Short Story - RUN

Now this is me being a bit of an overachiever. The prompt for this story was: “You open a fortune cookie and find a handwritten note.” 500 words, as usual.

What I did, though, was write a Choose Your Own Adventure story, where the tracks are 500-700 words. (I went a little overboard in some!)

Tags: Murder, but only in some tracks!!

• 4 Open Endings

• 2 Bad endings

• 1 Good Ending. Can you find it?

RUN

Opening

The booth is drab and smells like dirty dishcloths, something that has an undertone of both bleach and mold. You crinkle your nose. This place is beyond shabby – ripped seat cushions, peeling wallpaper, and Chinese tchotchke so fake it would put the ancestors to shame.

The food? Cardboard, garlic, and MSG. It’s a wonder that there are so many people here. They give you a creepy feeling, like their eyes are on you, but you know it’s just your paranoia. It’s been rampant ever since…well…

Pushing your Lo Mein aside, you snag your painfully yellow fortune cookie, unwrapped and likely handled by chefs who don’t wash their hands. The best fortune you ever got was something that read, “Wow! A Secret message from your teeth!” and you can’t wait to see what this gem has to offer.

Cracking it open, crumbs scatter, and the little piece of paper peeks out.

No lucky numbers this time. Huh.

You frown.

Flipping over the flimsy thin rectangle, you see a scrawl of a word. Handwritten, not printed. The slashes across the paper scream one word.

RUN.

WHAT DO YOU DO?

• Run – Turn to decision 2

• Don’t run – Turn to decision 7

Decision 2

Lightning licks down your spine. Someone knows. How could someone know? You took every precaution!

The wary feeling you had about those around you becomes an undeniable truth. All eyes look at you askance, as if judging your next move. You only have moments before they act. It’s now or never.

Getting up, you don’t walk, you streak to the entryway in a mad rush, slamming against the heavy door and shoving it aside. The air is chilling as you start to panic, sweat beading on your brow. Swiveling your head, there are two options.

•  Duck into the alleyway – Turn to decision 3

• Try to hail one of the cabs trailing along the street – Turn to decision 4

Decision 3

Pivoting to your right, you flee down the dark alleyway, fluorescent streetlights flickering above in seizure-inducing blips. You can’t mask the slap of your footfalls as you bolt deeper into the narrow concrete corridor, nor the sound of the blood pounding in your ears, especially when you see the chain link fence in front of you. Slamming into it, your fingers loop into the diamond shaped wires as you launch up, ready to flip your body over like an action star – but you’re not an action star – and the heavy hands that land on your back makes that truth all too vivid in your racing mind.

Squawking, you’re wrenched away and tossed to the ground in a painful skid that rips through your wannabe-designer pants, the ones you tell yourself no one can tell the difference about. Above you looms a man you don’t know, a grin like a monster on his face.

“You took something you shouldn’t have, didn’t you?” he purrs.

Those words drop your stomach to your ankles. You try to open your mouth, but the gun raises faster than your jaw can drop. Your imagination pummels the BANG into your head moments before it becomes real.

As you bleed out, you whisper, “It…was…the only way…”

Your heartbeat slows...and stops. This is the end of the road.

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED A BAD ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!

Decision 4

Yellow cars amble past, and you dash towards them with a raised arm. “Hey! Over here!”

They never have a chance to pull over for you. A strong grip latches onto the back of your neck, the huge hand and sausage fingers sporting nails that dig in at your pulse points as it steers you sharply left into a nightmare black van.

You slam your knees as they shove you inside and you bark out a cry of pain, but you’re bustled in without mercy as a man larger than God climbs in behind you. Watching you impassively from the far back, a man in a beautiful suit ticks up an eyebrow at you.

“I know what you took,” he says.

DO YOU

• Lie – Turn to decision 5

• Tell the truth – Turn to decision 6

Decision 5

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say. “Who are you?”

The man in front of you is dapper, a silver moustache finely trimmed and the ghost of stubble across the line of his chin. His cheekbones are high and his eyes are a piercing blue even in the dim light of the van. He looks like he sees right to the bottom of you, but if you tell the truth, there’s no way out.

The USB stick with the information burns a proverbial hole in the bottom of your shoe, where it stays hidden, tucked into its special compartment. It’s the proof that will bring down the whole scheme on Capita Corps head. The espionage. The laundering. What they lobby for and what they’re covering up. This stick is worth millions of dollars to your employer, and you know it. You can’t afford to give this up.

“I know people like you,” the dapper man says. “You think you’re smarter than everyone else. You think you see the bigger picture. But I have news for you, my friend.”

The monster man beside you grabs you by the hair and rips your head up, making your eyes lock with the aging man before you.

“I am the bigger picture,” he growls.

With a harsh twist, your neck snaps, your body numbing out one cell at a time.

It’s over. You failed.

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED A BAD ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!

Decision 6

“I h-had to,” you stammer. “My employer…”

“Is dead,” the man states. “Would you like to be dead, too?”

Trembling, you shake your head back and forth, a childish need to obey rising in your gut.

“Then the path before you is simple,” the dapper man says, brushing his hands down his arms as if to dust off lint. “You work for me now.”

“You?”

“Give me everything you have on your employer. Every moment of conversation. Every quirk of his lips and glance of his eyes. Every family photo on his desk and degree on his wall. Can you do that for me?”

You nod. What other choice do you have?

“Then welcome to our partnership. We have a lot of work to do.”

Swallowing, you feel like you just made a deal with the devil.

But maybe he’ll make it worth your while.

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED AN OPEN ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!

Decision 7

How absurd. What is this, a joke? Why would someone give you something like that? A prank? No one could possibly know you have the files; you covered all your tracks.

Tearing the little piece of paper up, you shove in another mouthful of disgusting food, gnawing on something that, under normal circumstances, could be swallowed whole. Still your nerves tremble. All eyes seem to land on you like little gnats, flitting on and off again.

YOU:

• Go to the bathroom to make the drop – Turn to decision 8

• Pretend nothing is wrong and continue to eat – Turn to decision 9

Decision 8

Keeping your movements smooth and even, you get up to go to the restroom, pointedly ignoring the eyes that follow you on your way.

Paranoid, you remind yourself. You’re just paranoid.

The unisex piss-pot smells like ammonia, and not the kind used for cleaning. Graffiti telling you all about what Jenna will do for five dollars is scrawled on the back of one of the stall doors. That’s the one. Tucking yourself inside, you open the back of the toilet, finding pipes and levers and other guts that keep the thing flushing. Inside the porcelain top is a little, plastic sleeve. Sliding off your shoe, you take the hidden USB from the secret compartment and slip it into its new safe spot, sealing the sleeve and closing the toilet.

You look at the door, still sensing the unseen eyes of the other patrons. Then you glance at the wall where a small window looks out on an alleyway.

YOU:

• Go back through the door into the restaurant – Turn to decision 10

• Go out through the bathroom window to the alley – Turn to decision 11

Decision 9

You shove more food in your mouth even though you know it’s not paranoia. It can’t be. Not this many people. Not when they’re all large men with rough faces.

The deal has gone south. Screw your employer, you’ll have to figure out another place to make the drop. Tahiti, perhaps. Who wouldn’t want to go to Tahiti?

There is a familiar raucous in your pocket, the R&B song you put on your cell phone when you were drunk last Christmas and thought was too hilarious to take off. Thumbing the button, you hear:

“Daddy?” Your daughter’s voice is fraught and sniveling, high-pitched and shaking.

Your blood turns to ice. You already know, but you ask, “What’s the matter baby?”

There is a childish squeak, and a gruff baritone takes over, filling your eardrum. “We know what you have, and you’re going to give it to us. If not, I think you can imagine the consequences.”

You swallow past the lump in your throat. “What do you want?”

“Simple.”

Two men surround you, one scooting beside and one sliding in across. Both look ex-military with bodies like square blocks and eyes that look dead inside. Their little smirks are demonic.

“Give what you’re carrying to one of the gentlemen with you, and your family will live.”

“And me?” you stammer.

“That depends.”

“On what?”

“Whether you’re willing to switch sides.”

And you are. You absolutely are. “Tell me what to do.”

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED AN OPEN ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!

Decision 10

It’s just paranoia, you scold yourself once more. It would look weirder if you went into the bathroom and never came out again.

Exiting as calmly as possible, you point your body straight at the outside door.

Don’t rush. Don’t run. Don’t cause a scene.

You don’t have the chance. A hand rests on your back and guides you forcefully back to your decrepit booth and your rigid noodles, thumping you into your seat so hard your teeth clack. A man in black slides in across from you with a weasel face and matching whiskers frothing from his ears.

“Tell me where the file is,” the man says. He must not know this was the drop off point. “Because I have something you want, and you’ll be very sad if you don’t give me what I need.”

YOU:

• Are a coward and spill the beans – Turn to decision 12

• Play dumb – Turn to decision 13

Decision 11

For the first time in your life, you’re going to listen to that little niggle in your mind. Pushing the window up as quietly as possible, you peer out into the night-swathed alleyway. The coast is clear. Hoisting yourself up is no joke, you’re getting on in years after all. Still, you keep your effort-laced grunts silent and wriggle your way into the crisp air.

At the end of the alleyway are men in suits. Three of them. They look out at the street and the traffic, their backs turned to you, and that niggle deepens to dread. Not bothering to close the window, you skirt against the wall, keeping yourself in the building’s shadow until you turn the corner. No one’s there, just a residential area with dilapidated, run down houses. One looks abandoned. The perfect place to hide until this all blows over.

You just saved your own life.

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED A GOOD ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!

Decision 12

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. You know what these people are capable of. You’ve seen the files. Worse than that, you’ve seen the photos, and that gore burned a lightning strike image behind your eyelids.

“Inside the toilet,” you choke out, all pride gone.

The man smiles. “I’ll have you know, we’re not unreasonable people. We’re even willing to let you live.”

You swallow heavily.

“Let’s turn the tables on your employer, shall we?”

What that means, you have no idea, but with your life on the line, there’s no room for loyalty. Or morality. When it’s integrity versus longevity, there’s only one choice.

Life.

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED AN OPEN ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!

Decision 13

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you say.

With a slow smile, the man reaches into his pocket and brings out a phone. Pressing a button, he dials a number and puts it on speaker phone. When the line picks up, he says, “Put her on.”

Your blood turns to acid, burning you from the inside. No. Please God, no.

“Daddy?” comes from the other end of the line, high pitched and choked with tears. Behind that perfect little voice, you can hear your spouse struggling, grunts and growls and yelps.

“Kill the big one,” the man says.

There is no pause. The POP is duller over the phone, but at that sound, the struggles die, and your daughter screams. Her babbles call for your spouse, pleads for them, but you know it’s too late.

“Should I have him fire bullet number two?” the man asks.

Closing your eyes, a tear tracks down your ashen cheek. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

DEAR READER, YOU HAVE REACHED AN OPEN ENDING! GO BACK TO THE BEGINNING AND CHOOSE ANOTHER PATH. SIX ADDITIONAL ENDINGS AWAIT!