by Nathan Allen
Mid-afternoon, a message appeared on her screen. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw who it was from.
Alice,
Congratulations on a job well done.
There’ll be plenty more where that came from. If you are smart and do as I say, I think you and I could enjoy a mutually beneficial working relationship.
I’ll be in touch,
Needlemouse.
Alice thought she may have had trouble sleeping after all she had been through these past few days, but she was so worn out and run down that she managed to let go of consciousness almost as soon as her head hit the pillow. She sunk into a deep slumber, until a heavy pounding noise invaded her dreams shortly after two a.m.
She fell out of bed, disoriented. It took her a moment to pull herself together.
She threw on some clothes and crept over to the front door.
The pounding increased in intensity.
She peered through the peep hole and relaxed when she saw it was Carson Dowling. The guy from Naomi’s funeral. The one who came across as a bit of a self-important blowhard, but seemed mostly harmless.
“Carson?” she said.
“Alice?” he said through the door. “Are you awake?”
“No Carson, I’m talking to you in my sleep.”
“Please, you have to let me in.”
Alice could hear the panic in his voice.
She wondered how he knew where she lived, until she remembered the package they all received containing everyone’s personal details.
She opened the door up a crack.
“What are you doing here, Carson? Do you have any idea what time it is?”
Carson didn’t wait to be invited in. He pushed the door open and forced his way inside.
“Carson?” Alice asked again. “What are you doing? What’s going on?”
Carson prowled around her apartment like a caged animal. He seemed like a completely different person from the last time Alice saw him. The self-aggrandizing aspiring vigilante from earlier had vanished. In its place was a chaotic bundle of hyper nerves, panic-stricken and delusional. His face was wet with perspiration, his combover sticking to his scalp like a halo. Alice feared he may have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
“I need your help,” he said. “I need somewhere to hide out.”
He rushed over to the window to check for any signs of activity. The streets below were empty, but this did little to soothe his fractured state of mind.
“They’re coming after me, I know it,” he muttered to himself. “They control everything.”
Alice rubbed her eyes, still not fully alert. She pinched the skin on her arm several times to confirm that she actually was awake.
“You’re kind of freaking me out here, Carson,” she said.
Alice couldn’t tell what had come over him. It could be drugs. It could be something worse.
She took a few discreet steps in the direction of her kitchen. This was where all her sharp knives and her meat tenderizer were within arm’s reach, should she need to defend herself. She didn’t think Carson would attack her. But the way he was behaving, she couldn’t say for sure.
Her bleary eyes came into focus a minute later, and Alice really began to worry.
Carson’s hands were covered in blood.
His clothing was smudged with dark patches and stains. His face bore a smattering of crimson droplets.
A bloodied screwdriver was gripped tightly inside the palm of Carson’s right hand.
“Jesus, Carson,” Alice whispered. She took another step back. “What have you done?”
Carson wouldn’t – or couldn’t – answer. He sobbed quietly in the corner of the room, rocking back and forth on the spot, fidgeting like it was an involuntary tic.
The apartment was deathly silent, save for the staccato clicking of Carson’s chattering teeth.
Alice remained in the opposite corner, as far away from Carson as she could get without physically leaving the room. She watched and waited, immobilized by helplessness. She had no idea how she was supposed to react in a situation like this.
Another brown envelope then flicked under the doorway, and the pieces of the puzzle all fell into place.
Alice knew exactly what had happened. She knew what Carson had done, and she knew who he had done it to.
The envelope on the floor contained the card to announce that Roque Fenton had been eliminated from the lottery. Given the evidence before her, Alice could only assume it was Carson who had carried out the eliminating.
She tried to imagine the sheer force of will required to kill another human being – one the size of Roque Fenton – using nothing but a screwdriver.
Carson spotted the envelope. He ran across the room and threw open the front door.
“Leave me alone, you maniacs!” he shouted into the empty hallway. “I want out of this! You hear me? I’m out! I don’t want to be a part of your stupid game any more!”
Alice rushed over and pulled him back inside. She slammed the door closed and locked it.
“You need to calm down,” she said, although this was something she was also telling herself. “Just breathe. Try to relax. I know your emotions are running high, but we can work this out.”
“But ... he’s dead,” Carson said in between sniffs and gasps for breath. “I killed him.”
“In self defense, though. He came at you first.”
Alice waited for Carson to confirm her words, but this only made him sob harder.
“That was what happened. Right? Roque Fenton did come at you first, didn’t he?”
“I had to do it,” Carson finally said.
“Right. Because he attacked you.”
Alice hoped that if she repeated this assertion enough times, it would eventually become the truth.
“I had to do it,” Carson said. “If I didn’t do it, he would have killed me. He would have killed all of us until he got to the money.”
Alice felt her insides implode like a controlled demolition. That was the moment she knew there was little she could do to help Carson. There was nothing justifiable about any of this. It was an open and shut case of premeditated murder. Extreme paranoia and a preemptive strike were unlikely to hold up as suitable defenses in a court of law.
She wanted to offer Carson support. Something to soothe his torment. But words failed her.
Ninety seconds later, the police were pounding on Alice’s door.
“Jesus!” Carson said. “How did they find me?”
If Carson had been thinking straight, it wouldn’t have been all that difficult to figure out. His arrival had generated enough noise to wake up the entire floor. The trail of blood leading to Alice’s door was also something of a giveaway.
“You try and stall them!” he said. “I’ll climb out through the fire escape.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Carson. It’ll only make you look guilty.”
It was actually the murder weapon in Carson’s possession, along with the victim’s blood on his hands, that made him look guilty. But logical thinking had deserted Alice by that point of the night.
“I think it’s best if you surrender,” she said. “I’ll tell the police what happened. I’ll explain everything. The lottery, the threats, the other people being killed. The others will back me up.”
Alice knew she was grasping at straws. She knew that, in all likelihood, Carson would be imprisoned for the remainder of his natural life.
But that all became irrelevant when Alice’s door was kicked off its hinges, and Carson’s natural life only lasted another eight seconds.
Carson charged at an officer with the bloodied screwdriver in his hand.
The officer drew his weapon and fired.
Alice dived for cover.
Carson was struck in the torso, and he became the fourth contestant eliminated from the lottery.
In the few days since Alice had last seen him, Carson’s life had descended into hell. He had been bombar
ded night and day with threatening calls. Mysterious figures were spotted around his house at all hours of the night. The tires on his car were slashed. Bricks were thrown through his windows. His family were terrified.
He contacted the police and told them who he believed was responsible, but they were unable to arrest Roque Fenton without any evidence.
The final straw came when he woke up that morning and found a dozen dead rats hanging from his front porch. Stuffed inside his mailbox was a photograph of Carson, taken without his knowledge. A bull’s eye had been painted across his head in blood.
That was all it took for Carson to snap.
Chapter 9
More than thirty years had passed since the firearms prohibition had been introduced. While a small number of crude homemade weapons still circulated throughout the various criminal networks, all other forms of firearms had been removed from the streets and destroyed. Possession of a prohibited weapon was a criminal offense, punishable by mandatory ten-year prison sentences.
The OBL-IV was the only gun still in regular use anywhere in society. These were used solely by the police and armed forces, and were vastly superior to the antiquated weapons that utilized bullets and gunpowder. The technology deployed in the development of the OBL-IV was much more sophisticated, and as a result it was many times safer.
Rather than shooting bullets, the OBL-IV fired a concentrated burst of nuclear-level energy at the intended target. This produced a much more powerful and destructive result; a single shot could blow a hole in a man the size of his head.
Suffice to say, anyone who suffered the misfortune of being shot in the head would not require an open casket at their funeral.
The OBL-IV was fitted with digital crosshairs and an automatic aim function. An officer could lock in on a specific target and strike with a higher than ninety-nine percent accuracy, even if that target was moving or a great distance away. The risk of innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire was significantly reduced.
However, the most important feature was that each individual weapon could only be fired by one person. The biometric technology incorporated into the weapon’s handle was matched to the palm print of the officer or soldier assigned to the OBL-IV, and the weapon could only be fired in that person’s hand. If an OBL-IV was stolen or lost in the field of battle, it would become utterly useless to anyone else; nothing more than an expensive lump of plastic and fiberglass.
The interview room at the police station smelled of disinfectant and stale coffee.
Alice sat with her arms folded tight around her. Her hands were damp and clammy. Her eyes remained fixed on the corner of the room.
She was in no mood to speak with Detective Olszewski, or anyone else for that matter. She could feel her life unraveling, spiraling out of control before her very eyes. She’d been exposed to an unnatural level of violence in the past forty-eight hours, and the cumulative trauma was beginning to take its toll.
How would she ever expunge those disturbing images from her head? They were there waiting for her whenever she closed her eyes. She would see Vicki lying on the sidewalk in a crumpled heap, like a bug squashed on a truck’s windscreen. She would see Carson with a gaping hole in his torso the size of a watermelon.
“Alice.” Detective Olszewski attempted once more to get her to speak. “I’m trying to help you here. I can see you’re in some sort of trouble. But you need to talk to me. I can’t do anything if you won’t tell me what’s wrong.”
“I’m not saying anything without a lawyer,” Alice said.
She had no idea if this was the correct thing to say, or if the detective could force her to talk regardless. That was just something a law student friend of hers had once said: you should never open your mouth around a cop without a lawyer present. She’d also heard people say it in movies.
“You don’t need a lawyer,” Detective Olszewski patiently explained. “You’re not under arrest, and you’re not a suspect.”
Alice offered half a shrug, then returned her gaze to the corner of the room.
There was a minute of silence. The only sound now was the low hum of the fluorescent lights hanging overhead.
Olszewski removed her glasses. She wiped a smudge from one of the lenses. This was going to be a long night.
“Look, Alice, I know you’re not a killer.” Olszewski spoke in a softer voice. “Or in any way a criminal. That much is obvious. But something strange is clearly going on here. There’s something you’re not telling us. Four people have died within the last seven days, and we can connect you in some way to each of the victims.”
Olszewski counted the victims off on her fingers.
There was Naomi Duke. Alice had attended her funeral, two days earlier.
There was Victoria Malseed. Alice was the last known person to see her alive, shortly before she fell from the balcony of her twenty-first floor apartment.
There was Roque Fenton. His suspected murderer fled to Alice’s apartment immediately after leaving the scene of the crime.
And there was Carson Dowling. The aforementioned murder suspect, shot dead by police in Alice’s apartment just a few hours ago.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, or what you’ve got yourself mixed up in,” Olszewski continued. “But if you are in any sort of danger, you need to let us know. We can help you.”
Alice looked up. She made eye contact for the first time.
There was something about Detective Olszewski that told Alice she could trust her. She was in her early thirties, not that much older than Alice. She had a look about her that conveyed both toughness and empathy; that she was someone who had the constitution to handle grizzly murder scenes without losing sight of the fact the victims were human beings.
Alice could come clean and tell her the truth. But would anyone believe a word of it? Then again, she wasn’t left with much of a choice. People around her were dropping like flies. Her life expectancy had shrunk dramatically over the past few days.
She took a deep breath.
The story spilled out of Alice in a tsunami of jumbled words. She told Detective Olszewski everything, right from the start. She told her about the mysterious invitation she had received, the meeting she attended at the community center, the offer of the cash or a place in the lottery, and the ensuing chaos that had consumed her life ever since. She told her how she feared for her life – four participants in the lottery had died within the space of a week, and for all she knew she was next in line.
Detective Olszewski listened closely without interruption. She took a few notes as Alice spoke, but for the most part remained bereft of emotion
When Alice had finished, Olszewski leaned back in her chair and let out a desperate sigh.
“Oh boy,” was all she said in response.
Alice waited for more. She expected Olszewski to laugh at her, or order her to undergo psychiatric evaluation. But instead she just stared at her desk for what felt like eons.
“I’m sorry,” Olszewski finally said, rubbing her tired eyes. “I’m afraid there’s not a whole lot we can do for you.”
Alice was caught off-guard. This was not the response she had anticipated.
“Wait, what do you mean?”
“I mean there’s nothing we can do here. Thank you for your cooperation. You’re free to go.”
Alice had a half-confused half-amused look on her face, like she had just been told the punchline to a joke she didn’t quite understand.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes, I heard it all. You were offered the chance to take part in a tontine, and now people are being killed left, right and center. It’s not the first time we’ve heard it, either. We heard it all four years ago, when the last tontine took place.”
A shiver rippled through Alice’s body. The taste of sickness flooded her mouth.
“You ... you mean this isn’t the first time something like this has happened?”
Olszewski shook her head. “There
have been several previous lotteries. That we’re aware of.”
Alice waited for elaboration. None was forthcoming.
“So what happened? What did you do?”
“What could we do?” Olszewski said with a shrug. “We sat on our hands and waited until everyone was dead. Then we filed our reports. Then we drank heavily and tried to forget everything we had just been through.”
“But ... couldn’t you arrest anyone?”
“For what? Tontines – the agreement you’ve just described, it’s called a tontine. As long as all the participants enter into it voluntarily, and in the end the winner is paid the promised amount, they’re completely legal in this free society of ours.”
“Is murder legal?”
“No, but the minute we start investigating one murder, the prime suspect turns up dead a week or two later. The main suspect from that murder is then killed, and so on and so forth until the whole thing plays itself out. Fear and paranoia spreads like an incurable virus. We’ve found the easiest thing to do is to just hang back and wait for the contest to run its course, and hope that no innocent bystanders get caught in the crossfire.”
This revelation had rendered Alice momentarily speechless. None of it seemed real. The absurdity of the situation felt like one big joke at her expense.
“So what am I supposed to do now?”
“The best we can do is advise you to be vigilant, and call us as soon as you see or hear anything suspicious.” Detective Olszewski plucked a card from the holder on her desk and handed it to Alice. “And keep a low profile. From what we’ve observed, it’s the ones who draw attention to themselves that get bumped off first.”
Alice buried her head in her hands. These last couple of days were like being trapped inside a never-ending anxiety dream. She thought she could rely on the police to protect her. If they were no help, what hope did she have?
The way Detective Olszewski had described it, it was only a matter of time before the remaining twenty-three contestants succumbed to their base instincts and started plotting ways to wipe each other out, all in the hope of becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams.
After all, everyone has their price. Most just don’t know what it is yet.
