Single White Psychopath Seeks Same

by Jeff Strand

  I decided to tiptoe to the end of the hallway before checking any rooms. I turned the corner and pressed my ear against the first door on the right. No noise from inside, so I waved my pass card in front of the reader.

  The door unlocked. I took a deep breath, and then opened it. I stepped inside and shut the door behind me before turning on the light.

  “ Surprise! ”

  The colorful banner with that word hung across the bedposts. The floor was covered with balloons, though most of them were only half-inflated anymore. Wrapping paper littered the bed.

  So not all celebrations in this house were completely demented. And they really needed a housekeeping staff.

  I searched the room quickly, kicking balloons out of my way, but there was no phone. Nor any useful weapons, unless I wanted to use the balloons to smother somebody.

  I shut off the light and exited.

  I unlocked the bedroom next to it. It was similarly furnished, though without the surprise party decorations. No phone. Nothing helpful.

  As I returned to the hallway, I heard a door open.

  I ducked back into the room, closing the door quickly but softly. I considered hiding in the bathroom, but decided to stand by the doorway, ready to strike if somebody came in to investigate.

  I stood in the dark for a minute.

  Then five.

  Then ten.

  It didn’t appear that they’d heard me…unless they were waiting outside the door for me to come out.

  But I couldn’t just stay in here all night. I had to get moving before somebody decided to check out my room.

  I slipped back into the hallway. It was empty.

  I didn’t like the idea of wandering around the mansion when there was a good chance that somebody else was roaming the halls, but I couldn’t give up. There had to be a phone somewhere. Or a way to free the prisoners.

  I continued down the hallway. I turned another corner, and saw a door much larger than the others, made out of different wood. I unlocked it and went inside.

  It was a huge office. A black desk took up almost a quarter of the office by itself, and the walls were covered with maps of various cities. As I walked over to the desk I glanced at the bookshelf, which was filled with encyclopedias, almanacs, and numerous other reference works. I wondered what kind of work was done here.

  The desk drawers were locked, so I couldn’t get into them, but the top of the desk had all the usual office accessories: pens, pencil sharpener, tape, calculator, hole puncher, stapler…everything but a phone.

  It did, however, have a fax machine.

  I flipped on the power switch. It began to hum, a little too loudly for my comfort, and a digital message read, “WARMING UP…PLEASE WAIT.”

  This was perfect. I could write down all the necessary information and fax it right to the cops. I might not know exactly where I was, but this place was pretty big, and if they sent out some helicopters in a thirty-mile radius of Fairbanks they were bound to find it, sooner or later.

  It would’ve been a foolproof plan if I knew their fax machine number.

  Or any fax machine number.

  I’d sent a few faxes during my temp jobs, but that was it. There was not a single fax number I knew off the top of my head. I couldn’t even guess at them. The machine was useless.

  But then I remembered something. One time at the corporate slave temp job I’d answered the phone and been greeted with an annoying high-pitched beep. The nose-picking guy in the cubicle next to mine explained that somebody was mistakenly trying to send the fax to my phone number, and that I should just forward the call to the fax machine.

  Who could I send it to who would know to forward it?

  It had to be a business. But I didn’t have any business numbers memorized.

  Except one.

  Pudgy Pierre ’s Pizza, back in Chamber. They would fax their menu to you if you requested it. I’d gotten in trouble for having them send one to work.

  Could I count on Pudgy Pierre?

  No, no, no! I smacked myself in the forehead. I was making things too complicated. Just send it to 911! If you dialed 911 and didn’t say anything, they’d still send somebody out to investigate, so the same might be true if I sent a fax.

  That’s right, ladies and gentlemen, Andrew Mayhem has a plan!

  The display read “ENTER USER CODE.”

  There went the plan.

  I tugged on the drawers again, in case they’d decided to unlock themselves. They hadn’t. There was a small notebook on the corner of the desk. I picked it up, and saw that the pages were filled with various doodles, including smiley faces and naked cartoon characters. A handwritten note in the inside cover read: “ Fax: 1113.”

  Finally, I was getting a break. I entered it.

  “INCORRECT USER ID. PLEASE RE-ENTER.”

  Crap!

  But maybe he changed it regularly and just didn’t write it in the notebook. I typed in “ 1114.”

  “INCORRECT USER ID. PLEASE RE-ENTER.”

  1115.

  “ENTER NUMBER.”

  Yes! Fantastic! I tore out a sheet of the notebook paper, grabbed a pen, and quickly scribbled: “ Trapped 30 miles out of Fairbanks. Many people have been kidnapped. Kidnappers are armed and extremely dangerous. Please send help to a huge brown mansion, surrounded by fence, with a large metal building behind it. Owned by Daniel Rankin. This is not a joke!!! Andrew Mayhem. ”

  I put the paper into the fax machine, punched in 911, and pressed the “send” button. The paper went through the feeder without crumpling up, like so many faxes had at my temp job.

  The machine beeped to show that it was ready to send the fax. Then another message showed on the display. “NO DIAL TONE.”

  I hit “cancel,” then tried again.

  “NO DIAL TONE.”

  I tried Pudgy Pierre.

  “NO DIAL TONE.”

  I picked up the paper, crumpled it up, and shoved it into my pocket. The fax machine was officially useless.

  I RETURNED everything to the way it had been before I’d entered the office, and snuck back into the hallway. It was possible that some part of the mansion had phone service connected, but I needed to put that idea behind me and see if I could find the prisoners.

  I quietly made my way through the corridors, finally reaching the staircase leading down to the main foyer. I felt extremely vulnerable walking down these stairs into such a wide-open area, but I didn’t have a choice.

  As I walked down, I couldn’t help but glance at the front door. My pass card probably worked on it. I could get out of this place, go for help, and bring back the cavalry to rescue everyone.

  It sounded nice and simple. If I had the keys to either of the vans. If I could get the electrified gates open. If I had any clue where to drive. If there wasn’t a good chance of a mass prisoner extermination after I was discovered missing.

  Without the van, I could possibly find a way to get through the gates. Maybe the part that opened and closed wasn’t electrified, I wasn’t sure. I didn’t know much about electric fences. But running around in sub-zero temperatures in the dark this far away from civilization in the least-densely populated state in the union (I don’t know where I remembered that factoid from) didn’t seem likely to get me anywhere. And how hard would it be for them to follow my tracks in the snow?

  Nope, exiting through the front door was a lost cause.

  This line of thinking did make me wonder what exactly I planned to do with the prisoners if I was able to free them…but I’d worry about that later.

  I crossed the foyer and walked down a short hallway, stopping at the sound of music. Country music that might have been halfway decent on its own, but was currently being sabotaged by the non-melodic voice of Mortimer.

  It was coming from the dining room.

  Though it was impossible to be certain, the way this place was set up, I was pretty sure I had to pass the dining room to get to the other building. Even if I didn’t, I was gett
ing really nervous about the amount of time I’d spent away from my room already. I had to get moving.

  Very, very slowly I tiptoed over to the dining room entrance. Mortimer’s singing got louder and worse.

  “ Oooooh, why you done left me, I just don’t know, but when y’all come back, your head off I’ll blow…”

  Being as careful as humanly possible (for a loser like me), I peeked into the dining room. Mortimer sat at the table, back to me. In one hand he held an enormous turkey leg, in the other a Fudgsicle. Even from behind, it was not a pretty sight. I quickly darted past the doorway and continued on.

  I followed some more winding corridors, not completely sure if I was going the right way but at least not feeling hopelessly lost. And then I reached the doorway to the other building.

  I felt an incredible sense of relief, while at the same time my sense of terror cranked up a few notches. I waved the pass card, opened the door, and stepped out into the cold.

  It was absolutely freezing, as well as snowing heavily. Though the short path to the other building had been recently shoveled, I had to keep swiping my foot back and forth behind me to remove my tracks. I waved the pass card in front of the reader, shivering.

  Nothing happened.

  I waved it again.

  Still nothing.

  Wonderful. My whole expedition had been a waste.

  I tested the door handle, but unfortunately nobody had been brain-dead enough to leave it unlocked. Perhaps extra keys were stored someplace, but the mansion was just too big to search for them. I felt sick to my stomach as I turned around and returned to the other door.

  My pass card didn’t work on this one, either.

  I tried it again with the same result.

  Now this was really, really bad.

  I folded my arms and blew out a cloudy breath. With all the potential for dying inside, I was going to end up freezing to death out here. Maybe I could find a window to break or something. Of course, even if nobody heard that, they’d see my tracks and know something was up.

  Perhaps I should just walk around to the front and ring the doorbell. Maybe they’d be nice and shoot me instead of putting me through whatever else they had planned.

  My best course of action would be to stand by the door and wait to ambush somebody as they came out. Except that I didn’t think anybody was planning to come out for a few hours, and I wouldn’t be able to move my hands in a few minutes. The best fight I’d be able to put up would be to topple over and let my frozen body shatter on them.

  I tried the card once more. No good.

  I wanted to just sit down and cry.

  Chapter 13

  I STOOD there for a couple of minutes, just feeling sorry for myself. Roger and the others had it worse, undoubtedly, but after all I’d been through I deserved a bit of self-pity.

  Then there was a sudden light to my right. I spun around and saw a flare on the far end, by the fence. The figure was much too far away to identify, but it was waving both hands over its head.

  Who the hell…?

  I was still concerned about leaving footprints, but it wasn’t worth worrying about at this point. I began to run toward the figure, as well as I could through two feet of snow.

  As I got closer, I saw that it was Thomas.

  He was wearing a parka and earmuffs, but as I ran up to the fence I could see that he had a huge gash over one eye, and his face was bright red. He’d been out here a while.

  “Andrew! I can’t believe it!”

  “How did you find me?” I asked, but I knew the answer before I even finished saying it. It wasn’t at all surprising that somebody so concerned about being bugged would have the resources to do it himself.

  “I bugged both of you,” he said, slurring his words just a bit, no doubt because his face was numb. “On your shoes. Where’s Roger, is he all right?”

  “Yeah. At least I think so. They would’ve told me if they did anything to him. They think I’m the Headhunter.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “No.” I gave him a thirty-second condensed version of the story.

  “That’s incredible. I’ve been staking out this place for the past two hours. I could hardly believe it when I noticed you coming outside through my binoculars.”

  “Yeah, well, seeing you was a nice surprise, too. But please tell me you’ve contacted the police. They know you’re here, right?”

  Thomas shifted a bit, looking somewhat uncomfortable.

  “You told somebody, right?”

  “There wasn’t time.”

  “Oh, that is bullshit!” If there weren’t an electrified fence between us, I would’ve punched him. “So tell me, did you intend for things to work out the way they did? You meant for them to take Roger and I away so you could follow us, didn’t you? Where did you go after you got stabbed?”

  “I swear, I didn’t lie to you. At least not after I lied about having to go inside the building. I chased the man for a few blocks and then I had a dizzy spell and passed out. I woke up to a pair of prostitutes trying to steal my jacket. But I got here as quickly as I possibly could.”

  “Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but why didn’t you bring somebody!”

  “I needed to investigate the situation beforehand.”

  “Look, I don’t know what your frame of mind is, but it appears to me that you want to be some big-shot hero, and that’s not what’s gonna get us out of here! I’m locked outside the house, I’ll be murdered or worse as soon as they find me, and they may very well execute all of the prisoners if they think somebody is on to them. So it would be really nice to have the cops or the military or the Justice League of America around here to save the day!”

  “I understand that,” Thomas said. “But there’s a problem. I’m not used to driving in these conditions and my car went off the side of the road about two miles back. I had to walk here.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. “You have a cell phone, right?”

  “In theory.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’ve got one, but the battery died. I thought I’d recharged it, but I’ve had a lot on my mind recently, as I’m sure you can understand, and-”

  “Do you have a gun?” I interrupted.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have bullets for this gun?”

  “Sarcasm isn’t necessary. Yes.”

  “Good. Give it to me.”

  He shook his head. “I have a more effective plan. I’ll pretend to be a stranded motorist.”

  “It won’t work. They’ll kill you.”

  “You don’t know that. I just need to get over the fence.”

  “Have you tried the front gate?”

  “Yes. It’s the only part that’s not electrified, but the bars are too narrow to squeeze through, and too slippery to climb.”

  “Maybe you could climb one of the trees and jump over,” I suggested. “Even though you’d probably break your leg.”

  “I tried that. I shouldn’t have tried to climb with mittens. I lost my balance, bashed my face into a branch,” he pointed to the gash above his eye, “and fell. I can’t tell because it’s so numb from the cold anyway, but I think I broke my foot.”

  I sighed. “How are you possibly going to get over the fence with a broken foot?”

  “I’m not certain. I’ll figure something out. And even if I can’t, if I stand by the front gate they’re bound to see me.”

  “Not necessarily. And if they do, it’ll be after you’ve frozen to death.”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  I leaned my face closer to the fence. “Just give me the gun, Thomas. There are only five of them. If I can catch them off-guard, I might be able to take them out.”

  “No, I’ll get in there. I promise.”

  “Thomas, I’ll make sure you get your share of the goddamn glory! This is no time to be a hero! Now give me the gun!”

  “You don’t have experience with guns. I do. Trust me, I
’ll get you out of there. I promise I’ll get you out of there.”

  “Your hands are going to be frostbitten! You’ll barely be able to hold the gun, let alone shoot it accurately!”

  “Andrew, I came here to do a job, and I’m going to do it.”

  “So, what, you essentially called me over here to say that you don’t want my help? Me, the guy who’s on the inside, who they all think is one of them. How can you possibly be so stubborn?”

  “No, I didn’t say that I don’t want your help. I want all the information you can provide.”

  “What information do you need if your big plan is to pretend you’re a crippled, stranded motorist and start shooting?”

  “I need the layout of the place, where the kidnapped people are being held, that type of knowledge.”

  “I don’t see how that’s going to…” I trailed off, and then decided it wasn’t worth arguing. I told him what I knew, which wasn’t much.

  “Do you think you can arrange to be with them when they answer the doorbell, or at least when they go outside?” he asked.

  “I’m supposed to be locked in the bedroom at this very minute. So no, I can’t promise you that.”

  “Why are they locking you in the bedroom if they think you’re the Headhunter?”

  “They’re not big on trust. Listen, why don’t you try to get over the fence right now? If by some miracle I can get back inside, we can find the prisoners, then pick off the bad guys when they show up.”

  “How did you get locked out?”

  “I have no idea! The card stopped working!”

  “So it’s an electronic lock?”

  “Yeah.” I held up the card for him to inspect.

  “I had my tracking device on when you came out,” he said. “Maybe it was interfering with the access system.”

  “Would it do that?”

  “I’ve never heard of such a thing, but it’s possible, I suppose.”

  “Is that tracking device good enough to pinpoint an exact location? Like, could we tell exactly where Roger is right now?”

  Thomas shook his head. “No. It’s very general.”

  “Then why did you have it on?”

  “Because if they discovered the bug and destroyed it, I’d lose the signal. I’ve just been making periodic checks.”