The Game

based on the prompt: you get a text saying "ive got the money and hid the body". i had to go from there.

I got the money and hid the body.

 

It was a number I hadn’t seen before. You know how it is with cell phones now—there’s no way to tell where the calls are coming from.

 

I looked down at the flip-screen and the long string of numbers there. They all ran together. I read the message again and tried to laugh aloud, tried to brush it off. But the words were just there, backlit by palm trees and a Caribbean sunset in the background.

 

I thought about ignoring it, too.  I mean, I figured it was one of my friends with a new phone number trying to be stupid. But then I thought about Mike or Steve or Rob, or maybe all three of them, huddled around the phone laughing at me, seeing how I was too afraid to text back.

 

Whatever, I thought, I’ll show ‘em what’s up.

 

I hit reply.

 

Ok what’s the plan?

 

I figured I’d put them on the spot and they’d come up with something ridiculous, something that would blow up in their face. That’s not how things went.

 

Same as before don’t be late.

 

I had to think. They were calling my bluff and they were going to try and make me back out first.

 

That spot’s no good, need somewhere new.

 

8^th street bridge at ten.

 

I laughed, thinking, yeah right, like they’re gonna show up around there. Under the bridge was where all sort of bad stuff went down. Homeless people, drug deals, garbage dumping, girls running action. Everything.

 

Ok see you at ten.

 

I flipped my phone shut, not sure if I was going to show up at the bridge or not. But I figured if I didn’t and they did, I would look like a punk, and if I did show and they weren’t there I could really run my mouth on them.

 

At nine-thirty I pulled into the park just off 15th. My chest was tight and full of energy and my heart beat hard against my ribs. I zipped up my hooded sweatshirt and got out, then started walking down along the brook towards the bridge.

 

The water at my left gurgled and caught cold flashes of moonlight from overhead. It held the tiny reflections in each crest until they tumbed one against another under the surface. The footing was a little shaky in the dark down there by the water. Only when the treecover broke did the moon's light pierce the damp darkness. My sneakers slid around in the shaly soil and rocks and dirt skittered down into the water where they were swallowed.

 

I passed the baseball field, its lonely diamond overgrown from the summer past. Then the first bridge abutment was there in front of me, planted on a wide pad of cement in the dirt. I peered out of the brush, into progressive stages of blackness. They stretched away into nothingness under the bridge. There was no sound except the brook bubbling at my back and a whispering I hoped was the wind.

 

I was scared but something made me keep going. I confidently stepped out of the cover of trees and made my way towards the covered darkness of the bridge. It was easier than I thought it would be and soon I was standing safely next to the bridge abutment.

 

Standing in the dark, my eyes adjusting, seeing nothing but abandoned shopping carts, burned out barrels, and trash.

 

I was alone. From somewhere further down the line I could hear men shouting and metal clanking together, but where I was, where I had said we would meet, I was alone. I flipped my phone open, 9:50.

 

A crisp crack, like a twig snapping or a single pane of glass. My feet weren't movng. My shoulders tensed and my fingers tightened up in my pockets. I tentatively glanced over my shoulder: a twisted shopping cart tied with bits of plastic streamer, a leaning pile of bulging trash bags.

 

I listened carefully, even bent my head in the direction form which I'd heard the sound. But there was nothing.

 

Until I felt something solid pressed against the back of my neck, something metal and warm.

 

"Yeah, don't do nothing stupid. You feel that gun on you, right? And you feel how hot that barrel is, right? So you know I got no problem using it."

 

My whole body went rigid like there was electricity shooting through me. I always saw those cops shows and saw people with guns on them and wondered why they didn't make one fast move and turn on it. I always thought I'd be different if I was in that position.

 

My knees weakened and I felt my arms begin to creep up, like a bank teller in a stick-up.

 

"Don't put your hands up. This ain't a robbery, man. You know this is a whole lot more than some mugging. Now put your hands down and walk. I'm going to be right behind you here with the gun on you."

 

I felt a rough shove and I started walking and for a second the realization didn't even hit me because I thought that maybe my friends would show up. That they'd come walking up from the same direction I'd come, laughing and maybe passing a forty back and forth.

 

But then as I stumbled back towards the dark cover of the wooded brook it hit me. They weren't coming. Of course they werent coming--the texts weren't from them. The man behind me, this was who I had gotten the text from. This was the person I was playing the game with.

 

This was the Game.

 

He hit me with the gun, across the back of the shoulders, and nearly knocked me down the bank and into the water. I stumbled and grabbed hold of a springy young tree, catching myself.

 

"Keep walking. Follow the river."

 

I tried to put that voice into memory as I walked along the river, so that when I got to the cops I would have something to tell them. I couldn't show up at the station and tell them I'd been attacked by a total stranger whose voice I didn't remember and whose face I never saw.

 

The voice was not very deep but had a roughness to it, like someone who is used to making decisions and having their way. I tried to decide if it was probably a black guy or a white guy or a Latino and I thought he sounded black, but maybe that was just from watching too many cop shows.

 

We continued on through the woods along the bank of the brook. I had come this exact way before and I knew there was a curve coming up where the water ran very shallow and there was a sharp cut out of the opposite bank. We moved on in silence and came to the curve; I looked sideways and caught him in my peripheral vision. He was about fifteen feet behind me and holding the gun at his side as he used his hands to help himself along the shaly bank.

 

At the curve in the brook I pushed off a tree and slingshotted myself across the water. I heard the guy yell and then a crash of water and stones. I turned back over my shoulder and saw him sliding down the bank into the water with the gun held over his head. All I saw was a hooded sweatshirt like mine and a ballcap and earrings glinting in the faint light from the moon.

 

Around the curve in the brook, I took off through the woods. Branches snapped in my face and sticker bushes grabbed at my clothes as I tore past. After a minute I recrossed the river, splashing up to my knees in water, and then scrambling on hands and knees up the dirt embankment.

 

Far behind me in the darkness I heard grunting and loud breathing, the sounds of someone crashing through the forest.

 

I emerged from the trees and sprinted down the lawn past the baseball diamond, skirting the trees all the way back to the park where I had left my car. I felt in my pockets for my keys and spun through the house keys, locker keys, and keychain accessories. In one move I turned my key in the door, opened it and threw myself in, starting the engine as I put it in reverse and spun backwards out of the lot. Without even putting the headlights on I whipped into the street and raced away, watching in the rearview for someone to come from the woods.

 

But no one did.

 

My heart calmed down after a few blocks. I flipped on the headlights and thought about going to the police right then, but I second guessed myself. I thought, what if they ask me all sorts of questions? I don't even have it all straight in my head.

 

I decided to go home first and write it all down, get it straight, then go to the cops with a written statement. So I got here, parked my car on the side street and came in, went straight to my room. I got everything down pretty well and reached in my pocket to get the phone number out of my cell, to put it in the report.

 

But my phone wasn't there.

 

My mind went back to the parking lot, to the fumbling for keys in the dark. Did I feel a sudden lightness in my pocket? Did I hear the sound of something falling in the gravel? I don't know, all I could feel was my heart burning and all I could hear was my breath coming in shallow gasps.

 

So here I am, sitting here at my desk, just finishing up what I can before I go down to the station and tell someone what happened. My reflection looks back at me from the darkened window in front of my desk. I look like hell--tired, scared, maybe crazy. Did this even all happen? The only proof I really had, my cell phone, is gone. I wonder if they'll even believe me.

 

My mom moves around in the kitchen and I hear the dog growl in the hall. I hear the footfalls in the hallway and it's weird that he'd be growling at her whe