They entered the parking garage and Gina followed him up the stairs to the fourth level. There were no people in the parking garage, but there were plenty of cars. The man approached a tan sedan that had seen better days. He disengaged the alarm system and opened the driver's side door. Gina glanced around—nobody there, no security cameras anywhere—and approached the passenger side door.
The man looked over at her from over the roof of the car. "Go ahead and get in," he said.
"Why?"
"You need help. I'll take you to my house, make sure you get fed. We have enough food tonight for supper."
Gina nodded, heart pounding, and opened the driver's side door and climbed in.
Once inside the car, the man stowed the briefcase in the backseat. He sat behind the wheel, fastened his seatbelt, and pulled out his smart phone and keys.. Gina felt an adrenaline surge at the sight of the smart phone. It was what she was hoping for. She brought her backpack up and her right hand darted into the right side pocket for the butterfly knife. "Can I use your phone?"
"Sure." The man handed the phone over.
Gina took the phone and quickly thumbed through the apps. She found what she was looking for—the app to the man's bank account. She tapped it, then brought the butterfly knife out and handed the phone back to him. "Type in your password," she said, her voice and demeanor quickly changing as she held the butterfly knife against his stomach. "And do it now!"
The look on the man's face was one of stunned shock. "But...I thought..."
Gina pressed the tip of the blade against the man's stomach. He squealed, fumbled for the door, almost dropping the cell phone.
"Drop that cell phone and I'll gut you," Gina said, her voice pure venom. She leaned toward the man, all semblance of the helpless twelve-year-old begging for money so she could buy food completely gone. "Put in the password for your bank account."
"Okay, okay," the man said, the panic making his voice squeak. "Just...don't hurt me." He quickly typed the password in and offered the phone back. "I don't...I don't have any money in my bank account, though."
"Set the phone down on the console and don't move," Gina said. She continued to hold the knife at the man's belly. The man set the phone down on the center console of the sedan and remained in the front driver's seat, his breath coming in harsh gasps.
Gina picked up the phone. Once she had access to the account, she would transfer the money to a temporary dummy account she'd set up for this purpose. Tonight she would make another transfer to a cash center near the house and close the temporary account. In the morning, she would go to the cash center with the verification number and pick up the cash, minus their thirty percent. She'd done it before, and she'd never been caught.
Keeping the man held at bay with the knife, she quickly glanced at the balance in the man's bank account. She looked up at the man, fighting to keep the panic off her face. "You..."
"I told you, I have nothing!"
"But—" She couldn't believe what she was seeing. The bank account showed a balance of only $10.00 and some pocket change. That was combined checking and savings, too. She looked at the man again. "You came out of the First National Bank building. Nobody can get in there except employees. You work there. They won't let people who have low bank balances work at companies anymore. I should know. That's one of the reasons they won't let my Dad work anymore. So how..."
"I'm just like everybody else," the man said. He was fighting to stay calm. His eyes darted from the knife to Gina's face. "I'm unemployed...just like your dad."
"But how..."
"I faked my way into that building. Under an assumed name, a fake bank balance." He looked desperate. Scared. "I'm just trying to survive like everyone else. Please..."
The panic began to hit Gina like waves crashing on the shore. She felt anxious; cheated. She was at her wits end; Mom had run out of medicine, rent was due in three days and they were almost out of food. She could feel herself begin to lose it. "I need that money," she said, her hand gripping the handle of the butterfly knife. A sense of murderous rage swept over her. "You sonofabitch! You lied to me!"
"I'm just as desperate to survive as you!" the man said. He tried to back up against the driver's side window but couldn't go anywhere. Gina kept the point of the knife blade at his stomach. "Please," he begged, sweat beading on his forehead. "My wife and son...we haven't eaten in three days. I...I can help us both! I—"
"How the hell did you fake a bank account?" She screamed.
"I used to be a web programmer!" the man stammered. "I wrote this program...it spoofs the layout of bank websites. It even has a little database that runs in the background. I...I populated the database with fake dollar figures...gave it a transaction history. That's what they saw." He motioned toward the cluster of buildings in the Financial District. "I've only been working there for two days," he said. "They're going to find out that everything I showed them is fake, so I worked fast. Go ahead..." He motioned toward the backseat, where the briefcase lay. "Open the briefcase."
Gina's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You get it." She moved the knife up to his throat. The blade made a dimple in the skin. "Reach slowly..."
Teeth clenching, the man reached into the backseat of the car and grabbed the briefcase. He brought it to the front seat and set it on his lap. Gina kept the blade on him the entire time. "Go ahead," she said, gesturing to the briefcase. "Open it."
The man fumbled with the combination, his fingers shaking. Gina's heart pounded. If he was lying—
The locks snapped and the man opened the briefcase. He turned it toward her. "See? All unmarked bills. They don't even know I have it. I gained access to their vault this afternoon."
One glance told Gina all she needed to know.
Nestled in the briefcase were stacks of bills. She didn't know what denomination they were. What mattered was that there were stacks of bills in that briefcase, all bound together neatly. There could be twenty thousand dollars in there, a hundred thousand, a quarter of a million. It didn't matter. What mattered was that it was money. Cold hard cash. And it was more money than she and her parents could ever hope for.
"See, I was going to take this money, get my wife and son and leave," the man said, his voice fast clipped, nervous. His eyes were wide. "I was going to head out of state, maybe go down south. Southwest actually. California, if I can. Marlene and Tony, they don't know yet. I was just going to head home, get them, get a few things, then leave. Get some food once we cross the state line. Then just keep driving till we reach the west coast." His right hand began to dart into the briefcase, the fingers resting on the stacks of bills. "I can give you some of this. I know you're desperate, that your parents are probably worrying for you. If...if you don't live far, I can take you all with us. I'm just like you...just trying to survive. We can leave together and you can have half. You can— "
The knife flashed and the blade sank into the man's stomach. Gina pulled it out as the man gasped, eyes flying open in shock. The lid to the briefcase slammed shut. The blade flashed again, sinking into his throat. When she pulled it out, blood gushed out, splashing the lid of the briefcase in spatters. The man gurgled blood then slumped forward until he was hanging by his seatbelt.
Heart pounding, Gina put the blade back in her backpack and grabbed the briefcase. She opened it quickly, ran her hands over the stacks of bills as if to confirm it was all there. A sense of satisfaction swept through her, followed by a sense of relief. Finally! They would be okay. There was now enough money for not only food and heat, but maybe enough to get them out of their apartment, maybe even enough to get them west, to a better life.
Gina closed the briefcase and latched it. Then she got out of the car. She closed the door gently, looked around. Still nobody. She had to get out of there, and she had to do it fast, before security showed up.
Five minutes later, Gina was heading up Seventh Street to catch the seven-thirty bus back to her apartment.
WHEN SHE ENTERED th
e apartment thirty minutes later, she was elated. "Dad! Dad!" she called out. She closed the kitchen door behind her and locked it. The apartment was dark and she fumbled for the light switch as her Dad entered through the living room. "Dad! Look what I got!" She held the briefcase up.
Dad looked hopeful as he took a step into the kitchen. Gina set the briefcase on the rickety kitchen table, flipped the locks up and opened it. "Look!"
Dad looked in the briefcase for a long time, his features one of dawning amazement. He glanced at her. "Is that...is it real?"
Gina nodded, tears of joy streaming down her face. "Yes, Dad. It's real. I don't know how much it is but..."
"Gina?" Her mother stepped into the kitchen, looking curious. She was wearing her green bathrobe. While her pallor was still an unhealthy gray, she seemed strangely more animated. And she was walking, which was something Mom never did. Mom spent all of her time lying on the sofa—that's how sick she was.
"Mom!"
Her mother stepped further into the kitchen and the smile on her face dwindled. Her eyes roamed over Gina. "My God, Gina," she said.
Now her father was looking at her with that same expression. He took a step back. "No, Gina," he said. "Not again!"
"What?" Gina looked at her parents, confused. "What's wrong?" The feeling of elation, of relief, now suddenly turned into a one of dread. Her stomach felt hollow, empty.
"What's wrong?" Dad said. "Just look at you! Didn't you notice you had blood on your clothes?"
Gina looked down at herself. Her shirt and jacket were stained with the blood of the man she had stabbed. She looked at her parents. "I can explain..."
"You can explain?" Dad said. "How can you explain this? We told you to go beg for money. We didn't—"
"But I only did what you wanted me to do!" Gina protested.
"We didn't want you to kill anybody! My God, Gina...begging is one thing, but this..."
"But you said to get the money by any means possible," Gina said, her voice coming in fast clips. "You said the men that caused this, they deserve to die, they're killing you, killing Mom, killing us, that we need the money more than they do, and so I did. I got plenty of money, way more than last time! In fact—"
"Honey..." Mom approached her. Was that a look of disappointment in her eyes? "This...this isn't what we wanted. It's like your father said...begging is one thing, but this..."
"And to do it again?" Dad shook his head. Now he looked disappointed.
"But you told me to do it!" She screamed. "You told me to do anything it takes to survive and I did! I went out there and I saw my chance and I took it! Don't you understand? It was either me or him! Me or him!"
The shrillness of her voice snapped everything back and she started, blinking. She stood in the kitchen with bloodstained clothes, the briefcase open on the kitchen table. The light from the kitchen penetrated into the living room beyond where her mother lay shrouded in shadows. Gina blinked again. "It wasn't your fault," she said, her voice trembling. "Wasn't your fault you couldn't help me. I'm just...just trying to survive. I have to survive...please...don't be mad at me..."
Gina began to cry. The enormity of her emotions crashed into her and her knees buckled. She grasped for the table, which broke her fall. She sobbed; tears of rage and frustration and loss welled out of her, eclipsing all other emotions. She was just trying to survive! She was just doing what they'd told her to do. Why wouldn't they leave her alone?
The wind picked up outside, whistling around the eaves of the old apartment building. The sound of its shrieking cut through the din of her sorrow, and she wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. She was alone in the kitchen. Mom was still lying on the sofa, in the same position she always lay in. She hadn't moved. And Dad was in the bedroom. None of this had happened, except for the briefcase. That had happened. Gina looked at her hands, at the dried blood that stained them.
"I was only doing what you told me," she said. She rubbed her hands on her dirty clothes, not even looking at the shriveled-up form of her mother on the sofa where she'd lain for the last three years. The wind shrieked again and Gina shivered. It was going to get cold tonight. But now she had money to pay the heating bill. She would be okay. She knew that now. Her parents had taught her well.
Taking a deep breath, her emotions under control, Gina exited the kitchen, went through the living room past her mother, and entered the hallway. She went to her room, not even pausing to look in on Dad. There was no need too. He looked worse than Mom. Last summer hadn't worked out so well for him. At least the elements had been in favor for Mom; she'd mummified quite nicely.
"We'll use this money to stock up on some food," Gina said as she peeled out of the dirty, bloodied clothes. "Then maybe we can head west, to California. You would like that, wouldn't you, Dad?"
The wind whistled around the eaves in answer. Gina paused, listening. She smiled. "Of course! We'll leave tomorrow. You, me, and Mom. Just like old times."
Then, chattering happily with her father, Gina got dressed, cleaned herself up, and prepared to hunker down for the night.
Story Notes
I don’t remember where this one came from. I simply had this image of a young girl, around twelve years of age, give or take, living in a run-down apartment in a very large, faceless city, being forced to beg for money on the streets due to her unfortunate family situation. I knew the story would have to be set in a dystopian future. How far in the future this story actually takes place, I left vague for obvious reasons. This is one of those stories that basically wrote itself. I started with an image and everything just kind of came together.
I suppose most of this was influenced by global economic events and my own pessimistic view of things.
Despite the bleak outlook of this story, it’s my personal favorite out of the eighty or so I’ve done.
Ricochet
“YOU EVER WANT to just pick up and move somewhere else?”
“What do you mean?”
Nick leaned back in his chair, fingers resting in the home position on his computer keyboard. It was two-thirty in the afternoon on a Thursday, and the workday had slowed to a crawl. He and Ken Atkins were the only people in the department today. Jay was meeting with a client, and their boss, Mark, was down in Georgia on a business trip. On days like this when the work was slow, there wasn’t much to do except cruise the Internet and make idle chatter.
“You know,” Nick said. “Just make plans to skip town without telling anybody and then do it.”
“Good luck,” Ken said.
Nick smiled. The term “good luck” was used by Ken, Jay, and Nick as a catch-all phrase for “good luck in your job search”. It was an inside joke the three of them shared.
“It’s not like that,” Nick said. “It’s more in the line of what you mentioned to me when we were talking about that woman in Arizona.”
“Oh,” Ken said, his voice dropping. “That.”
“Yeah.”
Eight months after Ken started working for Logan Advertising, a woman served him with child support papers in his home state of Arizona for a child he never fathered. Ken said he’d never even met the woman. “I had just gotten married,” he’d told Nick on a day that was similar to this—slow workday, no web campaigns to put to bed. “I’m not the kind of guy that screws around like that on his wife. I know a lot of guys say that and they behave otherwise, but I’m serious. I don’t know who this chick is!”
The woman, who Nick later learned was named Rebecca Armstrong, maintained her claim that she’d had a torrid one-night stand with Ken, which resulted in an unintended pregnancy. Religious beliefs forbade her to terminate the pregnancy, so she’d bore the child, a daughter, and raised her as a single mother. Once Rebecca was on her feet financially, she’d sought the services of an attorney who began the process of tracking Ken down. “She claims to remember my name from our alleged night together,” Ken had told him. “And yeah, she has the physical description of me right, but...” He’d s
haken his head. “There’s no way this could have happened. I take my marriage vows seriously. If Tina finds out about this, she's gonna freak.”
Nick could sympathize. If this had happened to him, his own wife, Karen, would not only have freaked out, she would've gone nuclear. Wives were programmed that way—go on the warpath at the first hint their man has committed some kind of transgression and ask questions later, after their husbands were bludgeoned and bleeding.
Well, that was Karen's MO. Nick didn't really like to think about that.
During the six-month process that followed Ken’s initial discovery of learning Rebecca Armstrong was suing him for child support, he’d been forced to hire his own attorney. He had to submit to a paternity test. Rebecca had listed Ken as the child’s father on the birth certificate. The DNA test came back in Ken’s favor—he wasn’t the child’s biological father (“And there’s no way it could’ve happened!” Ken had exclaimed when he told Nick on one of their afternoon discussions. “Tina and I had already moved out of Arizona when the child was conceived.”). However, Arizona law didn’t look at it that way—if he was named as the child’s father in the birth certificate, he was legally and financially responsible. The court found in favor of Rebecca, who Ken began referring to as “that bitch who’s getting half my paycheck.” Because Ken couldn’t afford the back and current child support, and because he wanted to avoid a jail sentence for failure to pay, he’d had no choice but to sell some liquid assets and take on a second job. His appeal was currently in legal limbo.
Nick and Ken had many a talk about the situation during company downtime—Ken was the agency's web programmer, Nick was the company’s web designer. At one point during the height of Ken’s struggle with the Arizona legal system, he’d said, “I wish I could just disappear. Just quietly get the things I care about most and go someplace where nobody will find me.” That was one of many things Ken said during this tumultuous time. He'd also said he'd wanted to make Rebecca Armstrong disappear, that he wished she no longer existed so he wouldn't be in this mess. All understandable for a guy being financially raped for a transgression he didn't commit.
Screaming to Get Out & Other Wailings of the Damned Page 10