Fun and Games

The spray was a weaponized poison that rendered you unconscious within a second, then killed you about a minute later by temporarily shutting down the part of your brain that regulates your heart. After it finished its job, the poison broke down into little untraceable pieces of nothing. A coroner could order all the tox screens he wanted but wouldn’t find jack shit.

And the targets almost never saw it coming.

Something clicked and hissed—

PSSSSSSSSH

—and Hardie felt cold drops spray his face. Even before his brain could form the thought, his body knew something was Real Fucking Wrong. His hand fumbled with the door handle and he felt crazy-weak all of a sudden, overcome with chills and drowsiness, and he didn’t know what was happening, screaming NO NO NO at his mind as if he could talk it out of shutting down and

9

They will stop at nothing…. They are ubiquitous

and all-powerful.

—Geoffrey O’Brien, Hardboiled America

ONCE, IN his early twenties, Hardie had an operation to fix a deviated septum. A young nurse with soft skin and pretty eyes held his hand as they wheeled him to the cold, bright operating room. For a moment, Hardie didn’t care that his face was about to be mauled with sharp knives. At that moment he was under a warm blanket and holding a young girl’s hand and then she let go and somebody asked him to count backward from ten but he couldn’t even remember saying nine and then he was blinking and waking up and the pretty girl’s hand was still holding his and she smiled and said, see that wasn’t so bad?

That’s what it felt like now—he had a dim memory of being with a pretty girl.

But now that he was awake, he saw there was no pretty girl.

He was wrapped up in black plastic.

Actually, a body bag.

And with that realization came another: Hardie couldn’t get air into his lungs.

There was no air in here at all, like he was a kid hiding under a thick blanket, and the boogeyman was outside, and as much as he wanted a lungful of clean, fresh air he didn’t dare lower the blanket.

Frantic, Hardie’s fingers searched for a seam, a zipper, something, anything. But his fingers didn’t appear to be working right. Finally his fingertips found the opposite end of the zipper, the one without the little thing you pull on. He pushed it with his index finger, trying to get it to move. Come on. His finger trembled. He pushed harder. He needed air. If he didn’t get air soon, he would pass out again. And this time he probably wouldn’t wake up. Hardie pushed again. The zipper moved a quarter of an inch. It was enough.

He jabbed his finger through the opening and ripped downward, which killed his chest, but it didn’t matter, because his chest would really fucking be out of luck if he didn’t get any air into his lungs.

Number of accidental suffocations per year: 3,300.

Hardie sucked in oxygen greedily, then pulled the plastic womb down over his head, then shoulders, then body. Hardie realized where he was. By the front door. He’d passed out here and somebody had put him in a plastic body bag. That same somebody had just left him here, like garbage waiting to go out. Hardie didn’t know whether to be pissed or insulted.

Hardie didn’t know what time it was—power was still out. He couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how much time had passed. Sun was still up.

He listened; the house was eerily silent.

And then he saw he wasn’t the only thing on the floor.

Next to him, in another black plastic bag, was something suspiciously body-shaped. And next to that bag was another black bag, too small for a body but big enough for, say, a human head.

Hardie opened the zipper on the bigger bag first, fully expecting to see the face of a famous actress. In which case he would owe her a serious apology. Because she was right. Hardie should never have opened the door. He should have stayed hidden in the bathroom.

Instead, it was a guy inside, and it was a fuzzy second or two before Hardie realized, oh shit, the delivery dude. Somehow they’d dosed them both and wrapped them up in body bags faster than you could say duck, you suckas. Which meant that the small black plastic bag probably contained his luggage. Maybe his shoes.

The house was utterly still. Was somebody in the house on another floor? Or were they outside, getting ready to walk back inside at any moment?

They.

Hardie climbed to his feet, his joints popping, head swimming. He half expected to look down and see his body still there, proving he was dead and this was an out-of-body experience. Next he’d see a bright light up on the ceiling and hear some short, pudgy lady telling him not to go into it. But no. There was no body on the floor; Hardie was still using it.

A few steps forward, toward the front door.

Just go, he told himself. Don’t think. Go. Walk away from the house. Remember, they stole your car. So you have to walk. Or run. Running would be good. I mean, what else are you going to do—stay?

Stay and do what?

You can barely breathe. You’ve been beaten and impaled and sprayed with some knockout shit and left for dead. The smart thing to do is not be the hero. Remember what that got you last time? It damn near got your stupid ass killed, that’s what. It got everybody else’s asses killed. You’re never going to forgive yourself for that, and you know what? You shouldn’t.

So what are you going to do? March back inside, charge through the house, your chest bleeding and your head still swimming, to try and play the hero? They’ve probably already got her. She’s probably in a plastic bag, just like you were a few seconds ago. They’re just cleaning up, because they’re anal killer types who don’t want to leave any forensic evidence. When they finish, they’ll come back up for you. So now’s a good time to leave. You want to be a hero? Leave the house and run until you find a cop. Report everything. Let the professionals handle it.

Get out. Get out now, you idiot. While you still can.

What are you waiting for?

Hardie took a few steps toward the front door, then froze. Probably a bad move to open that up. Last time he opened it, he had ended up in a body bag. Only insane people repeat an action and expect a different result. Insane people, and Hardie’s mother-in-law.

But somebody had to walk into the house. Somebody had to zip up Hardie and Delivery Dude into body bags. Somebody was making little creepy fucking noises downstairs. What did they do, go across the roof and in through the back deck doors?

Which actually wasn’t a bad idea.

Climbing up onto a roof with a chest wound, a barely functioning left hand, and a head full of junk—all while trying not to make a sound? Not recommended.

Hardie made it up, anyway, using a metal hose fixture as a foothold. He put his upper arms on the slanted tile