Scavenger Hunt

by John R. Little

  “Oh my God, I didn’t know how much I wanted to hear you ask me that!”

  “I hope that means yes.”

  “Yes!” She kissed him and felt his hand hold the back of her head. She felt safe and protected.

  That night, they made love like never before. He directed her like he was making a movie, telling her what he wanted her to do next. Over the course of an hour, he wanted a dozen different positions and never let her come. She loved the variety but was grateful when he finally seemed to tire and allowed them both to have orgasms.

  She fell asleep in his arms, knowing she’d never been happier.

  In the morning, she woke up alone. The hotel room wasn’t large so she knew he’d left. She found him in the restaurant.

  “Hey!”

  “Hi, Mrs. McDonald.”

  She giggled. “We’re not married yet.”

  “Soon. I want the wedding as soon as we can arrange it.”

  She stared at him, wondering how soon he was thinking of. It took a long time to arrange a wedding.

  “We have to live at my place in Seattle.”

  “Seattle?” That threw her, and she wasn’t sure how to reply. “Let me get something to eat.”

  The restaurant had a buffet and she walked over to get some scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns. Seattle? But she lived in Phoenix. Why couldn’t they live there?

  She slid into her seat beside Carl.

  “You’ll love Seattle. It’s really a wonderful city, lots of mountains and the ocean and great shopping. It’s everything that Phoenix isn’t. Cosmopolitan. Sophisticated. Just like you.”

  Mmm… sophisticated. That word again. It still sounded so wonderful to hear him say that.

  It didn’t matter. Seattle. Phoenix. As long as she was with Carl, nothing mattered.

  Later that week, she told her parents she was moving to Seattle. They weren’t very happy about that, but lately, it seemed they weren’t very happy about anything she told them. Sometimes they were downright irritating in how they talked about Carl. He was too controlling. He was too aggressive. He’s too this and too that. She kept telling herself they just hadn’t met him yet and that once they did, they’d see how amazing he was and how good he was to her.

  Aggressive? That was just laughable. He just loved her and wanted whatever was best for her. That’s not aggression; it’s passion.

  Carl made most of the wedding plans. He always seemed to be one step ahead of Samantha’s own thinking, so by the time she’d thought of flowers, he’d already made arrangements. By the time she wanted to think about the photographer, he’d lined up a friend to take the pictures.

  He handled everything. She loved how he wouldn’t leave anything to chance, wanting her to have the best possible wedding.

  Two weeks before the wedding, Samantha moved to Seattle. Carl had a house right on Puget Sound that had a beautiful view of the sunset each night and she loved it. She kept herself busy with unpacking her meager belongings, feeling most of them didn’t belong next to his.

  A few days after she moved in, she met her future in-laws. It was just one more thing that turned her nerves into frayed cords. She worried she wasn’t good enough for his family.

  She was a wreck on the drive to his parents’ house. Carl held her hand and assured her everything would be just fine, but her gut wasn’t believing his words.

  They waited after he rang the doorbell. Her palms were sweaty. She had no idea what to expect but when the door opened, she was pleasantly surprised. Carl’s father was a heavy man with a friendly, happy smile. He held his arms open and gave her a big hug.

  “Samantha! It’s so nice to finally meet you. Carl was right. You are absolutely gorgeous!”

  She giggled at the compliment, still finding her way through her nerves. Carl frowned at her for the giggle, and she knew he was disappointed. Sophisticated.

  She smiled and thanked his father for the compliment.

  Then his mother came to the door. She was very petite, no more than 5’2”. Unlike her husband, she seemed in incredible shape for a 57-year-old woman. She couldn’t have been more than 110 pounds. She wasn’t as boisterous as Carl’s father. More “proper.” Samantha gave her a hug, too, but it was a bit awkward. She didn’t welcome Samantha like his father did. The smile seemed a bit forced. Samantha knew without Carl telling her that she had her work cut out for her on that front.

  She tried her best to be proper, like Carl wanted, but it sure was hard with his father around. He was always cracking jokes and she couldn’t help but laugh out loud at him. She stopped whenever she could see Carl’s disapproval, though.

  The time flew by as the wedding got closer and closer. Carl continued to arrange everything, even though she wanted to do more. Sometimes she had very different ideas from what he had planned, but with the wedding so close, she thought it was best just to go with what he chose. She didn’t want to stress him out.

  He even snapped at her once. She suggested a different centerpiece for the tables, and he ranted about how much work he’d already put into their wedding and that it wasn’t that easy to just change things like that with only one week left. She’d never seen him that angry in the ten months they’d dated. And never at her. She chalked it up to stress and dropped it.

  Later that night, he said, “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I just want everything to be perfect for you.”

  He held her face in his hands and she could feel the love in his eyes.

  “Oh, that’s okay, baby,” she said. “I know you only want the best.”

  “I’ll never get mad like that again. I promise.”

  “I know.”

  “But you have to be careful not to push my buttons like that ever again.”

  She wasn’t exactly sure what he meant, but she nodded in agreement and smiled. Surely he would never get mad at her again.

  Pietre - the Amazon

  Pietre hated this part of the trip. The task was stupid. They had to capture four piranhas and keep them alive. It was easy to catch the fish. They practically jumped into the boat.

  The only hard part was avoiding boredom as they motored along the Amazon from Porto Velho. 300 miles wasn’t far in a car, where you could crank up the sound system and floor the gas. It was very different when you were stuck on a small boat that barely made 10 miles an hour. They couldn’t travel at night because the damned thing didn’t have lights. The producers had planned on this being a monotonous, long trip. Maybe they were hoping for some kind of conflict to flare up. The only drama so far was when he’d felt sick and gotten angry — but that wouldn’t happen again. It was just the craving crying out, asking to be fed. He had it under control, though. No more snow.

  Jonathan spent a lot of his time steering the boat through the jungle, while Sammie seemed glued to her computer. She kept track of the finances and research.

  They had a little over $31,000 left on their credit cards.

  $31,000 could buy a lot.

  Jonathan was steering the boat to the river’s edge. They were at some city in the jungle. They passed one earlier in the day but they’d stop here for the night. It was after six o’clock and getting dark.

  Brahvot was only a dot on the map, but there were more than 100,000 people living there, according to Samantha’s source on the net.

  Pietre helped moor the boat and they found a hotel nearby. They splurged by getting four rooms instead of sharing. Everyone wanted to just be alone.

  Pietre fell asleep easily but woke at 11:00 p.m. There was noise outside the hotel, a crowd celebrating something. At first he thought he was hallucinating it. He felt chilled and his thought kept coming back to a nightmare he’d had. In the dream, he’d killed both Jonathan and Samantha, gutting them with a fishing knife. Blood and guts covered the bottom of their boat.

  A familiar craving rushed through his body.

  No.

  He stared at the ceiling, his mouth dry. Outside was a chaos of cheering. Pietre remembered something
about a soccer tournament happening. Maybe the locals won.

  He sat and tried to distract himself by listening to the music. Strange chants mingled with steel drums and loud trumpeting sounds. He couldn’t make a rhythm from it, as the sounds seemed random, but the crowd all cheered in unison.

  It’d be a shame to miss whatever is happening, he thought.

  For a second he thought of waking Jonathan and Samantha, but he convinced himself they were tired and wouldn’t want to be disturbed.

  The craving felt stronger, but he knew he could fight it.

  Outside, it was a pleasant night. The temperature was around sixty, which was a nice change for January. Pietre walked two blocks toward the noise and found a large crowd of colorfully dressed people cheering and yelling. He didn’t understand a word of Portuguese but he didn’t need that to know this was the biggest party he’d ever seen.

  A man peddled a cart through the street. It looked like an ice cream stand, but instead was a mobile bar. He stopped peddling in front of Pietre and said, “Cerveja?”

  Even Pietre could understand that. “Two.” He held up two fingers to be sure he got the message through and the peddler handed him two bottles of beer.

  Pietre held out some cash and the peddler took two bills. “Obrigado.”

  “Thank you.”

  He walked through the crowd, shuffling toward the center of the party, where he found the source of the music. Three trumpet players led the songs, accompanied by a bass guitarist and a percussionist. They were all wired and the music blasted from speakers around the central square.

  Pietre polished off the first beer in no time flat. The second didn’t last much longer.

  He wished Allyson could have been with him.

  Stop it, he chastised himself. That life is over.

  Ten minutes later he bought two more beers. And not long after that, he was back for two more.

  He’d hoped the beer would satisfy the true cravings he felt, but if anything they made them worse.

  He couldn’t think of much else. His fingertips seemed to tingle with anticipation.

  The music faded into the background. The pretty dancing girls in the crowd weren’t as awe-inspiring. The fireworks in the mountains behind the city were mundane.

  Pietre kept his eyes open as he walked through the crowd. He told himself he was just trying to avoid trouble.

  But trouble found him instead.

  It was an alleyway where he saw the deal going down. The need grew. It ate at him as his defenses lowered.

  Just one hit.

  Nobody would know.

  His body moved toward the alley almost without his knowledge. It felt like he was drawn there by magic or teleportation.

  “I need some.”

  “No. Not for foreigner.”

  “Please. I need it. It’s been too long. I thought I could kick it but I just — ”

  “No foreigner. Too much trouble.”

  “I’ve got money.”

  “No.”

  The dealer was skinny, about five foot six. Pietre outweighed him by a good fifty pounds and he briefly thought about just beating the crap out of him, but the cocaine wasn’t likely on him, so it wouldn’t do any good.

  “Please. I have a credit card. You can take it. Spend whatever you want.”

  The dealer hesitated. “Show me.”

  Pietre felt sick, but he reached into his wallet and handed over the card. He, Jonathan, and Samantha all had cards connected to the same account. The team had a credit limit of $50,000 for their entire trip.

  $31,000 left.

  “Stay here.”

  Pietre didn’t have a choice. His feet felt like cement blocks. The dealer went farther into the alley but Pietre could still see him.

  The card was like magic. In the alleyway, the dealer talked to two other men and they put the card into a small machine and laughed.

  Pietre felt his heart sink. How could he ever tell the others what he’d done?

  But he needed the hit. He just craved it more than anything else. The explanation would come in time. Without the cocaine, he’d die. He felt that deep in his soul.

  After a couple of minutes, the dealer came back out with a small baggie.

  “Here. Va!”

  With that, he vanished. Only the echo of a laugh remained.

  Pietre - Two Years Earlier

  Sweet Home Colorado! Somehow that didn’t have the same ring as Sweet Home Alabama, but Pietre tried hard to make Colorado Springs feel like home.

  Home without Allyson.

  He lived in a two bedroom apartment and quite liked it. In the main bedroom he had a new king-sized bed and some beautiful new furniture. The living room had his 46-inch plasma TV and a small working area. Adjoining that was the kitchen, which was small but fine for him. He used the second bedroom mostly for storage. Locked away in there were his memories of Allyson along with dozens of boxes holding income tax papers, his client files, old books, and anything else he wouldn’t need from day to day.

  He could close the bedroom door and try to forget some of the past.

  Pietre worked as a school counselor for Ulysses Grant Secondary. He liked helping the kids, even the ones that were totally fucked up.

  The nights got to him, though. Especially weekends. Pietre found himself drinking a lot. There was a bar only a couple of blocks away called The Wrong Number. By the time he’d lived in Colorado Springs a couple months, he had a stool at the bar that everyone knew was his.

  A forty-something-year-old woman sat at the bar one night and ordered a beer. Pietre couldn’t help but notice her. She had striking red hair and wore a white tank top that just seemed to be asking for sex.

  It’d been a long time…

  “Buy you a drink?” he asked.

  She looked Pietre up and down and then shrugged and smiled. “Why not?”

  Even though she was more than a decade older than Pietre, he couldn’t keep his eyes off her. From the moment she sat down, he knew he wanted her. It was an odd feeling, but very real.

  “My name’s Pietre.” He held out his hand.

  She laughed and returned the handshake. “I’m Martina.”

  “I’ve never met anybody named Martina,” he said.

  “Well, it’s not my real name. It’s just for tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  “You should try it. You can be anybody you want, you know. Just decide who you are. You should be Brett. Or maybe Edward Manchester the Third.”

  She said all this with her hands wide apart as if she was using them to do half the talking.

  “How many people have you been?” he asked.

  “How many Saturday nights are in a year? Or maybe I should say three years. Last week I was a scientist named Joelline. Tonight I’m the sexy Martina, on the prowl for a really good orgasm. Think you can give me one?”

  Pietre didn’t know how to reply. He wasn’t sure if she was serious or not.

  She was.

  They went back to Pietre’s place and had a long session of lovemaking. He’d never met such an outgoing and unselfconscious woman.

  “Only one night,” she said afterward. “I’m not the slightest bit interested in commitments.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  She lay back on one elbow, still naked. “Hang on.”

  Martina went to grab her purse and pulled out a small bag of white powder. “Here,” she said. “It’s the shit.”

  He watched as she poured some powder on a mirror and used a rolled-up dollar bill to snort it. She handed the bill to him and he thought, Why not?

  The cocaine felt wonderful. Even after Martina had left, he felt on top of the world, forgetting all the pain from the past summer.

  The following Saturday, he hunted for Martina (or whoever she might be this week), but he never saw her again.

  Samantha - The Amazon

  Samantha woke up in the middle of the night and stared at the ceiling. She was a light sleeper at the best of t
imes, but the raucous noise of the crowd celebrating whatever it was they were happy about was just killing her night.

  It was 1:42 and she hadn’t had a wink of sleep so far. She could hear steel drums echoing through the town and some kind of trumpets. Cheering and songs called out. Just when one group of people finished singing one song, another group would start up.

  “Walls must be made of cardboard,” she sighed.

  She got out of bed and went to have a pee. She rubbed her eyes while she sat there, hating all music.

  If anything, the noise was even louder there, but maybe it just seemed that way because she so desperately wanted sleep.

  She wondered what time it was back home and what Carl would be doing. Were they in the same time zone? Shit, she should know, but she couldn’t figure it out.

  She flipped the light on and grabbed her tablet, heading to google.com and searching for the time in Seattle: 10:42. Still early for Carl.

  I wonder if he’s alone.

  Where’d that thought come from?

  She hit the home key and sat staring at the main web site for Scavenger Hunt. She always kept herself logged in and saw the key information about her team. Location, task, number of legs finished, money remaining…

  What the hell?

  She shook her head in disbelief.

  $11,302.92.

  “That’s not right. Can’t be right.”

  She clicked through to see the transactions that had been charged to their credit card. Three hours ago they had more than $30,000. Since then, a dozen transactions had gone through, all between one and two thousand dollars. The most recent was just five minutes earlier.

  The money was recorded as simply “Transfer Out,” which meant nothing to her.

  Her screen refreshed and another transaction went through, this time for $1,500. They were down to $9,802.92.

  “Stop!”

  She hit the IM button and opened up a window that would connect her to the production facilities.

  Someone is stealing our money. Stop it!

  A moment passed and she ran out of her room and down the hall, pounding on Jonathan’s door, carrying her tab with her.

  “Jonathan! Wake up!”

  Pietre’s room was across the hall and she knocked hard on his door too. “Pietre! Wake up! We have an emergency!”