The Odds, page 8
“You’re right,” said Ethan. “I apologize. I guess I just get testy when...you know what, I was going to make a sarcastic comment and I won’t. So I apologize.”
“Here’s your challenge. An elderly woman lives alone in an isolated farmhouse. She’s mostly bedridden. Her caregiver has gone home for the night. A man is going to break into her home to slash her throat with a hunting knife. Your task is to stop him.”
Ethan stared at Rick. “Oh my God.”
“I have faith in you. Technically you only have a 50% chance of succeeding, but I believe you’ll do it.”
“That makes me feel so very...nope, sorry, I was going to be sarcastic again. If you say you’re my ally in this, I’ll trust you.”
Rick smiled. “Hard as it is to believe, it’s true.”
“What’s the woman’s address?”
Rick took out his phone and glanced at the screen. “I can tell you in six minutes.”
“So we’re just going to sit here and make awkward conversation until then?”
“It doesn’t have to be awkward.”
“I guess we could play word games or something. Oh, wait, you didn’t tell me what glorious prize I’ll receive if I save the woman from the psycho killer.”
“A point.”
“You guys are getting cheap,” said Ethan. “You go from two thousand dollar champagne to a point.”
“I assure you, the point is more valuable than the Dom Perignon.”
“So do you enjoy doing this to me?”
Rick considered that. “I enjoy parts of it.”
“Do you enjoy the ‘suffocate an innocent woman in a shallow grave’ part?”
“No.”
“What about the part where an old lady might get her throat slit?”
“No.”
“So what do you enjoy?”
“I enjoy setting up the game. I wish the stakes were different.”
“They don’t have to be like this. You could run a Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Your players would only die from their bad eating habits.”
“I’d rather not talk anymore, if it’s all right with you,” said Rick.
Ethan shrugged. “You’re the boss. Obviously.”
A few minutes later, Rick said, “Do you have your GPS ready?”
“Yes.”
“Put in 1010 Harwind Way.”
Ethan put it in. “Twenty-three minutes away.”
“I’d try to get there faster.” Rick opened the door. “Good luck. I hope you save her.”
10
Ethan sped down the highway, cursing frequently.
He’d asked Rick one last question: If he got pulled over for speeding, did that count as contacting the police? Rick looked surprised by the question, as if he hadn’t considered that, and after a moment of thought said that, yes, getting pulled over by the cops would count as breaking the rule.
So Ethan was driving fast, but not too fast.
Why hadn’t he listened to the message in his note? He’d carried that note to himself in his wallet for years to prevent him from gambling, and he still went ahead and threw money into slot machines, and now look what was happening to him.
Right now you’d give anything to be able to take it all back. YOU ARE MISERABLE.
Rick had strapped his arm into a bone-breaking machine. Why had Ethan gone through with that? He should have said to himself, “Hey, y’know, if they’ve got this contraption set up to shatter your arm, perhaps these aren’t the kind of individuals to involve yourself with.” The arm-breaking machine was a gigantic fucking red flag! How could he have been so stupid?
Why did he even go on the business trip? He had no business being in Vegas. He should’ve known how weak-willed he could be. When Jenny said that maybe it wasn’t the best idea for him to go, he should have agreed with her and stayed the hell home. Right now he’d be at home eating tuna noodle casserole instead of driving to rescue a woman from a knife-wielding maniac.
Weirdly, it hadn’t occurred to him until this very moment that he might also end up on the receiving end of this knife. He could die tonight.
He had a wife and kids. Maybe he should decline to participate in this round.
No. He wasn’t going to let a woman die. Another woman die.
He could do this.
He saw the farmhouse up ahead. Rick had been right: it was definitely isolated. Somebody could scream bloody murder as a hunting knife slammed repeatedly into their flesh and no neighbors would hear.
He pulled into the driveway. There was only one other car. Did it belong to the woman who lived there, or the man trying to kill her?
Ethan shut off his car and got out. He hurried over to the front door and tested the knob.
Unlocked.
He went inside.
The house was dark and quiet. No sounds of a murder in progress.
“Hello?” he called out.
No answer.
He walked through the living room. Lots of clutter and dust. He stepped into a short hallway with three closed doors.
He opened the door at the end, which led to a bathroom.
The door on the right led to a bedroom, but it was empty, and nobody appeared to have slept there recently. No blood on the blankets.
The door on the left led to an office.
Ethan returned to the living room and hurried up the stairs.
Two more closed doors.
He opened the first one. A small bedroom. An old woman lay on the bed, under the blankets, eyes closed. She looked peaceful. A moment of observation showed that she was breathing.
Was this it? Had he won?
Downstairs, he heard the front door open.
He didn’t want to confront a madman with a knife head-on. He needed to surprise him. Ethan stood there, listening for the sound of creaking stairs, but didn’t hear it. It sounded like the intruder had gone into the downstairs hallway instead.
Ethan rapidly but quietly stepped out of the bedroom and opened the other door, which led to a bathroom. He went inside, leaving the door open for now.
He needed a weapon.
At a quick glance, this bathroom seemed woefully lacking in weapons. A toilet plunger probably wouldn’t do the trick. A nice jagged shard of glass from the medicine cabinet mirror would be helpful, but he didn’t want to make noise by breaking it.
There was a hair dryer. Better than nothing.
He slowly closed the bathroom door just enough that he could hide behind it, while somebody glancing over would see that it was an empty bathroom and hopefully not bother searching for a victim. He angled the medicine cabinet door so that he could see the hallway in the mirror.
He waited. He was definitely breathing too loud, so he focused on keeping it under control.
He couldn’t believe he was doing this. This was insane.
The stairs began to creak.
Now Ethan stopped breathing altogether.
The man reached the top of the stairs. He was a big guy, wearing jeans and a red-and-white plaid shirt. The knife in his hand was no joke. Eight inches at least. Ethan’s heart gave a jolt as the man glanced over at the bathroom.
Then he looked over at the bedroom.
And then back at the bathroom. Shit. Did he know somebody was in the house, trying to stop him?
He held the knife out in front of him and walked toward the bathroom.
Then he stopped.
He looked like he was having trouble figuring out what to do.
He turned around and raced toward the bedroom.
Ethan ran out of the bathroom and chased after him.
Apparently Ethan was the better sprinter. He reached the man just as he stepped through the doorway. He swung the hair dryer at him, aiming for the back of his head but bashing it into his spine instead.
The hair dryer popped out of Ethan’s hand.
The man stumbled forward, then spun around to face him.
He charged at Ethan, knife raised.
Ethan took a couple of steps backward, holding up his hands as if that would somehow defend him from an eight-inch hunting knife.
The man accidentally bashed his knife-holding hand against the doorway as he tried to run through it.
It was a slapsticky moment that would have been hilarious if Ethan had been watching it on a YouTube video and somebody else was the target. It also would’ve been funnier if the man dropped his knife, which he most certainly did not.
A flash of embarrassment crossed his face. It immediately turned to anger.
He charged at Ethan again.
Ethan took another step back and smacked into the wall. The man tried to slam the knife into his face and struck the wall where Ethan’s head had been only an instant earlier. The blade only went in about an inch, but it was enough for it to stick for a moment, as Ethan tackled him.
The knife, sadly, came free of the wall and stayed in the man’s hands as both of them fell to the floor.
“Who’s there?” the woman cried out.
Ethan cried out himself as the man slashed him across the arm, cutting him from the top of the wrist to halfway up his forearm. Ethan punched him in the face. The man punched him back. The man’s punch had much more impact, and Ethan’s vision went black for a second. It was the first time in his adult life that he’d been punched in the face. The other time, as a kid, had been by a bully wearing mittens in the winter. This was infinitely more painful.
The man got up.
Ethan grabbed his leg.
“Who’s there?” the woman shouted again. “I have a gun!”
Rick had never said she didn’t have a gun. If she opened fire, would she know which of them was the bad guy?
The man tried to kick Ethan’s hand away with his free foot. He wobbled, almost losing his balance, but regained his center of gravity right away. The man was in a pretty good position to stab Ethan in the head, so Ethan let go of his leg and got up. He tackled him again, praying he wouldn’t get stabbed in the process.
“Who’s in my home?” the woman shrieked. She had yet to get out of bed and point a shotgun at them, so that was a plus, at least.
Ethan and the man struck the wall, struck the opposite wall, then veered way too close to the top of the stairs.
Ethan’s leg twisted out from under him and he fell, taking the man with him as they crashed onto the staircase and tumbled down a few steps. The man got the worst of it, until Ethan smacked his head.
He tried to snap his vision back into focus before the man slashed his throat.
Instead of murdering him, the man began to crawl back up the stairs. Ethan saw the knife at the top—he’d dropped it before they fell. Ethan wanted to crawl up after him, but he couldn’t get his arms and legs to work right.
Oh, shit. What if he’d broken his back in the fall? What if he was paralyzed?
No, he could still feel everything—and everything hurt—and with some effort he was able to get moving again, though not before the man had snatched up the knife and staggered down the hallway toward the woman’s bedroom.
Move, asshole, he told himself. He ignored the pain and hurried back up the stairs.
The man went into the bedroom.
Ethan ran down the hallway after him.
The woman screamed.
Ethan could deal with the pain later. He ran into the bedroom, where the man stood next to the bed, the knife clenched tightly in his fist. The woman was trying to scramble away from him but she hadn’t even made it to the other side of the bed.
The man raised the knife.
Ethan dove at him. Actually dove into the air, arms outstretched, and smashed into him.
The man’s head struck the mattress. It was just a mattress, but he hit it really hard.
Ethan grabbed the back of his head by the hair and bashed him into the mattress over and over, as violently as he could, feeling a bit stupid but not having any other option at the moment.
He realized that the man had let go of the knife, so he yanked him up by the hair and shoved him to the side. The man struck the nightstand, knocking over a lamp, then fell to the floor.
Ethan picked up the knife.
The man’s nose was bleeding badly and he looked stunned. Ethan kicked him in the chest, then crouched down next to him and pressed the blade to his throat.
“Move and I’ll fucking kill you!” Ethan shouted.
The man spat out some blood. “Don’t hurt me, please,” he said. “It’s not my fault. They forced me to do this, okay? It’s a game. They’ll kill my family, okay?” He spat out some more blood. “I’ve got a wife. I’ve got three kids. I didn’t want to do this.”
Ethan didn’t know what to say to that. Had he won? This counted as saving the woman, right?
“Where’s my phone?” said the woman. “What happened to my phone? It was right here!”
“We’re done, right?” Ethan asked the man.
The man nodded. “Just don’t kill me.”
Downstairs, the front door opened.
Ethan kept the knife to the man’s throat as the stairs creaked. Sounded like more than one person.
Two men entered the bedroom, dressed entirely in black. They even had black facemasks. They were each holding a pistol.
“Move away from him,” one of them told Ethan.
Ethan got up right away and moved to the other side of the room. The man wiped blood off his face and began to cry.
“I tried to get her,” he said. “I almost did it! This isn’t my fault!”
“That’s not why we’re here. You broke the rule.”
“No! No, I didn’t!”
“You told him you were in a game.”
The man’s eyes went wide with panic. “That didn’t count! He was going to kill me! And he’s part of the game too, right?” He looked over at Ethan. “You’re part of it too, right?”
The men in facemasks pointed their pistols at him.
The old woman on the bed clapped her hands over her mouth in horror.
“You don’t need to hurt him,” said Ethan. “I won’t say anything.”
“Actually, we do,” said one of the men. “If we don’t punish him for breaking the rule, not only does he know we weren’t serious, but you know we weren’t serious. That’s not good.”
“Please!” the man wailed.
The men in facemasks opened fire. The man’s body twitched as several silenced shots hit him in the face and chest. None of the bullets missed him. By the time he flopped over, they’d shot him at least ten times, which seemed to be more of a message to Ethan than necessary effort to kill the man.
The woman shrieked.
One of the men walked over to the bed. He pushed the woman back down onto her back, then picked up a pillow and pressed it against her face.
“You...you’re not really going to kill her, are you?” Ethan asked.
The man who wasn’t smothering the old woman nodded.
“But I saved her. I won.”
“You won. You get the point. She loses. We obviously can’t have her telling the caregiver what happened in the morning, right?”
Ethan’s phone rang. “Please don’t kill her,” he said.
“She was dead as soon as we finalized the challenge. You can try to stop us, but I discourage it.”
Ethan took his phone out of his pocket. It was Rick. He answered.
“Congratulations,” said Rick. “I knew you could do it.”
Ethan said nothing. The old woman struggled, but her kicks were already growing weaker.
“You’re allowed to leave now,” Rick said. “They’ll take care of everything.”
“I can’t.”
“You can’t leave? Are you injured?”
Ethan couldn’t explain it. There wasn’t a damn thing he could do to save the woman’s life, but walking out of the room while she was still being murdered seemed unspeakably cold hearted.
“No,” he said. “I mean, I am injured, but I can walk. They’re smothering the woman.”
“Oh, I know. I’ll call you back when you’re on your way home.”
Ethan wondered if the woman in the shallow grave would also have been eliminated, even if he’d dug her up in time. He saw no reason to ask. He was pretty sure he knew the answer.
The woman was barely struggling anymore.
She didn’t even know Ethan was there. Why didn’t he just leave the room? He sure as hell wasn’t bringing her any peace in his final moments.
He waited.
The woman stopped moving. The man kept the pillow pressed against her face.
“We’ll give it another minute or so,” he said.
Ethan looked away from the woman, instead seeing the blood-soaked body of the other player. He looked down at the floor instead.
“All right, she’s gone,” said the man, removing the pillow. “I’m going to need you to leave us to our business now.”
Ethan nodded and stood up.
“Hold up,” said the man. “I didn’t realize you’d been cut so bad. Let’s get you patched up before you go.”
“Thank you,” said Ethan, barely able to believe the words came out of his mouth.
11
The man in the facemask applied a generous amount of antiseptic to the wound on Ethan’s arm, and then taped gauze over it. “You’ll need to keep changing the dressing,” he said, giving Ethan a roll of additional gauze and some tape. “The cut isn’t that deep but you sure don’t want it to get infected.”
“What do I tell my wife?” Ethan asked.
The man shrugged. “I dunno. That’s your call. I’m just here to make sure you don’t lose your arm.”
Rick called as Ethan drove home. “Congratulations again,” he said. “I believed in you, even if you didn’t believe in yourself.”
“I never said I didn’t believe in myself. When did self-doubt become part of this? It’s like you’re trying to say generic inspirational stuff without even thinking about the context.”
“You’re being antagonistic again.”
“I watched a man get shot,” said Ethan. “And I don’t mean just shot in the chest, where his shirt could hide most of it, I mean I saw him take multiple bullet hits to the face. And then I watched an innocent old lady get smothered with a pillow. So yes, Rick, I’m feeling kind of rude right now.”
