to be brains, both touched by groping hands in darkened rooms, as the description of what is being felt provides the fear. Nothing like this for Jeffrey Gibbons, no sir. Jeff did set up a grand buffet with stations for Italian, German, French or American food as desired. Waiters circled throughout to query Frankenstein if he wanted a wine or martini or to fetch Madonna another beer. One of those huge dome glitter balls dropped and spun from Jeff's cathedral ceiling to create an eerie black light effect in the darkened room. Glow-in-the-dark paint reflected the globe's glitters with warnings of vampires and goblins. It was a typical Halloween party mostly, a bit more uptown due to Jeff's penchant for class and creativity, but a harmless enough scene. After an hour of mingling and costume-oohing the multi-CD player was silenced and all party attendees looked towards a makeshift stage at the end of the room as Jeffrey Gibbons finally made his entrance. He was dressed up as Osama Bin Laden. Everyone in the room cracked up. Even me. It was almost two months after the terrorist attacks and the army was still chasing the infamous terrorist all over Afghanistan. The country had reached a point where we could laugh in derision at Bin Laden. And Jeff was a damn good Osama at that. "You will all join me at a special little room I have for you infidels," Jeff said in what I supposed was an Arabic accent. Sounded pretty genuine to me. It was just an empty room, strangely roundish in that it was a parapet in Jeff's remodeled Victorian. All the costumed attendees filed into the empty room and stood around, quiet and curious. There was absolutely nothing in the room. Two large windows looked out to a view of a quiet street. First came the rumbling. The floor began to shake, but only slightly. My immediate thought was that was some sort of weird carnival ride that Jeff had managed to disguise as a room in his house. The sort of thing that goes round and round then the floor drops off while the rider's body is held fast to the side by centrifugal force. I thought it was kind of a neat idea, actually. The roars increased until they were so loud that nothing could be heard besides the sound. The floor's vibrations increased in intensity. There was a crescendo of both the floor and the sound, it kept getting louder, it felt as if something very destructive was coming closer and closer. I stopped any pretense of suspension of disbelief. Suddenly I believed and I believed something was going to crash into me and kill me. The screams began before we saw the airplanes, at least I think. For when we saw the airplanes heading directly toward us from outside the windows and crossing a quiet street, the screams were almost as loud as the roar. I knew it was fake, I knew it was. But it was too much and there was no relenting. The floor continued to shake and increase in shaking intensity. The roar and screams grew louder. The airplanes flew closer. Maybe we were all more vulnerable to this very realistic recreation of the 9/11 attacks and it wasn't all that scary really. But we were. We were all hysterical and begging to be let out. Then there was the crash. Then the smoke. The smoke did it. Those flames licking up the side of the parapet didn't help. The room actually swayed when the planes "crashed". I don't know how Jeffrey managed to do all this. The smoke was not real smoke, of course, but we didn't know that. We didn't know the flames weren't real or that the planes weren't right below us blocking our exit. Screaming bodies dropped down past the two windows, some of them on fire. We too screamed and begged Jeffrey to let us out. He was too busy laughing to show us the exit, camouflaged and already locked.. That's when I took my trusty Glock, a gift from a former police paramour, and shot Jeffrey two times, directly in the face. The terror was too unbearable. The floor was swaying, the fake smoke thrust us into total darkness, the sound would n o t stop. Plenty of folks carrying guns these days, including me. In my terror I reacted in self-defense. I shot the cause of the terror, truly believing in my panic that his death would halt the noise, stop the smoke, still the floor. Only it didn't stop and by this time there's bodies on the floor. People were getting trampled. Everyone tried to find a way out and finally someone broke a window. It was a three story drop but someone did it and survived enough to run a mile down the road to the nearest telephone. "How do you spell your last name?" the detective in the brown coat asked me. "HUNT," I spit, wondering how dumb these cops are in Florida. "Madeline Hunt," he said, speaking what he scribbled. "And how did you know the victim?" he asked to my complete astonishment. I would have thought he would have slapped handcuffs on me by now and here he is wanting my dating history. Why I went right ahead and answered his questions courteously and efficiently. "Folks, you can all head home for the night. You've had quite a scare. You should see the setup this guy had in the lower level. He had to be obsessed." I listened with disbelieving ears. He was sending us home? A full two days had passed before I did the stupid and called that detective, James Murphy. I knew him by his card. "Ms. Hunt," James Murphy told me in response to my query re the status of the case, "the body of Jeffrey Gibbons was riddled with the bullets from seventeen different guns. We're working on matching up the bullets with the guns then we'll be checking up with each and every one of you for weapons you own. I promise to get back to you." Seventeen different guns? Looks like I wasn't the only one carrying a little extra protection during these trying times. It also looked like I wasn't the only who shot Jeffrey Gibbons. It was too much. "Mr. Murphy, I'm telling you right now that I know I myself shot Jeffrey twice with my own gun. I'm admitting murder to you here! Aren't you going to come and arrest me?" The detective chuckled. "Ms. Hope, Jeffrey Gibbons was an asshole who got his kicks scaring the shit out of people. He goes a long way back with us. That stunt he pulled at his Halloween party really was beyond the pale." "You mean you're not going to do anything about it?" I whimpered. "Maybe someday, Ms. Hunt," Murphy answered, the chuckle still evident in his tone. "Right now we're encouraging the death of terrorists." -- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Robyn Herrington New Currents in Teaching and Learning / InfoServe Phone: 220-2561 Email: rmherrin@ucalgary.ca Story ideas are like rabbits that have ventured unwittingly into view. The slightest noise or movement can spook them and they bolt off into the dark undergrowth never to be seen again. -- Adrian Bedford ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~