By Bill Schott
Ralphy quietly giggled. They would never find him. He could hear the other children playing just outside. The small window that was at ground level out there, was six feet up from the floor, here in the basement.
Ralphy knew he had never fit in here. The family already had five children, and they were all happy and healthy. He was what his step-mother called "needy." He required extra help doing practically everything. He was often blamed for taking things that came up missing. The stick matches were missing; Ralphy was blamed.
It didn't help much that he was chunky, pale, and slow. He never knew answers to kid questions, and was never picked for any games. Except this one! He was playing hide and seek and he had found this excellent hiding place.
When they had arrived for the weekend at his step-mother's parents' old house, he had immediately been curious about the basement window and what was in there. He had been told that it was a Michigan basement that had been dug out over a hundred years ago. It was no longer used and the entry from the upstairs had been sealed off with a wall and floor. The one window that led to the basement had been bricked up for years, but the weather had weakened the mortar, and Ralphy had no trouble removing the blocks. Now that the goal was to hide, he knew this would be the best place in the world.
Alice, the oldest child, had gone to the stables to hide in the loft. He could see her there as plain as day, covering herself with excelsior, away in a corner. Blair, the second oldest, was lying across the top of the old tractor's tire. He was opposite the house, and between the huge tire and the tractor's fender. Ralphy giggled to himself, because his hiding place was so obvious.
Ralphy remembered being a little scared at first, after pulling the bricks away from the basement window. It was totally dark inside, and he could barely squeeze his portly frame through the portal.
Conrad, the middle child, had slid between the old chicken coop and an old door that must have been removed from one of the bedroom doors in the house. Ralphy chuckled to think that Conrad thought that was a good place to hide.
Dewey, the ten year old, crawled in under the front steps of the house, and could see in many directions without being seen himself. He didn't know, of course, that Ralphy could see him as plain as Tuesday. While lounging there, he pondered killing the neighbor's dog
Edgar, the youngest, decided to hide around the house somewhere. Ralphy feared that Edgar would look into the opened basement window.
Edgar did peer down into the basement, but was unable to see. He pulled out some matches, lit one, and looked into the illuminated cellar. There he saw Ralphy; he'd broken his neck falling into the basement. Ralphy giggled as Edgar grinned and bricked up the window.
| Author Notes | 500 words minus the title. |
By Bill Schott
"Alex, you must listen to me." Beatrice's words seemed to go right past her husband, as he busied himself with a briefcase. He'd purchased a used one at a rummage sale. He would eventually use it to carry the money for the ransom drop.
The idea had evolved out of an argument Alex and Beatrice had been having over her son's trust fund. The money had been held in a protected account, enforced with a court order, to keep it away from Beatrice and her new husband, Alex. After her son Freddy's funeral, Clifford, Beatrice's father, had taken legal action to prevent them from gaining control of the money.
"What you're doing is wrong, Alex." She felt he wasn't listening as he tapped the number into the single use phone. Affecting a Southern drawl he barked his demands to the startled woman on the other end of the connection.
After his father-in-law was found dead, Alex and Beatrice became heirs to his fortune, as well as recipients of the trust fund. There had been no trouble shifting all of the liquid assets into their joint accounts.
This kidnapping made it necessary to remove almost half of the money to use as ransom. It would probably all fit nicely into the rummage sale briefcase.
"Alex, you simply can't go through with this." He paid no attention, but moved out of the door to his car. He would have to meet with his neighbor, Ms. Dove, about the important message she had recently received from her housekeeper.
"It was terrible Alex," Dixie Dove remarked, through her pouting lips. "Eloise, my housekeeper, was tee-totally terrified when she got the call."
"I must inform the police immediately," Alex insisted, with a dramatic flair that identified him as a remarkably noble man in the seemingly vacuous eyes of Ms. Dove.
She insisted, "Eloise said that the guy said that horrible things would happen to your wife if you let the cops know."
"All right," he returned, with a look of determination and brilliance. "I'll withdraw the money and deliver it. You call the police after I leave and tell them what you know."
She agreed. He left for the bank. After signing dozens of papers and listening to impromptu investment strategies, Alex left the bank and headed back to Beatrice.
Beatrice was on the bed, where he'd left her. "Alex, you have to let me go. Untie me Alex. This is never going to work."
Alex chuckled as he pulled on the latex gloves. Freddy's motorcycle accident in the mountains had been a piece of cake. Clifford drank the poison and went off to the big sleep. This family's tragedy would now end with the senseless murder of his beloved wife. He thought, as he finished strangling Beatrice, that the local police should arrive just in time to be too late.
After a fruitless investigation and a reasonable time of mourning, Alex married his neighbor, Dixie Dove. Dixie had been widowed six times. Soon - seven.
By Bill Schott
Dewey checked his itinerary for the next day. He had a package to pick up at the local bus station locker, two business calls to make in the city, and to attend a funeral. This was the end of a very busy day. It had begun early with the boat bomb. He had wired it in and set it for a secondary ignition. That way, when the boat was taken out and stopped in the middle of the lake, the bomb would explode when the motor was restarted.
Next, a sales call at the Acme plant. He had been trying to interest them in transferring their logo copyright to his novelty company. He would provide them with ball caps, pencils, yoyos, and a number of other 'Made in China' trinkets to adorn with the Acme moniker. It didn't matter if he actually closed a deal or not; this was just his cover.
Around noon Dewey garroted a woman behind her home. They were under cover of her wind tossed sheets and pillowcases as he performed the dolly drop maneuver. This required a quick looping of the neck from behind, a swift bilateral jerk to tighten the cord, and a giant leap backward, causing the victim to fall and crush the larynx with her own body weight. Death occurred in seconds. Murder would be obvious - as the client had wanted.
After lunch, a judge needed to be shot while in bed with his neighbor's wife. The tricky part was setting up the scene to establish that such an affair existed. This had been started a couple of months ago, when Dewey had made his first pitch to Acme. He was in town and had planted an incriminating earring under the living room davenport and lipstick smudges on one of the judge's shirts in the guest bedroom closet. Cloning the judge's cell phone, he made some hang-up calls to the neighbor lady's home phone so the husband would develop a germ of suspicion. Today was the hit. Dewey simply walked into the judge's bedroom and drilled two zip-gun pills into the man's forehead as he slept. He then deposited the recently drugged neighbor lady next to him. Two similar bullets were sent through her brain as well. The spouses, police, and media could handle the rest.
Dewey returned to the docks an hour before dusk to collect for the main job he had completed the night before. He had 'offed' a widow's seventh husband by kidnapping him and drowning him in his own lake. His body wound up on the shore.
The new widow, Dixie Dove, met Dewey at the pier and asked if he would accompany her to her yacht. He did. She then took the vessel out onto the night water.
"I trust that Alex didn't suffer much," began the widow.
"Only when I told him you paid me in advance," returned a grinning Dewey.
"Have you ever done away with someone you knew personally?" queried the widow, while reaching into a drawer next to the steering wheel.
"Actually," he replied, recalling the moment with a satisfied smile, "I recently popped my brother. I'd been searching for him for a long time. Found him in a town up state. I drugged him with Tetrodotoxin and Bufotoxin in his lemonade. He’s lying in state now, in a coffin, looking very dead, but actually alive. He’ll go in the ground like that after his funeral tomorrow.“
"Think you'll make it?" smiled Dixie, as she produced a nine millimeter handgun.
Dewey had assumed that Dixie brought him out on the lake to kill him. Once he saw the widow's automatic, he hopped up onto the bow and leaped into the cold dark lake. He dove deep, expecting bullets to come whizzing by soon.
The widow had apparently decided against firing a lot of incriminating shots and restarted the engine. Dewey's bomb engaged and the yacht was blown into fiery splinters. Dewey had a personal rule about letting clients who had actually seen him live.
Dewey reached the shore and, under the cover of darkness, left for the bus station to pick up the widow's money. The next morning he got up early. He had business calls and a funeral to attend.
| Author Notes | Characters from 'In Hiding' and 'Seven' were used in this story. |
By Bill Schott
It was hiding day, and Edgar was happy to hear, if not see, his brothers and sisters again. They sounded so much older than when he had heard and seen them last.
Alice was here. He imagined her glowing skin and flaxen hair, which, no doubt, belied the long hours of farm work that she performed daily. Her pitch fork would be idle today. Edgar appreciated that Alice, who had inherited the family farm, was such a hardworking and resourceful person. She had taken a rundown farm and propelled it to a partially rundown farm that produced soy beans and corn.
Blair, fresh from the factory, probably scrubbed clean to the collar and cuffs, made his presence known by issuing a five-second belch. Edgar knew that coming here required a sacrifice on Blair's part. He would have to remain sober for several hours before returning to work.
Conrad, taking a day from the grocery store, arrived carrying a bouquet of plastic daisies that were certainly expected to remain pleasant looking for months. The price tag was probably still attached as he likely hadn't decided whether to return them or not, as of yet.
Dewey, usually making sales calls, could be heard depositing business cards and promotional flyers under, between, and beside things. His cell phone beeped constantly, indicating numerous incoming calls that he would let go to voice mail for as long as it took to complete this visit. He'd recently talked with Dewey, which had made this get together today possible. Just a little tea, and, after a mock funeral where his hated brothers and sisters would believe him dead, he could resume life in hiding.
Edgar thought to greet them somehow, but he was unable to sit up. It would all be better soon though. This farce would be behind him and he could go on with his life. It was in his nature to bounce back from adversity.
Alice approached first. She had a look of concern on her face as she leaned into him. She whispered, "I know you burned down the house."
Edgar tried not to smile, but it was a permanent fixture on his face.
After Alice walked away, Blair strolled up and also leaned in close to Edgar's face. "Ain't right what happened to Ralphy," Blair whisper-sprayed. "Kid oughta got treated better."
Edgar recalled bricking Ralphy's cold, dead body up in the basement of the house - that he later set fire to.
Conrad stepped up next and waved the flowers in front of Edgar. "I've been pushing these at the store for months. It's your turn to push 'em up now."
Once Conrad stepped back, Dewey sidled up to Edgar, expecting not to be seen. He placed a sales card in Edgar's blazer pocket and patted it. "Mention my name
when you get to hell, Edgar. They'll give you a good seat."
Edgar remained still and unaffected by what they all had said. He had been hiding from them for many years, but they were far too shallow to resent him very long.
He smiled as they all shuffled back out the door to the waiting motorcade. They would take him and deposit him into the grave -- his last hiding place.
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