5PM

by Chris Heinicke

  I make a lunge for Roger’s door and pull the handle. He grabs it from the inside and resists my attempt to open it while Talissa climbs in. I’ve always been stronger than my friend, but he puts up a struggle for half a minute, holding the door mostly shut. He can’t hold on forever, so he puts his car in reverse, forcing me to release my grip before I can be dragged along with him.

  Roger’s about twenty metres away by now and I see the car brake hard to stop and do a U-turn. I don’t bother pursuing any longer. Within a few seconds, all I’ll see is the dust they leave behind to remind me they’re taking off together. From the noise of the car engine, he obviously plants his foot to the floor, stone pebbles flying behind him and landing a few feet in front of me. Bursting through the noise of Roger’s car, a loud clap fills the air, and a split second later, I hear glass smash and see the car veer off course into a fencepost. I run towards it and head for Talissa’s side, but she’s out before I can get far and running at me.

  “Run, Terry!”

  I turn blindly with my sights set on the old farmhouse with the sanctuary of the brick walls, and the armed family members as we run from an unseen enemy. The air filled with the sound of fired bullets. I can hear dull thuds as they hit the ground and miss both of us. I haven’t had to run like this since I used to play football, and the stakes were nowhere near as high, despite how much value people put on sports.

  Talissa is much quicker than I on her feet, especially when she’s wearing running shoes like she is today. I don’t see the bullets hitting the ground close to her, and I dare not turn back to see how close to me they are landing. The house is only a few more seconds away while ahead of me, I see Talissa spring up the few steps and disappear from view into the front entrance of the house.

  At least the mother of my children is safe. I’m just a few feet from the steps myself now. I indulge myself in a smile as I’m just about to take the leap to safety. Like thunder, the shooting continues, and as my foot takes the first step, I feel a sharp pain in my lower leg as a small lead projectile rips through the flesh and hits the second step on its exit. My body crashes into the steps, and I’m unable to stop myself from screaming in pain.

  I reach for something to pull myself up the stairs, the doorframe being the only solid structure. Bullets continue to rain down near me, sending splinters flying from the wooden steps on occasion and hitting too close to my body for my liking. My brother appears looking down at me, reaching to grab me by the hand. My body slides against the timber structure hitting my ribs on the jagged surface as he uses his strength to pull me up. As I reach the top, I look in shock as my brother stands tall to get into position to drag me around to the safety of the brick walls—only to receive a shot in the forehead.

  “Joe! Oh, God, no. Joe!” Mum yells and starts walking over while crouched below the windows.

  “Mum, stay away,” I put a hand up and use the other to drag myself along the floor. The shooting has stopped and I look over at Talissa, who is hiding near my father below a windowsill. “So is this real enough for you now, Talissa?”

  She looks straight back at me. “No, Terry, you were right. Happy now?”

  I look away from her. My brother remains slumped lifelessly on his side, and Roger, I assume is dead behind the wheel of his car, so I don’t see the need to answer her.

  Mum can’t stop crying about Joe, and although I don’t blame her, the rest of us are focused on keeping us safe from this unseen enemy. I grab my phone and try Hannah’s number, hoping I can get a hold of her to get a clue as to where she is and whether she is on our side. There is no answer, and I put my phone back in my pocket. It’s then we hear a female voice.

  “Terry… Talissa… Anyone else—please respond if you can hear me?” the voice yells out.

  I look at the faces of my wife, father, mother, sister, and children, and I know I can end this right now by walking outside. “Give me a minute,” I yell out.

  “Make it half a minute Terry, or we start shooting again.”

  I’m pretty certain it’s Emily’s voice. I look at my children with my sister standing over them to keep them as safe as she can. She lets them go and they come running up to me and give me a firm hug.

  “Isaac, Matilda, Daddy has to go now, and I might not be coming back. Be nice to your mother, and don’t forget I love you both very, very much.” A tear rolls from my eye as I feel this is it now. I can’t remember the last time I cried prior to the last couple of days, but I know the recent events have caused me to make up for it now.

  They won’t let go, and I urge Talissa to peel them off me so I can face my fate. She does as I ask and gives me a sad look as I drag myself back to the steps again. I hear footsteps hitting the dry vegetation on the opposite side of the driveway. “I’m coming, Emily.”

  “At least you’re telling me this time, unlike that day on my desk,” she laughs, and I hear a couple more voices of laughter joining with her.

  I pull myself along the floor so I’m now at the top of the stairs, Joe’s lifeless eyes staring wide in my direction as my shoulders tire from being the mechanism to move my body. I look outside and see them standing there behind Talissa’s car—the athletic Emily, the leggy young Brittany, and the voluptuous Lauren—or whatever her real name is. I come to think the other blondes are using aliases, too.

  “All three of you?” I sigh as I look at their faces in turn. They peel away from the vehicle with a pistol in each of their hands aimed in my direction, and I see them all dressed in black leather pants with matching leather sleeveless shirts. If it wasn’t for the fact they were here to kill me, I would be thinking they look damn hot.

  Emily is the one to make the charge towards me, and calls out so everyone inside the house can hear. “If anyone takes a shot at any of us girls, Terry gets a bullet to the head, and then we shoot you all, even the kids.”

  “Why are you doing this?” I ask.

  “We get paid to do this, simple as that. You’re not a person to us. You’re just a job, a paycheck. In fact, you should be happy you got to live this long. Your saving grace is the person who’s paying us insisted you get brought down slowly,” Emily says.

  “Have you ever heard of sexual cannibalism?” asks Lauren, who now stands alongside Emily, just a couple of metres from me.

  “I guess it’s when an animal kills its mate after she has sex with them.”

  “You’re a smart man, Terry,” says Emily. “Actually, most of our jobs involve one or more of us having sex with someone and killing them immediately after the act, hence our name the Praying Mantassassins. You like that name, Terry?”

  “Creative, but once again, why me?”

  “We’re under orders not to divulge said information until the appropriate time,” Brittany says, completing the line-up alongside the much shorter Lauren.

  I turn and look at her. “Don’t get me started on you, you lying bitch. Do you have any idea how creepy I feel for having sex with a seventeen-year-old?”

  “If you’ve fucked a seventeen-year-old, that’s none of my concern.”

  “But, Talissa said…”

  “Like you said, I’m a liar, so I lied to her about my age so when she busted you, you would feel even worse about yourself. Bet you probably didn’t think that was possible.”

  The other two women laugh. During a split second of silence, I can hear another car approaching up the driveway, and then the siren. I can only hope it’s the police coming to save the day, and that there is more than one vehicle coming down the track, as I don’t doubt for one second these crazy bitches will open fire on any approaching cops.

  The three of them advance towards the steps, and then Emily and Lauren each grab my arms, and Brittany enters the house. She looks at my well-armed family and asks for them to drop their weapons.

  “You’re going to kill Terry anyway, aren’t you?” my father asks.

  “Not if you do as we say. Please, all of you drop your weapons.” Emily pushes the long barre
l of her pistol into the back of my head. I’ve never been into guns so I can’t tell one maker from another, but when there’s one poking me in the back of my head—it may as well be a rocket launcher.

  I watch my father and sister both lower their shotguns, whereas Mum had already put hers down when Joe was shot. I see the eyes of my children, and I don’t know who’s most scared, but I need to say something. “Ladies, please let the children leave the room. They don’t need to see this.”

  “I agree,” says Brittany. She looks at my mother. “Take them away, stay with them, and don’t dare leave unless you have our permission.”

  “I understand,” Mum says. She reaches out and asks my children to each grab a hand and walk with her.

  I watch them leave and wonder about the next play. The police car comes into view through the kitchen window, and behind the steering wheel, I see a mass of blonde hair, whilst the passenger is blocked from my view, but I assume it’s Ed. I sincerely hope it’s just my paranoia causing me to think one or both of them are crooked.

  “Oh, dear, two cops. You’d think they would have brought some type of backup,” Lauren says nonchalantly.

  “Don’t any of you dare make a noise,” Emily warns. She tells me to get to the floor, the gun still imprinted on the back of my head. I see Talissa looking my way, but from where her eyes are directed, I think she’s looking at one of the blonde women surrounding me.

  Car doors open and shut, and then a voice blasts through what sounds like a megaphone. “We know you’re in there, and we know you have hostages. Maybe as a sign of good faith you might release two hostages to me. Do that and we can talk.”

  “Come on please, let the women go. Pick Talissa and Janet,” I say to Lauren.

  “Janet and your father,” she says back to me without any audible pause. She calls out to them, “You two, go to the entrance. Walk, don’t run.”

  They stand and watch me as they make their way to the place where their son and brother met his end. I look over and hope they don’t join him and that these women keep their word. Their steps are slow but steady, and I’m sure they can feel everyone’s eyes upon them. With only a few metres to walk to get to the police car, I hold my breath as I see Hannah peel away from her partner to meet the released hostages.

  The male cop pulls a pistol from his holster and then two shots ring out. I see the female cop stop in her tracks, and then fall forward. He smiles and looks my way, and fires another two shots to take out my unsuspecting sister and father.

  My jaw drops. I’ve seen three family members shot in one day. Ed walks our way, and I notice the three women smiling back at him.

  “Weren’t expecting that, were you, Terry?” Ed wears the smug look that makes me clench my fists.

  “Meet the fourth member of our squad, also known in chat circles as DancerGirl,” Emily says.

  “But I thought DancerGirl was dead.”

  “That’s only because we told you she was, Terry. Did you hear a news report or see proof that he died? No, you didn’t. That’s because Hannah and I made it up, when Hannah mistakenly assumed she had infiltrated our group,” Ed says. “Looks like that didn’t go so well for her.” He turns his head to her face-down body in the lawn near the driveway.

  “So, Terry, if she fucked you, feel assured she actually really wanted to, unlike us,” Lauren says.

  “Not that we didn’t enjoy it, I mean. You really know your way around a woman’s body, and I didn’t regret that afternoon with you,” Brittany says. “You did actually take me where no other man has before, so thanks for that.”

  “Yeah, I’d score you a nine out of ten, maybe a couple more inches and you’d be a ten,” Emily says as she looks down at my crotch.

  “You and your need of big cocks, Em—you’re as bad as Ed,” Lauren says.

  The four of them laugh.

  “I don’t find this amusing,” Talissa says.

  “Oh, yes—your cheating husband who slept with four different women, as well as you in the space of four days. Maybe we should let you shoot him,” Ed says, “but you do realise he wasn’t exactly in control of his hormones, though.”

  “Those pills Emily gave me.” The realisation hits me like a hammer.

  “Well, the first one I gave you was an upper, which did what it was designed to do, but the side effects include impotence. Then the next pill, well, as you know, kind of did the opposite and sent your hormones nuts, pardon the pun,” Emily says.

  Ed looks at the three blonde women. “I need to stake the place out. I don’t like surprises,” he says, and makes a turn opposite to the kitchen. I see him make his way towards the living room and assume he’ll follow the flow of the house and check each bedroom.

  “So where is this all heading? I mean, why are we waiting around with guns pointed at us?” Talissa asks.

  “5PM,” Lauren says.

  “We’re waiting until five p.m. like this? Just shoot us now,” Talissa says.

  “No, 5PM isn’t time, it’s a code. The Praying Mantassassins—there are five of them,” I say to her as I begin to figure it out—but who the hell is the fifth member?

  “Shame you can’t figure out who number five is, well, a shame for you, that is. You call us sluts, bitches, skanks, and names like that, Terry, and we don’t like it. Yes, we like to have sex, but why is it you men think it’s okay to bang anything with a heartbeat, but when women do the same, they’re all those things you call us? Women, as well as men, have needs, and part of our assignment included having sex with you before you die. You loved it. Well, I know you did when you fucked me on my work desk. I bet you loved the thought that we could have been caught. You put sex and danger together, the result is something explosive,” Emily says.

  “My wife doesn’t need to hear…” I start.

  “What, that you had sex in someone’s mansion? You probably wonder how I got into the Pellmont house and then convinced your office that I wanted YOU to see me at the appointment. I don’t have the time to go into the little details, but you’re fully aware of my charms. I can use them in a non-sexual way and gain access to poor Mrs Pellmont’s security codes. She thinks she’s giving money to cancer research each month now,” Lauren says.

  “Did you kill her husband?” I ask.

  “Only with… love.”

  “At least, I didn’t get that task,” Brittany says.

  “And my wife trusted you with our children after the recommendations of the agency.”

  “What agency? Anyone with my smile and beauty can get a babysitting gig, especially if the client specifically chooses a particular person for the job.”

  “But why would she purposely…”

  “Think about it, Terry,” Talissa says. She gets to her feet and walks towards me. “You said it yourself, 5PM.”

  I feel sick, and there’s no way it could be possible. “You? You’re the fifth member?”

  “Yes, Terry. I was an active assassin a long time ago before I met you. I had been on a mission that went pear-shaped. I couldn’t be responsible for bringing the organisation down, so I had to go into hibernation. The best way to hide they say is in plain sight, but I had to find a husband and a regular job and neither proved hard. When I saw you at the club that night, and you were keen to see me even though we didn’t hook up and fuck on that night, I knew you had potential to fit what I needed.”

  “So these past twelve years have been a lie?” I feel the wetness of a tear run down my face.

  “Don’t think of it like that, Terry. We had many good times, and until this last week, you made me feel like a princess. I knew the day would come when I would have to get back into service, but I never thought it would be because of you. I’m so sorry…”

  I cut her off. “We had two children together, a house and a solid future. Can’t you forget your previous life and come back with me? I still love you—that hasn’t changed.”

  “No, Terry. I can’t even if I wanted to. If I resist, they’ll kill the kids
in front of me. Then they’ll kill you slowly, and then I’m dead. But if I comply, they promised they would only kill you. It’s not personal, my love, but you have to understand I have no choice.”

  “So this whole time I’ve been fucking all these other women, you were in on it? The guilt I carried, I carry it because of a lie I’ve lived my last twelve years and you were behind the machinations of it all? Why, Talissa? Why?”

  “Don’t do this, Terry. Please don’t make this any harder than it already is.” She stops a metre away from me and kneels down next to me.

  “What have I done to deserve all this?”

  “You did something very bad a long time ago, Terry. So did Roger and your boss. I didn’t want to believe it when they first came to me, but facts are facts, and you’re a very bad man. And if you truly loved me, even with the power of those pills Emily gave you, you wouldn’t have strayed from your marriage vows.”

  “Please, tell me what I did.” I wish I could touch her face one last time and wipe the tear away that I don’t think I was supposed to see.

  “She can’t tell you, Terry, and if you don’t shut up about it, I’ll shut you up myself,” Emily says.

  “But you’re gonna kill me anyway. What’s it matter?”

  My right leg won’t move on its own, so I roll around propelling myself with my good leg. Sitting up rather than lying near the steps, I see Talissa’s handbag is less than a foot away from me. I stare into her eyes. “Can I have just one last kiss, for old time’s sake?”

  “Geez, I think I’m going to puke,” Brittany says.

  Talissa makes the move and pushes her handbag along as she slides her body up to mine. I put one hand on the floor and the other through her hair. I cover her mouth with my own tasting her tongue and kissing her deeply like we did the other night by the lake. She moans in satisfaction, my natural ability to produce panty-wetting kisses even prevails at this moment. She has no idea it’s my turn to play her. “Talissa, please tell the kids I was brave to the end.”