Total Write Off - Second semi-final (Kismet)

pickarooney

The second semi-final of Total Write Off sees ORANGE take on RED on the theme of Kismet. For more details on the competition, see here.

Voting is by poll, with invisible results and open for 7 days. As far as possible, please try and give some feedback for the story you vote for and the one you don't vote for.

Best of luck to ORANGE and RED.

pickarooney

RED

"There was thunder that night." said his uncle. "The rain was so hard it left marks on my cheeks." Henry had heard the story a hundred times, but it was his favourite. "I waited for a clap of thunder before I broke the window." He clapped his hands loudly. A shiver ran through Henry, thrilling him. "You heard me crying." he said. "That's right." said his uncle. "I heard you crying upstairs. So I took my shoes off and crept up, quiet as a mouse." Henry pulled the bed clothes up around his shoulders. "The door to your room was open, just a little. When I pushed it it made the most frightful noise." At this uncle Charles let out a high pitched squeal. Henry laughed and sank further into his blankets. "I waited. And I waited. But nobody came. So I walked towards your crib, and there you were. You stopped crying as soon as you saw me." "And then you took me." said Henry. "That's right." said his uncle. "I lifted you out, brought you back down the stairs and out the window." "Did you remember your shoes?" asked Henry "I never asked you that." Uncle Charles smiled. "Of course I remembered them you ninny." They both laughed, and then it was time for sleep. "Uncle Charles?" asked Henry. "When you knew me before, was I a very bad man?" His uncle paused with one hand on the light switch. He studied Henry for a moment and said "Oh yes. You were the worst one of all." He turned off the light and left. Henry lay in the dark. The worst one of all. He liked the sound of that.

Sarah never believed him. She said he was making it up. Her mother had worked for uncle Charles for years and she would know. "You didn't tell her did you?" asked Henry. They were in the tree house taking shelter from the sun. "What do you think?" she said. "It's just." said Henry. "I'm not supposed to tell anyone." "Except me." said Sarah. "No, not any..." but Sarah was laughing. Henry laughed too, and rubbed his elbow nervously. "So what's it like then?" she asked, leaning back against the wall. "What?" asked Henry. "The future." she said. He didn't like it when she asked about it. He was sorry that he'd ever told her and wished that she'd forget. But every day she had more questions. "I don't know." he said. "I've never been to the future." "Oh yeah." she said, she was mocking him now, he could tell. "Your uncle's the time traveller." He could feel his face getting hot. "Shut up." he said quietly. "What?" she asked. The smile still playing on her lips. "Shut up." he said, louder this time. "You make it sound stupid." "That's because it is stupid, idiot."

He climbed out the door of the tree house and onto a branch. He pulled himself up on to the next one and sat on it, legs dangling over the edge. Sarah poked her head around the door and climbed out onto the branch beneath him. She held her hands up. "I'm sorry." she said. "Its just...you don't really believe it do you?" He looked through the leaves past the lawn to the house. "Why would he lie?" he asked. Sarah shrugged her shoulders. "Maybe he's mad."

They sat on the stairs waiting. At three o clock the door to uncle Charles' study opened and he emerged. Spotting them, he winked as he put his hat on with a flourish, and left through the front door. When it closed Sarah went to move but Henry held her arm. He counted to ten. "Right, lets go." he said. Even thinking about going into the study without permission made him nervous, but Sarah breezed in as if it was nothing. Before he entered Henry glanced at the front door. His uncle would be gone for at least an hour. He took a deep breath, walked inside and closed the door quietly behind him.

Sarah was already rooting through a drawer. Henry went to the bookshelves and walked along them, running his fingers over the spines. "There won't be any proof." he said. But Sarah was rifling through a sheaf of papers and ignored him. "The mission was too important." he said. "He had to memorize everything. He couldn't even write anything down." Sarah grunted. His uncle was a decent man, he told him stories, and called him 'old man', and gave him warm milk when he had nightmares. He wouldn't lie to him. "It was for the good of the world." he said quietly. Sarah had started on another drawer. As she read through the documents Henry walked towards the desk and lifted the letter opener that was sitting there. "I could kill you, you know." he said.

Sarah looked up, she didn't smile, not this time. "You wouldn't though." she said. "You don't know that." said Henry. "I'm a bad person. Its in me." Sarah looked at him. "You're not a bad person, you're not evil. Your uncle has been lying to you." Henry shook his head. "My uncle is a good man. Do you want to know what he was supposed to do?" Sarah nodded. "He was supposed to kill me. He came back in time to when I was little so that he could kill me. That way I wouldn't grow up and do those things." They looked at each other for a long moment. Henry put the letter opener back on the table. Sarah pulled her eyes away and went back to her papers.

Henry sat into one of the leather chairs and leaned his head back. Sarah always won every argument. That would have to change. He was supposed to be a powerful man. He couldn't let her keep bossing him around. He heard a thunk and looked up to see that she was now looking through a heavy leather bound book. "Look at this." she said. He got up and walked around the desk. It was a photo album. "Thats your uncle right?" she said, pointing at a man in one of the pictures. It did look like him. But the picture was old, and uncle Charles looked like a very young man in it. "Well?" asked Sarah. "I don't know." said Henry. Sarah turned the pages. There were more pictures. Some even older. The man was in a lot of them. "It is him." she said. "That doesn't look like the future to me." Henry looked up and caught her eye. He was determined not to look away first. 'I'm a powerful man.' he thought. 'I'm the worst of them all.' He focused his mind on those thoughts and stared at her. "It is him." she said, jabbing a finger at the album. "He's not from the future, he's just a mad old man." And then she was sitting on the floor holding her jaw. Henry didn't even remember hitting her.

Uncle Charles looked at him across the dinner table. "What's up old man?" he asked. "You haven't said a word all evening." Henry shook his head. "Its nothing." he said. "Just had a fight with Sarah." Uncle Charles leaned back in his chair and said "Ah. Well you shall have to make up won't you? You shouldn't fall out with old friends." Henry looked back at his plate and pushed some peas around. His uncle was pouring himself another glass of water when Henry spoke up. "I saw your album." he said, without looking at him. "The one with all the pictures of you." His uncle didn't say anything. Henry didn't want to look up, but he did. His uncle seemed to be struggling to think of what to say. "My album?" he wondered, as he put down the water jug and tapped it with his fingers. "Ah yes, the album. My cover, as they say." "Cover?" asked Henry. "Yes, well I couldn't just drop into the past without a cover story. I'd be found out." Henry felt his chest loosening, he hadn't realised it had gotten tight. A cover story, of course. "I'm sorry." he said. "I didn't mean anything, its just I saw it and..." "No need to apologise old man." said his uncle. "You're a clever boy, of course you're going to ask questions. I wouldn't expect any less of you."

When dinner was finished Henry went to leave the room. As he reached the door his uncle called his name. "They wanted me to kill you, you know." he said. "I know." said Henry. "I couldn't do it. You were so small and harmless. You have no idea the kind of monster you would have become." said his uncle. "But that won't happen now. We won't let that happen will we?" he asked.

"No uncle Charles."

Henry sat on his bed. 'A monster.' he thought. Nobody would mess with a monster. Nobody would argue with a monster, or mock it. He thought about Sarah and wondered if she'd have forgiven him by the morning. He heard his uncle moving into his study downstairs. Quietly he opened his door and padded slowly down the stairs. The door was closed but he put his ear up against it. Inside he could hear papers rustling. 'Reading the paper or destroying evidence?' he wondered. His head began to hurt as he went back and sat on one of the steps. He pictured Sarah sitting on the ground holding her chin. He felt proud and sick all at once. Crossing his arms over his knees he leant his head on them and closed his eyes. He didn't have to decide right now.

pickarooney

RED

I put my mask on and walked over to where he was sitting. I had secured him to the chair earlier while he was still wriggling and shouting. His energy depleted fast and soon he sat idle, his head hanging towards his heaving chest. Both wrists were bound to their respective armrests and his ankles were tightly fixed to the chair’s legs.

That should hold you.

I stopped in front of him and reached down to grab the black pillow case covering his head.

“Hello Nicky” I said, revealing his panicked face.

“Who the fuсk are you? What do you want with me?”

“Nick” I said, leaning down and pushing my protected face close to his.

“I am Adam. Prince of Eternia and defender of the secrets of castle Greyskull”

I love my He-man mask. Over the years I have found it really scares the ѕhit out of them, it distils some extra fear and makes them think, if they don’t already, that I may be extremely mentally imbalanced.

“Do you like games, Nicky?”

“What the f-f-f-u-u-u-c-k. Help! Somebody help me, HELP”

“Oh, there’s no use screaming, nobody will hear you, not in here. What about the games Nick, do you like them? Let’s play one. Ever heard of the Let’s Make a Deal? It’s an American game show. The best part of it is when the winning contestant gets to choose between the 3 doors. I like that game”

I stood up and walked over to the medical trolley I had laid out earlier. As I grabbed the handle I stopped and turned to face Nicky. His body firmed up again and his eyes filled with fear. I wheeled the kart in front of him and gripped the velvet cloth that was covering it.

“Why am I here? Please, I can pay you. Whatever you’re being paid, I can match. I mean, I-I-I-I can beat. P-p-p-p-lease”

“Oh Nicky my boy. You can’t pay me that much, you just don’t have it. Besides, I have a business to run. I can’t be seen as the type of person who can be paid off at the drop of a hat, it just won’t look right. You know, going forward. I have been watching you for months you know, monitoring your every move. I’ve seen your bank details and payslips. I know how much you spend a month on that flash car and those romantic dinners out with Niamh. She is very pretty, isn’t she Nick?”

Nick clenched his fists and pulled back hard on his restraints. His whole body shook with aggression and his face turned a deep purple.

I think I may have hit a nerve.

“You touch her and I’ll.....”

“You’ll what? The people that hired me think it’s about time you got what you deserve. They think it’s time for you to have a little accident”

“People, w-w-w-w-hat fuсkin’ people?”

“Never mind that now. Shut the fuсk up and listen. Pick a number between one and three. Go on, any number. The number you choose will be the number of the item I use, under here. Do you understand?”

I ripped the cloth away revealing Nicky’s three options.

“Behind door number one we have ‘The machete of doom’. This baby will cut through a twelve inch tree truck - eventually.”

I picked up the shiny cleaver and moved closer to Nicky’s face, lowering my voice slightly.

“I won’t lie to you Nick. I’ve had to take two or three swipes with this in the past to get the job done. It’s not the swiftest implement but hey, it’s your choice”

I laid the heavy blade back on the trolley top and waved my hands above it, as a Las Vegas magician might. No harm in playing this out a bit - put a show on for him.

“Behind door number two we have ‘The club of love’”

I picked up the large wooden baseball bat and stoked its stumpy head. Protruding from the top of it were six nails, hammered through completely so as the tips were showing their jagged ends.

“By the power of Greyskull, eh Nick?” I raised the club over my head and pointed it to the ceiling.
“He-man, remember him? That’s the mask I have on. He-man.”

I spun the club down around my waist and flicked my wrist upwards finishing with the weapon perpendicular to my torso.

“Hi-ya” I yelled.

“I would have loved to have done a martial art Nicky, you know that? Some form of Kung-Fu. I reckon I would have been good at it too. Prison put a stop to that though. Well, juvenile home first, then prison and then, in the latter years, the central mental hospital”

I placed the bat back down on the trolley.

“Hey Nick, tell me about Niamh. Does she like to dance?”

Niamh was Nicky’s fiancée. They had been together for 7 years and lived together in a modest 2 bedroom terrace house in the Dublin suburbs. I had made our two meeting seem like coincidence and gathered some much needed information from her. It’s amazing the type of questions people will answer when asked by strangers. Our first meeting, in their house, was initiated by her. She put a call into her broadband provider reporting a fault on the line. My bug picked up the call and provided me with enough information to fake an ID and bullѕhit my way in to her house the next day. After the obligatory cup of coffee I got right down to the questions – all the while dicking around with some box beside her computer.

Are you married? How many kids have you got? What do you work at? How many brothers and sisters have you got? What does your partner work at? Does he have any brothers and sisters? What schools and colleges did you both go to?
I have been in this game for nearly 5 years now and I have never had a target dodge a question I have asked them – amazing.

Anyway, I had plenty of information now to really starting playing with old Nicky’s head.

“Hey Nick. ‘member when you and Niamh used to go to the Shiny Disc night club when you were in college? Did you ever think that you might end up marrying the girl?”

“How the fuсk? Don’t you touch her. I swear-r-r, sw-e-e-ar to fuсkin god. I w-will.......”

“Do you believe in destiny Nick? Do you? Do you believe that a predetermined path is paved in front of you at the exact moment you are conceived? I think its horseѕhit myself, but you have to commend the religious nuts who argue their point. I mean from their point of view it doesn’t matter what actually happens. Whatever does happen is meant to happen, it’s destiny. Fuсkin freaks”

My attention reverted back to the trolley and the one option Nick hadn’t been presented with. The .44 magnum. This was my baby, my pride and joy. It took me months to track down the exact model I needed and even then I had to wait another month before I could get it into the country. Fuсk I love this gun. Just the barrel length is enough to make most men’s balls shrivel up into their throats.

“Behind door number three we have ‘Adam’s dirty Harry’.”

I picked the gun up by its smooth wooden handle and angled it above Nick’s head. The gun’s balance was perfection matched only by it beauty.

“Now Nick, I love this gun. More than most things. This gun will rip the head of a fox. Clean. Trust me. The problem is, my boy, that I don’t really like using it. I mean there isn’t really anything in it for me, you know. One squeeze of this steel trigger and its bye bye Mister Nicky Nick. Know what I mean?”

I moved the barrel close to my left cheek and rubbed it, slowly up and down.

“So. What it’s gonna be. One, two or three. You have ten seconds to decide or you forfeit. The rules of forfeit are pretty much whatever I decide in the moment. The end result is typically pain, lots of pain. ‘Keydokey? Good. Time starts. NOW”

“Three, three. Fuсking three. Please the gun. Just fuсking do it, quick. You cruel fuсk”

The gun. They always pick the gun. Always.

“Three? The gun? Ah fuсk Nick. Do you know how long it takes me to clean this gun? Huh? Did you? What’s wrong with the machete? Sure it might take me one or two whacks but you’ll barely feel a thing. I reckon you’d pass out on the first hit anyway. Look at the ground Nick. It’s covered in plastic sheeting, perfect for slow, dripping blood. It’s hardly conducive to the blood splatter of a .44 Magnum. Fuсk Nick. I mean fair enough, a game’s a game, but it’s a little inconsiderate if you ask me”

Nick’s whole body went flaccid. His head relaxed and his shoulders melted towards the floor. His voice broke and an undecipherable wail filled the empty hanger. Resignation clutched him, relentless in its grip.

Finally he is broken. It is nearly time.

The next part plays out the same every time. Humans are marvellously predictable. Falling into line submissively like a leather clad masochist.

I picked the .44 up from the trolley and held it up to my mask. Tenderly I moved it to my cheek and held it there, letting its steely cold power subdue me.

“I’m sorry” I whispered.

“Right then сuntface, let’s get this over with. Temple or forehead?”

Nick raised his head upwards and his eyes caught mine. Fuсk you. He didn’t even need to speak.

“Tell you what buddy. Let’s get one off as a test fire. What do you think? I wouldn’t want a miss fire, would I? A religious person might see something like that as a godly pardon”

I reached my left arm around to the back of Nicks defeated head and gripped his head tightly, pulling it up to face me. My right arm held the .44. I turned it sideway so the chamber was facing him, the barrel pointing to the end of the room.

“Here we go Nick. Cover your ears”

Nick’s eyes squeezed closed in anticipation of the shot. His shoulders lifted to meet his shrinking neck and his body shot forward, rigid.

Pop.

The sound that followed was typically confusing. Nick opened one eye, bemused.

“Hey Nick. Take a look”

Nick opened both his eyes and looked at the gun. He quickly looked at me then back to the gun. Projected outwards from the magnum’s barrel was a 6 inch long wooden stick, below which a 4 inch piece of material had extended towards the floor.

You have been HAD by Ireland's first Kidnap-O-Gram. And it’s on camera.

Nick looked back at my mask with bewilderment in his eyes.

“OK. Let’s be having you”

With those words the side door to the hanger opened and 5 men burst into the room, cheering as they ran to us.

“Nicky you ѕhit bag”
“Nick you pussy”
“Now who’s a bitch’s bitch”

The usual screams and goads. All too familiar.

“Hey, Nick. I can’t take my mask off but just in case you don’t know what just happened, here it is. I am Ireland’s first Kidnap-O-gram. Basically, I get called in when your mates think you have gotten too big for your boots. I get as much information as I can, follow you for a while then kidnap you and frighten the ѕhit out of you. Now I know right now you’re thinking of suing me and maybe even killing me but I have all that covered. I don’t take a job unless I am sure I have enough dirt to cover my ass. Believe me; I have enough on you to own you!”

The crowd gathered around him and a tentative smile registered on his face. Not many people get that close to what they believe is certain death and survive.

Me? I just went home to my wife and kids and hoped for another email soon. I can’t really advertise my service in the local newspaper so I rely on word of mouth and an anonymous email account. The only thing I pray for is that they don’t pick number one or two. Fuсk knows what I would do!


** FIN **

Six of One

RED

I really loved Orange! If it was a novel I'd buy it.
Red was interesting but I was a little disappointed in the ending and overall just didn't find it as gripping as Orange.

pickarooney

RED

Red was a fantastic story, superbly paced and plotted and with a sweet twist. I think it should have ended there though, instead of having the narrator relate what we've already picked up on. I would pick this story any day of the week. Except today...

Today is Orange's day. This story was remarkable in how thorough it felt. Wonderfully written and perfectly in keeping with the theme, this writer has gone from strength to strength in the competition and I'm already looking forward to reading one final entry.

kelator

RED

No criticism of either story, both excellent entries. (Especially since I had to look up the meaning of the word kismet before i started reading.)

Orange gets my vote though, really superb. Immediately drew me into the story and took me where it wanted.

angelll

RED

Orange for me too,it was quite creepy,is the child mad or the uncle? If he does turn out evil is it a case of nature or nurture? V good.

Red was very good too but Orange had the edge for me today.

Mr E

I liked red - great pace and well written.

I'm not sure I 'get' orange. I'll reread it tomorrow with fresh eyes and make my decision then.

Carter P Fly

I vioted red because it was completly different. The twist at the end was a complete surprise.

Orange felt like a hundred other pieces Ive read that are all basically the exact same. It was well written but there was nothing fresh or surprising about it.

Arlecchina

RED

I really enjoyed both pieces!

Red was great. I love in media res openings, and the dialogue was fantastic. Major points for the disturbing use of a He-Man mask!

Orange takes it for me, though, just because I desperately wanted to read more after I'd finished. It was chilling, and I love writing that throws up more questions than answers.

Oryx

RED

I voted for orange. It was a story that made me think and question, with its creepy undertone. Red was brilliantly written and really got me involved, but the ending was a complete let down. Far too lame. Sorry, Red.

Antilles

RED

I loved Orange

smcgiff

Okay, looks like I'll be going against the grain.

Enjoyed Red's story very much, possibly because this is the kind of story I like. This was Red's best so far. Kidnap-o-gram mmmm - wonders if there's a franchise

I didn't enjoy Orange's I'm afraid, and if it wasn't on boards I'd never have got past the first couple of paragraphs. I lost interest fairly early on. The ending was well thought out, but didn't enjoy the journey.

Mr E

Yeah just to follow up on my earlier indecision, I went with Red in the end too.
I just enjoyed it more.

In just over an hour we'll find out who won - based on feedback, looks like Orange might have pipped it. :)

Mr E

Well done to Orange.

pickarooney

RED

Congratulations to Orange, who joins Cyan in the final!