Write, Wrote, Written

Sunday Scribblings #151

“Do you trust me?”

“What?”

“Do you trust me?”

The street lights and the moonlight cast shadows on top of shadows throughout the building.  She struggled to see his face in the darkness.  “I just met you.”

“It’s not a rhetorical question.  I need to know.”

“Why?”

“Dammit! This isn’t a game.  Those men, the ones that are looking for us right now, if they find us, they will kill us–or worse.  Now, I need to know if you trust me.”

His outburst startled her.  This man had just barely an hour earlier knocked on her door and asked to speak to her.  He had seemed polite enough.  He had introduced himself as Stephen Cahill, and he had offered his condolences regarding her father, but then he had started asking rather strange and pointed questions about him.  She was preparing to ask him to leave when the three other men had broken in.  They had tried to attack her, but Stephen had fought them off long enough for the two of them to get out through the fire escape.  He had then led them into this abandoned building where they were hidden, waiting.  It didn’t seem like she really had a choice in the matter.

“Yes, okay,” she said, “I trust you.”

He reached inside his overcoat and pulled something out.  “Good,” he said, “Here, take this.”

She did, but when she realized what it was, she felt her cheeks flush as her indignation grew.

“This is a water gun,” she spat.

“Yes, it is.”

“What am I supposed to do with this?”

“While I’m going to see if I can find out where those guys are, you’re going to stay here.  If one of them finds you, you just aim and shoot.”

“A water gun.”

He stood up.  “You said you trusted me.  Now hopefully I won’t be gone for more than a few minutes.  Just promise me that whatever you hear you won’t move.”

“Sure, whatever,” she said, but he was already gone.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, maybe just a few minutes, maybe more.  One she thought she heard noises somewhere else in the building, but it could have just been her imagination.  She entertained the thought that this was some sort of big joke, and that a camera crew would pop up any minute, as cruel as that might be.  She never even heard the man come up behind her.  She just looked up, and he was there, grinning down at her.  It was not a pleasant grin.  She aimed the water gun, but at that very moment, she knew that she was dead.  This Stephen Cahill person was probably in on it the whole time.  He had lured her there, and now she was going to die the same way as her father, and she’d never know why.

The man lunged, and she pulled the trigger.  The stream of water hit him squarely in the face.  She thought to herself that it might stun him enough to give her time to run, and she was already on her feet before she realized that he wasn’t recovering.  He was clutching his face in his hands, and he was screaming.  He stumbled away from her, back into the shadows.  Moments later, she heard a hard thud.

Suddenly, another man appeared, and she raised the gun again, but she quickly recognized Stephen, holding a sword, with something red smeared on it.  She didn’t lower the gun.

“Good job,” he said, “Excellent marksmanship.”

“Do you always carry a sword around?” she asked.

“Only on special occasions.”

“Is that blood?  Did you just–  What’s in this gun, some kind of acid?”

He shook his head.  “I’m not here to hurt you.  You can go ahead and put it down.  It’s not going to do anything to me, anyway.  It’s just water.”

“Just water?”

“Well, not just water,” he said smiling.

“Then what?”

“Do you trust me?”

“I might if you start making sense.”

“It’s holy water.”