Randomers

by Alexis Dogman

  Strong smell of oil and spice fills the corridor as one unit fries fish for lunch and the shouting of small children echoes through the air as children from another unit scream and fight.

  They walk three doors down the corridor and Kaew stops. Before she can fumble for her keys, she gasps, "Oh no!"

  Yuna looks at where the pad lock should have been on the grill. The pad lock is lying on the ground and the wooden door has been forced open. There has been a break in. Kaew immediately pulls the grill open and pushes the wooden door aside. There is nothing inside the unit and the walls are badly vandalized with spray paint. Yuna follows Kaew inside, feeling scared.

  Kaew dashes into the unit and rushes into the bedroom at the farthest corner of the unit. Yuna carefully follows, hoping that the intruders has left. The whole unit must have been barely around five hundred square feet. The living room is bare and the floors dusty. Shoe prints of the intruders could be seen printed on the dusty floor. She enters after Kaew into the corner bedroom, one of two rooms in the unit. This room has a fold-able table, a plastic chair and a standing fan with a line of scribbled mahjong papers pasted in a line over its walls. On the cement floor there are burnt matchsticks, used needles and also a used condom. Addicts had been in here. Yuna feels a shiver travel through her body.

  Yuna turns her attention to Kaew, who is now busy hovering over a box of files, checking if anything is missing. There is absolutely nothing precious that one could steal from what looks like a make shift office of some illegal perpetrator.

  Yuna walks closer to examine the walls surrounding them and what first seems to be messy hand drawn lines on individual mahjong papers are actually schematic grids. The grids join from paper to paper forming an endless flowchart of names with a thick black horizontal line traversing from paper to paper.

  "This is pat-ten," Kaew announces, joining Yuna.

  "These are all the people involved??" Yuna asks, her throat dry from shock of the massive amount of innocent people involved. There must have been over thousands of names written there.

  Kaew nods.

  "Yur sista is hir," Kaew takes Yuna towards the end of the pattern, pointing at her sister's name Lee Yu Mei written just above the thick horizontal the line. Below the line is scribbled her basic information from two years ago: 18yo, Chinese female, Kuala Lumpur.

  "You did all these?" Yuna asks, staring at her sister's name feeling her heart being stung.

  "Not me. My broda," Kaew clarifies.

  "All these innocent people," Yuna utters, feeling her heart burn with anger and hatred towards the perpetrators.

  "My broda think same like yu," Kaew starts to say.

  "You said your brother was murdered two years ago. But this pattern, my sister, it's all after he died. I mean, how did he know who will be involved?" Yuna asks, finding the grid hard to believe.

  "This pat-ten plan long ago. Now is doing stage. But yur sista die. Change pat-ten hir," Kaew circles the area with her fingers where Mei's name is written.

  "What happens then?" Yuna questions.

  "I dun no. I think they find oder people do. Impo-tant is the end hir is same," Kaew answers, her finger jumping over the last three names after Mei's, towards the end of the pattern where the grid ends in an extensively circled code: H-7842

  "What is H-7842?" Yuna asks, frowning.

  "I dun no. My broda din say to me," Kaew answers, shaking her head in regret.

  "The pattern is reaching its end," Yuna says, "If we don't do something now we will never expose them forever!"

  Kaew is about to say something when suddenly footsteps are heard coming from the living room and there seems to be at least a few people. Their hearts beat with fear. Can it be drug addicts?

  The footsteps close in towards the room and it turns out to be the gang of teenagers from downstairs with one of them holding a small knife. The one with the knife seems to be the leader with the rest of the youngsters gathering behind him. The leader, with blonde, spiky hair is a Chinese boy with his gang members made up of two Malay boys, one Indian boy and another Chinese boy. The leader waves his knife at Kaew's handbag. Yuna is ready to give hers over when Kaew suddenly does the unthinkable. Screaming her lungs out, everyone is startled and the next thing she does is she lifts the plastic chair and lunges it at the leader, only to miss him by almost a foot.

  Angered, the leader of the gang heads towards Kaew with his knife pointing straight at her stomach. It all happens so quickly that there isn't even time to think. Yuna extends her long right leg in a side kick and kicks the knife off his hand. Everyone is staring at Yuna now, surprised. The gang leader lets out a cry in anger that he is humiliated by Yuna and with both his hands, signals for his boys behind him to attack them.

  "Fuck!" Yuna curses to herself.

  The boys aren't armed and they lunge towards the both of them with their fists clenched. Yuna assumes her fighting stance and waits for them to come near her. She has been trained well and hard for the last two years and has even been to numerous competitions but no, she has never participated in street fights!

  Kaew watches in awe as Yuna fights the boys with ease like kicking sandbags and punching dummies. In less than thirty blows, all the boys are down, one with a broken nose, two with swollen eyes and two more wincing on the floor holding their stomachs.

  Yuna looks back to check on Kaew and is astonished that Kaew has removed all the mahjong papers from the walls. She holds the messy rolls in her arms and runs for the door.

  "Get box!" Kaew instructs.

  Yuna immediately carries the box of files from the ground and rushes out after Kaew. They manage to catch an elevator that is going down and once on the ground floor they hurry back to Yuna's car.

  Trying to catch her breath, Yuna opens the car door with her keys and they dump everything into the back seat before hopping into the front seats. Yuna starts the engine, shifts into reverse gear and flattens the gas pedal. Her tiny car burst into reverse and they speed away from the flats, back pass the squatter homes and out into the bustling city center, out of vicinity of the ugly side of Kuala Lumpur.

  "Girl, yu fight good!" Kaew praises, showing her thumb to Yuna.

  "You are lucky I do," Yuna says flatly. She's unhappy that Kaew started the fight back there. In fact she is still feeling her heart racing from the adrenaline rush.

  "Me fight good too. Poke eye, hit balls!" Kaew says with her hands reaching out, doing an exaggerated, hitting motion. Yuna couldn't resist coughing out a laugh.

  "Who's place is that?" Yuna asks, straightening her face.

  "Me," Kaew answers, adjusting herself into the seat comfortably, "I no place to keep pat-ten. There cheap."

  "We're never going back there," Yuna immediately cuts in, "From now on we're keeping it at my place. I'll take you there now."

  Kaew shrugs, "So yu n I partner?"

  "Yup. Partners," Yuna nods.

  "Where yu learn fight Thai boxin'?" Kaew asks.

  The sky suddenly turns dark and raindrops the size of kidney beans hit the windscreen.

  The weather and Kaew's question takes Yuna's mind back to when she was in Australia.

  Everyday, Yuna emerged herself in her work but that wasn't good enough. Her sister had betrayed her trust and the anger and frustrations that had built up inside her needed to be vented out or she was going to break down. One day she came across this Thai kickboxing school and decided to join.

  By day, she focused on her job. By night, she submerged herself into fighting. It felt good to be hit and to hit. The daily exhaustion tired her out enough to give her a good night's sleep. Her robotic training eventually made her the top of her class and even the top of her school. Yuna was even the champion of several women's kickboxing competitions.

  "Where yu learn?" Kaew asks again, bringing Yuna's mind back to Kaew's question.

  "I took lessons in Australia. Enough about me, how did your brother get involved with these people?" Yuna decides to ask. She needs to know
if Kaew can be trusted.

  Kaew turns her gaze out her side window, to watch the rain water pouring over the glass, blurring everything out. She was silent for a few seconds before finally speaking again, but this time her tone is solemn.

  "I am oldest. My fada die when I fifteen. Leave my mada, sista and baby broda. We very poor. No money for food. My fren say come Malaysia make good money..." Kaew pauses for awhile, as though swallowing her tears, "... So I come. I no I will be hooker. The world is no fair. I have no choice. If I dun, my family die hungry. My family no too but quiet. Only baby broda too small. No unda-stand. Eveli month I bring good money back. Eveli one happy. Sista and broda go school. He veli good boy..."

  Kaew stops and sniffs in sadness. Yuna can tell that she loved her little brother very much and that Kaew still hasn't got over his death. Yuna doubts if Kaew will ever will.

  "He study good. Veli cleva computer. Get job. Then come see me. No I hooker. He veli, veli sad. Say wan be rich so I come home. No wok. He join bad people gang. Pay money a lot. Afta one yea' he enuf money buy me freedom. He say want leave bad people but they no let him go. He secret draw pat-ten and tell me. I no he will neva come back. He pay his life fo mine," Kaew sniffs again as she uses her fingers to wipe the tears from her cheeks.

  "So he just disappeared?" Yuna gently asks.

  "He say if dun come back means die oledi," Kaew cries.

  "But, why did he go back? He could have just left," Yuna adds.

  Kaew shakes her head.

  "They no where my mada and sista live. He dun go back, they den-ger," Kaew tells.

  "You must know where he works then. We can just bring the police to them," Yuna suggests quizzically.

  Kaew shakes her head again.

  "I dun no. I onli no is India and under, down inside ground," Kaew reveals.

  "We will never let them die in vain," Yuna promises to Kaew as she drives through the beating of the heavy rain.

  Chapter 12

  Canada: Friday, 14th November 10:12 p.m.

  "Oh God, Zach! You won't believe what just happened!" Nikki cries in an ecstatic state as she dashes into the bedroom. Her brunette long hair is messy in a nice way and she is already in her stripe pajamas and socks. She is snuggling in bed next to her handsome husband when her boss called. Thinking that her Friday night is about to be ruined, she takes her phone out into the living room and what Hillary, the managing director tells her is something more than a pleasant surprise.

  Zach Burrow, starting to feel sleepy from waiting in bed turns over to give Nikki a stare with his eyes narrowly opened.

  "Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" Nikki screams in excitement as she jumps and lands onto the bed on her knees.

  "What's with all the excitement?" Zach croaks with a boring smile drawing over his face.

  "We're going on a honeymoon! For free!" Nikki laughs, shaking Zach so hard he is rocking in bed.

  "Wait - what?" Zach sits up in bed immediately, confused.

  "All expenses paid. To Malaysia! And we're leaving on Sunday!!" she screams as she gets up and jumps on the bed like an over excited two year old.

  "Whe... who... I mean how? Did you just win a lottery?" Zach asks, laughing dreamily. His blonde hair standing in awkward spikes from Nikki's rubbing it rigorously.

  "Hillary says it's a belated wedding gift from Melid," Nikki grins at Zach who is now just as excited as Nikki, "she says it's supposed to be next month but she punched in the wrong dates during the online booking."

  "But I have classes to teach," Zach cups his mouth, unable to think with the suddenly surge of happy hormones in his head.

  "Go call your students. Duh!" Nikki rolls her eyes, laughing.

  "Yeah! Right away!" Zach clumsily jumps out of bed, grabs his phone from the bedside table and sprints out the bedroom door.

  Nikki drags her luggage bag out from under their bed and unzips the medium sized rectangular brown bag. She pulls the sliding door of her closet open and starts to go through her neatly stacked away summer cloths.

  "Shorts, spaghetti strap, ooh... my favorite mini skirt. Yes, skin, skin, skin. Now where's my bikini?" Nikki sings to herself as she dumps her clothes into the bag.

  "Sandals. My pretty, pretty sandals. Oh I must bring this dress," Nikki digs deeper into her closet.

  She happily turns around to put her floral dress and sandals into the overflowing bag and soon her brows turn upwards into a frown. Nikki gets up from the floor and stares down at the bag with her hands at her waist.

  "I need a bigger bag," Nikki utters to herself biting her lower lip before shouting, "Zach! I need to get a bigger bag!"

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Zach and Nikki are in the mall, happily shopping for a new luggage bag.

  "Psst! Nik, look at this one. There's a seventy percent discount on this one," Zach calls out to Nikki, his right hand quickly holding onto the yellow luggage bag, guarding the bargain ferociously from the prying hands of other shoppers.

  Nikki skips over to her husband and her mouth gapes open into a large smile.

  "$199 on the tag. That's about $60 after discount," Zach whispers into Nikki's ear as she pushes the luggage on its four wheels to try it out.

  "Great find!" she praises him.

  "And it looks exactly like a Samsonite," he whispers with a wink.

  "It's perfect!" Nikki comments. The wheels move around so smoothly it feels like the bag is gliding on ice.

  The sales person, a plump lady in her late thirties immediately walks over to serve them.

  "Great choice. That's the last one," she says to them, "Three hundred sixty degrees spinning wheels, hard shell with lace bands, ultra lightweight. It's a must have."

  Nikki is almost salivating over the luggage bag, examining it from top to bottom, feeling overly satisfied with Zach's find.

  "Wait! There's a scratch down here," Nikki exclaims suddenly, feeling more than disappointed as her fingers smooth over the sandpaper scratch.

  "That's why it's seventy percent off honey. It's just a small scratch. Nothing damaging, really," the saleswoman explains.

  "Hey Nik," Zach squats down beside Nikki and places his arm over her shoulders, before gently comforting, "I'm pretty sure we'll get it scratched anyway. Plus we get to save some money for your holiday shopping."

  The corner of Nikki's mouth immediately turns up into a smile. She turns to give Zach a peck on his cheek and gets up.

  "I'll take this one," Nikki smiles to the saleswoman.

  Chapter 13

  Malaysia: Saturday, 15th November 8:36 p.m.

  The world written inside the pattern is a dark and sick one. Yuna closely examines the pattern, now pasted onto the wall of her living room, which has turned into a make shift office with Kaew's files strewn all over the floor. She has briefly gone through the files which contained simple background information on the names in the pattern. There seems to be no connections at all between all those individuals. Yuna has no idea at where this pattern is leading.

  Kaew has explained earlier that the dark thick line slicing through the center of the pattern is where the main action lies. Mei's name is on that line, making her one of the main chess pieces. The names branching above and below this main line are 'support pieces'. So, their target is to locate the last three names after Mei's and get them to default from the pattern.

  Her mind is occupied by how to decode what lies behind the flowchart and the names of those involved. What is this outcome coded H-7842? Can she spoil their plan like how Kaew tries to and expose them to the world so that justice can prevail?

  In the dead silence of the living room, the ticking of the wall mounted pendulum clock is somewhat deafening and distracting. Yuna walks over to the clock, opens its glass casing and stops the pendulum with her fore finger. The room drops into pin drop silence.

  The next victim on the pattern is someone named Poobalan Raja, thirty five years old male, location - Kajang, Selangor. The pattern is from two years ago, so the man
must be thirty seven by now. Yuna goes to the files to search for his background details. Kaew's brother has left a total of six ring binder files with hard cover. Inside those files are single page background details on each name on the pattern.

  Lucky for Yuna, the files and their contents are arranged according to their flow on the pattern. Yuna's fingers quickly flips the contents to the last few pages and finds the sheet that she is looking for.