by Ferrel D Moore

Here’s a little short story…

“You hear them?” whispered Robin as something metallic clanged against the inside of their apartment wall.

            Lea pushed back as though she had received an electric shock.

            “They can’t come through the drywall,” said Robin.

            “Bet your life on it?” asked Lea as she reached up to finger the totem on her neck.

            Robin pressed her platinum wire hair hard against her head to hold in the pressure of an impending headache.  “No,”  she said.  “I told you not to call him a homo.”

            “He’s not doing this because of me,” Lea said.  “Don’t lay that on me.  You’re the one that teased him.  You’re the one led him on.  I can’t believe you’re trying to put this on me.”

            Robin spun in the chair to answer Lea, who sat behind a sandbag wall of pillows, but before she could speak, a head the size of a golf ball poked through the wall with a “pop” like a gum bubble bursting just above the bed board.  It opened its round mouth and out shot a tongue thick as a number two pencil and the color of an eraser. 

            “Yibbiddee yibbiddee yibbiddee,”  it screamed.

            Lea cringed.

            Robin picked up the hardcover book titled,  “Guttersnipes and other Tripes” from her desk and slammed it against the little creature’s head so hard that her framed poster of the band “Offspring” fell off the wall and landed on the carpeting.

            “Did you kill it?”  asked Lea.

            “I think so,” said Robin as she started to pull the book away from the wall.

            “Don’t do that.  Leave it there.  What if it’s not dead?”
            “I’m supposed to hold this book here all day?  What’s wrong with you?  No wonder you’re flunking algebra.”

            “Everybody flunks algebra,”  howled Lea.  “Everybody is supposed to flunk algebra, but don’t you dare take that book away from the wall.”

            “If it’s not dead I’ll smack it again,” said Robin, and she pulled the book away from the wall and lifted it above her head with both hands.  Her t-shirt, an only-to-the-navel thin pink cotton that had the word “Naughty” painted on it in fluorescent blue, rose up an extra two inches to show a crescent lettered micro-tattoo.”

            “Oh my God, I’m going to kill you,” said Lea.

            The wall was flat and empty of monsters.

            “What was it?”  asked Robin.

            “It’s his way of saying he’s pissed,”  said Lea.  “We’ve got to get out of here.”

            Lea hopped off of the bed and heard a crack like a dry bone snapping as she stepped on a CD.

            “Shit,”  she said.  “I just bought that.”

            She stamped her foot next to the mirrored fragments of plastic and generated a Richter Scale 6 carpet quake.  Her purse lay on the floor, and as she snagged it her short black hair flipped to the other side of her face.  She stood up with it held out in front of her like a throwaway gun.

            “Let’s go,” she said.

            Robin stared at her but didn’t move.

            “What?  What are you looking at?  Come on.”

            “Too late,”  said Robin.  She closed one pale blue eye and squinted with the other as though she were peering through a keyhole.  “Unbelievable.”

            “No it’s not,” said Lea, and, with her lips compressed into a determined thin line, she turned to go.

            Lea freeze-framed for a full fifteen seconds on the carpet that only yesterday her boyfriend Brad had told her was the color of an albino’s ass. 

            Robin sat still and said nothing as Lea walked to the blank wall on the far side of the room and ran her hands over its surface as though looking for imperfections.  She leaned her head forward and peered at the paint.  When she was finished with her inspection, she glanced back at Robin and looked as though she were going to say, “But I thought it couldn’t happen if he wore a condom.”

            Instead she said,  “Where’s the door?  What happened to the damned door?  It was here a minute ago, I saw it.”

            “He deleted it,” said Robin.

            “Well, get back online.  Tell him he wins.  Tell him to put it back.”

            “No.”

            “What do you mean no?  Are you crazy?  It’s a game.”

            “Not to him.”

            Lea leaned forward and grabbed Robin’s shoulders.

            “Tell him I’m sorry I said he was a homo.  Tell him I’m PMS-ing.  Tell him I’ll screw him if he puts it back.”

            Robin stood up and Lea let go. 

            “I’m telling him to go straight to hell,”  said Robin.

            “You’re right,”  said Lea.  “We’ve still got the window.”

            She ran to the curtains that her aunt had sent her as a moving-into-the first-apartment present and yanked them wide open.  Instead of looking out onto the street, Lea stared at a blank wall.

            “That prick,”  she shouted,  “that ever-loving prick.  He took our window.  I hate him.  To hell with sucking up.  Let me at him.”

            Lea turned, pushed Robin aside, plopped into the ergonomic chair that sat before the computer, and began to woodpecker the keyboard.   Voice recognition was for AOL users.  So she typed and she typed and Robin leaned over her shoulder trying to keep up.

            “Will that really work?”  asked Robin, pointing at the code on the screen.

            “He had me going, he really had me afraid of his shit for a minute.”

            With an elegant flourish, she circled both hands over her head, jammed them straight down at the keyboard, hammered out a few more lines of instruction, then said,  “Eat fire you bastard,” and hit the “Enter” key.

            Rad Kastle hooked his thumbs underneath his wife beater t-shirt, leaned back in his chair, and put his feet up on his desk.

            “Come on, you sluts,”  he said.  “Your move.  What’s the matter?  Bucket of putrid testosterone?    Is that what you called me?  Come on, beam me up Scotty, I got a spaceship to run.”

            He laughed, reached over, picked up the Coke can and chugged down the last third of sugar-laced carbonation.  The aluminum folded over on itself as he clenched his hands into a fist.  With an experienced arc of his arm and a flick of his wrist, the crumpled can flew through the air and landed in the trash bucket near his desk. 

            “Two, two, two,”  he grunted.  “Two points male, nada for the bitches.”

            “Yeassssss,”  he said dropping on the floor to one knee and giving the power fist victory salute above his head.

            As he leaned back his head to give an animal belch, he bent over suddenly and grabbed his stomach.

            “Oh, Jesus, oh God,”  he said.  “God that’s rancid.  Shit, I must have dropped a smoke in it and left it in the can.  I swallowed a Marlboro.  I’m going to die.” 

            Rad folded his arms across his stomach and almost, but not quite, puked.  He could feel his stomach roil and broil like he was birthing an alien.  A gastric acid wave crested in his innards causing him to groan and fold over into a kneeling fetal position, but it passed before it could erupt up his throat and explode through his mouth and nostrils.  Instead it left him with that didn’t-puke-but-I-can-still-taste-it zero gravity nausea feeling, and he struggled to his feet and pulled himself along the edge of his desk past his computer to get another can of Coke to nuke the awful taste.  He needed one with the pull top in place so he would know it was safe.

            As he reached for the Coke, he read what was on the screen.

            “Ex-Lax?”  he choked.  “They put Ex-Lax and pepper juice in my Coke?  I’m going to rip their electrons out of their orbit.  I’m going to─.”

            A volcanic eruption built up in his bowels and Rad tried to beat Seabiscuit’s time to the porcelain bowl finish line, running with his butt cheeks squeezed together as hard as he could.

            “This is war,” he yelled over his shoulder as he burst into the bathroom that opened off his bedroom.

            He slammed the door shut behind him and unbuckled his belt.  His zipper went down an inch and then stuck like it was welded into place.

            “Oh shit,” he said,  “Oh no.”

            “High slap,”  said Robin.

            “You mean high five?”  asked Lea as she lifted her palms to meet Robin’s with the sound of a ruler hitting a desk.

            “High slap, high five.  Who cares?  You toasted, absolutely toasted his ass.”

            “Right there in black and white,”  said Lea pointing at the screen.

            “Excellent.  Now get out of the chair; it’s my turn next.”

            Lea stood up to walk back over to sit on the edge of the bed, but glanced up at the wall as she did so.  She shook her head and ran her fingers through her hair.

            “I can’t take this,”  she said.

            “What?”  asked Robin.  “We’re winning.  You showed him we’re better than he is.”

            “We still don’t have a door,”  said Lea as she jerked one thumb at where the door used to be.  “Or a window,”  she added as she jerked the other thumb at where the window used to be.

            “Yeah?  So what?”  asked Robin.  “Like we’ve got somewhere to be?  At least we’re not running around holding our asses like he is.  Cayenne and Ex-Lax in his drink?  That was outstanding.  Very G.I. Jane.”

            Lea plopped back down on the bed, coming to rest with her elbows holding her a little off the comforter while she reached over grabbed a pillow and wedged it beneath her head.

            “It’s his turn next,”  said Lea.  “He’s got to be dying.  This is going to be war.  I shouldn’t have acted so butch.  What’s he going to throw back to us?  It’s his turn again and maybe this time he’ll do something nastier than putting evil little monsters in the wall and deleting any way for us to get out of our room.”

            “Better grab that book anyway,”  said Robin, as she looked at the screen.  “Nothing going on yet,”  she said.  “He must still be trying to put a water hose up his butt to put out the fire.”

            Lea giggled, then she pulled her knees up and wrapped her arms around them.  “I can’t.  You do it.  If another one comes through the wall I don’t want to get near it.”

            Robin spread her hands.  “How can you be so tough when you’re mad, but such a wussy the rest of the time?”

            Lea rocked back and forth, but didn’t answer.

            “I hate this game.  It’s like something the devil invented,”  she finally said.  “I can’t believe it really works.  Whatever he types in happens to us.  Whatever we type in happens to him.  What if he types us in dead?”

            Robin shook her head.

            “Against the rules.”

            “What if those monsters in the wall tried to kill us?”

            “I don’t know.  I’d bet the game wouldn’t let them.”

            “Who is this asshole we’re playing?”  asked Lea.

            “Some creep.  One of those fifty-somethings that sits in his home office hiding from his wife stalking college co-eds on the Internet.”

            “A stalker.  He’s probably a gothic axe-murderer.  Some lecher in his sixties who doesn’t put on underwear when he plays on the web.  You should have never talked dirty to him.”

            “It’s not my fault if he’s a creep,”  said Robin.

            “How come we can’t make another move until he does?”

            “You know.”

            “Yeah, yeah,”  said Lea.  “Rules of the game.”

            Robin nodded.

            “What if we just close out?”

            “He wins.”

            “So?”  asked Lea.

            “Then he gets one wish.”

            “Shit,”  said Lea.  “You’re the one who read the rules.  What happens if we just save the game?”

            “Whatever happened during the game is permanent.  That’s the rules.”

            Lea looked at the wall that used to have a door.

            “We’re screwed,”  she said after a minute.

            Five minutes passed, but nothing happened.

            “Come on you old pervert,”  said Robin.  “Your move.”

            Rad stood inside the bathroom door with his head propped up against the knob.  He tried to straighten up, but each time he lifted his head, his lower intestines did the coiling python dance.

            “They’re going to get it,”  he said.  “Soon as I can move, I’m getting me some serious revenge.  I’m going to have the demons of hell strip their clothes off and rape them.”

            If he had just remembered to bring his cigarettes with him into the bathroom.  He needed something to calm his nerves.

            His hands were sweaty and his ass burned like he had launched a space shuttle out his rear end.

            “Think you’re so smart,”  he said from behind clenched teeth.  “Think you’re too hot for me?  Well I’m the king of role-playing games.   There’s not an RPG I can’t beat, including this one.  Nobody takes me down.  I’m going to show them who they are dealing with and they will seriously shit their pants.”

            Ten more minutes passed.  Robin clutched the book, ready to squash the life out of whatever evil little monsters he sent them.

            “You really must have blown his butt out,”  said Robin.

            “This game is scaring the crap out of me.  I’ll never play this thing again.  Ever,”  said Lea.

            “If I ever even look like I’m going to download a game from www.rpggamerwar.com again, cut off my fingers,” said Robin.

            “Website’s not there anymore,” Lea reminded her.

            “That,” said Robin, “should have been a clue.”

            Lea looked at the wall where their door used to be.  “Too late now,” she said.

            “Come on, you perverted old lecher,” said Robin.  “Give us your best shot.”

            Rad finally straightened himself up and taken a deep breath.  His insides were quieting down.

            “Time for devastation,”  he said.

            He was about to turn the knob and go back into his bedroom when he heard an unidentifiable noise, then a door squeaking on its hinges.

            “Oh shit,”  he thought.  “It’s the old lady.”

            “Rad?  Rad?  Are you in here?”

            He said nothing, but flicked off the bathroom light switch and stood waiting in the dark, his knees shaking and his nose filled with the thick, greasy odor of puke.

            “What’s that smell in here?  Oh, you bastard.  You’ve been smoking in here, I can smell it.  You can’t cover it up with this air freshener on your desk.  You’re in trouble, mister.  And you’re still on the Internet.  And beer?  Damn your white ass you’re going to be an alcoholic. It’s this being on the Internet all hours driving you to this.  I’ll take care of that right now.  I’ll fix your ass.  I’m yanking this out cord and all and taking this here computer out to the curb so’s the garbage men can take it away in the morning.  See if I can’t get a little work out of you around here.”

            She was yanking what out cord and all?

            More noises, more banging.

            “There,”  she said,  “You can just stay in that bathroom if you like it so much.  I’m taking this whole computer with me and throwing it in the trash.”

            There was a loud click beneath his hands and he realized that she had locked the door.  It had come with the lock on the wrong side and he had always meant to fix it to protect his privacy.  He imagined her thick arms hauling away his reason for living.

            “Wait,”  screamed Rad.

            The bedroom door closed behind her.

            “You cut me off- now they win.  I can’t believe you, you bitch.”

            He beat the door with his fist.

            “How could you do this to me?”

            Rad kicked the bottom of the door as hard as he could.  He was about to kick it one more time when his stomach started grumbling again.

            “Son of a bitch,”  he said as he reached for his belt buckle.  “I can’t take this.  When I turn thirteen, I’m going to live with dad.”

            “Oh my God,”  squealed Robin.  “You’re not going to freaking believe this.”

            Lea covered her face.  “Don’t.  Don’t tell me.  It’s been twenty minutes and it’s like he’s vanished.”

            Robin spun around in the chair like a top.

            “Yeah, but I’ve been in the help files,” she sing-songed,  “and according to the rules, the time limit between moves is only thirty minutes.  Ten more minutes and we’ve won, girl.  The perv is a toaster.”

            She stopped the chair so that it was aimed at Lea, and held her palms toward her.  Lea slid over and flat slapped them.

            “You’re kidding,”  she shrieked.  “Then what happens?”

            “Huh?”  asked Robin.

            “Move over,”  commanded Lea.  “Let me at those help files.”

            Robin hopped out of the chair and let her friend sit down.  Lea whipped the mouse around and clicked it a few times like she was counting out time.  Her head bobbed back and forth like she was listening to an invisible mp3 player.

            “Well?” asked Robin.

            Lea’s head stopped mid-bop.

            “This is wrong,”  she choked.

            “What?” demanded Robin.

            She leaned over Lea’s shoulder and read the text on the screen.

            “That can’t be,”  she said.

            “It can’t happen,” said Lea.  “The loser dies?  He can’t die.  No Gamemaster has that kind of power.  It’s just a game, isn’t it?.”

            Lea turned her chair and was looking past Robin.

            “Well Christ on a pony that just can’t happen,”  said Robin.  “It’s just a game.”

            After a moment, Lea said,  “It made monsters come out of the walls and disappeared our door.”

            Robin turned around and looked at the blank wall that used to be their door.

            “It’s just a game,”  she whispered.

            “We’ve got to get the perv back online,”  said Lea,  “or he’s dead.”

            Rad opened the bathroom door.  His face, round as a full moon and just as pale, was blanched and splotched intermittently with red blooms.  He stayed still for a moment, one hand on the doorknob and the other propped against the doorframe.  Like a zombie heading for a “Night of the Living Dead” shoot, he lurched forward to the Holy Ground of his computer desk.

            “Steady boy,” he said. 

            Step by unsteady step, he advanced toward the defiled altar.  Where the monitor had once stood tall and proud, he saw only candy wrappers, dust balls, and bent paper clips.  The electronic cowboy hat that he pieced together out of spare widgets and gadgets and a trip to the truckstop lay upside down and crushed on the floor like the broken crown of a vanquished Western king.  His mouse and keyboard— the scepter and orb of his digital world — had been hijacked by the Queen of Big Time Wrestling fans, and his desk look like a vacant pressed-wood parking lot the night after a concert.

            His stomach was on low boil and he burped acidic fumes as he placed one hand on his desk, then levered himself into his chair.  The desk was felt cool against his forearms as he lowered his head down to rest on the back of his hands and closed his eyes.

            “Shit,” he muttered.

            His head felt as hot and sweaty as an armpit.  He closed his eyes and swung his left foot forward.  The tip of his tennis shoe stopped with a soft metallic thunk.  His right eye opened.

            “No way,” he said.

            He swung his left foot forward soft enough to check if a big dog was alive, but not enough to wake it.  His foot stopped against a smooth, flat service.

            “Five dollah, five dollah, five dollah,” he grinned.  “Got everything you need in daddy’s bag of tricks.”

            From a launch position with his palms pressed against the edge of the desk, he sent his chair spinning backward in looping circles.  On the third spin cycle, he slapped his feet against the hardwood floor.  He threw his hands forward. His fingers splayed wide apart, he leaned his head back and howled, “You are healed.”

            Underneath the desk, its green power light shining like a tiny Christmas light, was his computer.  His mother had only taken his monitor, his keyboard, and his mouse.  He had a closet full of those. 

            Five minutes later, Rad had his mouse and keyboard attached and his monitor fired up.  He knew there was a time limit in between moves, so his fingers hovered like ten chick-heads preparing to peck for keyboard corn.  The monitor flared into life and he was about to unleash his counterattack when he read the message on the screen.

            “Well?” demanded Robin.

            “Nothing.”

            “That dumb fuck.  Maybe he’s already dead.”

            “Nope,” said Lea.  “Five minutes to go.”

            “We killed him,” said Robin.  Her eyes began to water.

            “Hold it,” said Lea. “We have a response.”

            “Crap” she said, wiping her forearm across her eyes.  “And I was going to cry for him.”

            “I just can’t figure this,” said Lea.  “What do you think?”

            Robin leaned forward and read the message sent by the their opponent.  It read:

Truce. 

Don’t freak out.  We’ve been had.

Something’s wrong with the game.

We’re in deep shit here.

For my turn I’m sending you my hat.

For your turn, you girls wish me and my computer to show up at your place.

Make sure you wish that my computer’s wireless modem is

instantly connected to your router.

That way I’m hooked to the Net and the game doesn’t kill me for disconnecting.

P.S. I could have beat you if this was a real game.

Rad

            “His hat?”  asked Robin.  “Why the hell is he sending us his hat?”

            “Forget that,” said Lea,  “is he stupid enough to think we’d wish him here?”

            Robin stared up at the ceiling for a moment and got that high-wire look on her face.

            “What?” asked Lea.

            Robin looked back at Lea and, with an evil little grin on her face, said,  “Let’s do it.  Let’s wish him here.”

            “Are you crazy?” asked Lea.

            “Yep,” said Robin.

            She told Lea what she had in mind.

            Rad’s hat disappeared from his desk.

            “Am I good or am I good?” he asked his room.

            He had beaten the thirty-minute time limit by about thirty seconds.  When he had read the last message from his opponent, he knew he was in deep trouble.  The change in game rules had tripped his wire. 

            Rad scanned the room and tried to fix the details of his life in his mind.

            “Should have smelled the bullshit the moment I opened that email,” said Rad.  “’Play the best Role Playing Gamers in the world.’  Should have known, should have known.”

            He drummed his fingers on the desk.

            “Come on, girls,” said Rad.  “Do the trick.  Get me out of here.”

            A minute passed, then another.

            “Come on, you sluts,” he said.  “Do it.  Make a wish.”

            He heard a heavy thud at the base of the stairs outside his room, and he darted his eyes toward the door.

            “Raaaaaadley,” his mother bellowed and his bedroom door vibrated as though getting ready to explode.  “Get your lily-white ass down here.”

            “Uh-oh,” he said.  “The witch woman cometh.”

            He got up, ran to the card table next to the side of his bed, dumped a pile of clothes, two CD’s of naked women photos and a quantum physics textbook off of a folding chair and onto the floor, then headed to his bedroom door.  With a scissoring maneuver he folded the chair closed and jammed it under the doorknob.  He stepped back and considered his makeshift lock— it wouldn’t hold against his mother’s bulk.

            “Come on girls,” he breathed.  “Wish me out of here.”

            He jumped back a foot when he heard his mother’s cantaloupe size fist pound on the stairway wall three times, as though she were summoning the demons of hell to burst through the floor of his bedroom and carry him screaming down the stairs.  He shuddered and looked around for something else to block the door with, and his eyes fell on his desk.  Like a ragamuffin Dutch boy looking to plug a dike, he ran back to the desk and was about to start pushing it toward the bedroom door when he remembered that the computer power cable was run through a hole in the desk’s back panel.  If he moved the desk, he would unplug the computer and automatically default the game.

            “Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered.

            Rad looked around the room and saw a vanilla colored three-shelf bookcase, and ran toward it.  Like a senior citizen shoving a shopping cart toward the sale aisle, Rad put his shoulder into the effort and moved it in fits and starts until he gained enough speed to slam it up against the door.  Books spilled off the shelves and he dove to the floor to pick them up and shove them back into place.

            “I’m coming to get you little man,” thundered his mother.

            “Piss on you,” said Rad in a subsonic whisper.

            “I heard that,” screamed his mother.

            “You did not,” yelled Rad. 

            His mother had huge shoulders and bulging arms and legs the size of construction barrels, but her ears were the size of flattened dandelion heads.

            “Fee, fi, fo, fum,” howled his mother, “I’m coming up to beat your bum.”

            “Oh shit,” said Rad.  “Where are you guys?  She’s going to kill me if you don’t save my ass.  Get me out of here.”

            From down the stairway he heard a sound like a bowling ball dropped from an airplane hitting a step.  It happened again.  It sounded closer.  It, the Terror from Beyond the Trailer Park, was coming for him.

            Rad reached over, flicked the light switch downward, fumbled his way through the dark until he reached his desk, and then crawled under it and closed his eyes.

            “He’s a freaking kid,” yelled Robin.  “He must be thirteen years old.”

            She continued to hold the brass curtain rod over her head like a Samuari ready to behead her captor.

            Rad opened his eyes and looked up at her.

            “You did it.  You saved me,” he said.  “You did the trick.”

            “You’re not safe yet,” snapped Robin.

            “And I’m twelve.  I’m not thirteen yet.  But you must be a 34 double D.”

            Robin turned to Lea.

            “Did he just say what I think he said?”

            “I think the little creep did,” Lea answered.

             “Wow,” said Rad.  “Amazon twins.”

            He was about to say something else, but stopped when he looked down in shock at his hands.

            “You wished handcuffs on me,” he said.  “Get them off.  What are you, crazy?”

            Robin whacked him on the behind with the curtain rod.

            “How do you like that?  Crazy enough for you?” she demanded.

            Rad tried to get up from his knees and make a break for it, but he made it no further than a foot when his forward momentum stopped and he dropped to the floor.

He hit the carpet with a thunk, then rolled on his side and looked back at his feet.  He saw an iron ball the size of a small car tire secured to two leg manacles by a thick iron chain.

            “Going somewhere, little boy?” demanded Lea.

            “You’re out of your feeble minds,” yelled Rad.  “We’re going to die if you don’t get me out of this.”

            Robin turned to Lea.

            “I think he needs another whack on his scrawny little ass, don’t you?”

            “Two,” said Lea.

            Rad rolled over on his back and held out his handcuffed hands.

            “Look,” he said,  “we don’t have all night.  The game is going to kill us.”

            “And why,” asked Robin,  “would the game want to do that?”

            “All right,” said Rad,  “maybe just me.  It’s after me.  You’re just girls.  It’s not afraid of you.”

            Robin’s eyebrows shot up.

            “Just girls?”

            “Young women?” ventured Rad.

            “Let’s flip him over on his stomach and flail his ass,” said Robin.

            “Freaking little chauvinist,” said Lea.  “Do your parents know you talk trash on the web?”.

            “You two don’t have a clue what’s gong on, do you?”  asked Rad.  He sat up and looked around in a panic. 

            “What?” asked Robin.

            “My computer,” said Rad, falling back onto the floor after seeing it plugged into a wall,  “I thought you forgot to wish my computer over, but hallelujah you remembered.”

            “We’re going to send you and your computer right on back to where you came from,” said Lea.

            “You can’t do that,” said Rad,  “my mother will kill me.  And I mean permanently kill me.  She’s insane.  And she doesn’t have a clue what’s going on either.”

            Robin waggled her curtain rod at him.

            “Once chance,” she said.  “You get one chance, little boy.  If you know what’s going on with this game, you tell us now or you’re going back with a few more welts on your ass.”

            “Can you take this crap off me?”  asked Rad, holding out his handcuffs.

            “No,” Robin and Lea said in unison.

            “You got any pop?”  asked Rad.

            “He’s like my freaking little brother,” said Lea.  “He won’t shut up unless you give him sugar.”

            Robin slapped her curtain rod against her leg.  “We want our door back,” she said.

            “Your door?” asked Rad.  “Oh, yeah, your door.  Sure thing, but you’ve got to help me.”

            “First you tell us what’s going on,” said Lea.

            “You got that pop?” asked Rad.  “And no diet, okay?”

            The two girls looked at each other.

            “You get it,” said Robin.  “I’ll stay here to flog the prisoner if he gets out of line.”

            The refrigerator, no taller than a double file cabinet, sat on the far side of the room.  As Lea walked toward it, Rad’s eyes stopped blinking so that he wouldn’t miss a single second of her rear-end in motion.

            “You got something to say?” asked Robin

            “Your friend sure has a great ass,” he said.

            “What is wrong with you?” exploded Robin.  “You’re only twelve years old.  You act like you’re some kind of a dog-in-heat-superstud, but you’re not even a teenager yet.  You’ve still got pimples.  You don’t even shave yet.”

            “When you’re naked, do you ever take pictures of yourself?”  asked Rad.  He held his breath while she stared at him.

            “You’re disgusting,” she said. 

            Lea walked back with the diet pop and said, “What?”

            “He says you’ve got a nice ass,” said Robin.

            “Yeah, I heard that,” said Lea,  “but I brought him a drink anyway.”

            She leaned over to hand it to Rad.  Her loose top with the scooped neckline fell away a bit as she leaned forward.  She pulled the can back from Rad when he held up his manacled hands.

            “Oh you poor baby,” she said,  “let me pop your tab.”

            “Are you feeling all right?” asked Robin.

            “She’s feeling fine,” said Rad.  He kept his eyes on Lea’s t-shirt neckline as she leaned over again with the pop-can.  “Leave her alone.”

            “Here you go,” cooed Lea.

            She worked the pop-tab ring loose with her right thumb and forefinger and gave it a yank as he reached up for the can.  It popped came away with a carbonated burst of cola spray that hit Rad directly in the forehead.  His hair drenched with soda, and a wet caramel stain spread down the front of his white t-shirt.

            “You bitch,”  he screamed.

            Robin and Lea howled, hugged each other, and danced around in a circle.

            Rad started to cough and spit since pop had gone up his nose, into his nasal passages, and was dripping down his throat.  Lea and Robin paid no attention until they heard him start a pre-retch ritual that sounded like a septic pump sucking sludge.

            “Don’t do that,” yelled Robin.  “O man, don’t do that you little shit.”

            Mount Rad erupted in with a shattering blast of noxious gas that forced its way into the girl’s nostrils lake an invading army of stench.  They covered their faces with both hands then ran together into the bathroom and slammed the door closed behind them.

            “Ahhhhh,” breathed Rad, as he turned on his sides and grabbed the edge of the bed’s comforter and began to rub his face and chest dry.

            When he had cleaned himself up as best he could, he spent a few minutes checking out his new environ.  The pitted iron ball bolted to his leg chain looked like it was an antique wrecking ball.  His ruined electronic cowboy had lay on the floor next to his computer.  His keyboard called to him but he couldn’t come out and play because he had a gazillion pound ball chained to his ankle.  On the plus side, he still felt slightly woozy, but was definitely less nauseous. 

            “Hey girls,” he called out after a few minutes had passed.  “This wouldn’t be a bad place if you had a door and a couple of windows.”

            The bathroom door cracked a half-inch and he heard one of the girls call, “You’ll pay for that one, you little shit.”

            That would be the one, he thought, with the wiry hair.

            “When we wish you back where you belong,” said the other voice.

            That would be the one, he thought, with the great butt.

            They were cute, but clueless.

            “Can we talk about this?” he asked.

            “No,” said the one with the wire-hair.

            “We’ve got to,” said Rad.  “We’re in deep trouble here.”

            “You’re in deep trouble,” said the other.  “We’re doing just fine.”

            “No,” said Rad,  “we’re all in deep trouble.  The game isn’t going to let any of us live. When it’s done with me, it won’t want any witnesses.”

            “Bullshit,” said the one with the wire-hair, but she opened the bathroom door.

            “Prove it,” said the other.

            “How much time do we have left?” asked Rad, and he sat up looking around at the walls.

            “For what?” asked the one with the wire-hair.

            “Before I die,” yelled Rad.  “You two made the last wish and I’ve only got thirty minutes all total to make the next wish.  And that’s if the rules are still the same.”

            The two girls came out of the bathroom and walked toward him, sniffing the air as they came.  The one with the wire hire moved to the computer desk, sat down, and began typing.  The other looked down at Rad and shook her head.

            “So you’re the Perv,” she said.

            “What’s your name?” asked Rad.

            “Lea.”

            “Lea what?”

            “Never mind, you little creep.”

            “Do you come here often?”  asked Rad.

            “What?  You are the weirdest kid.”

            “Who’s the sexy one with the hair?”

            “I’m going to strangle you when this is over,” said Robin over her shoulder.

            “Tie me up first,” said Rad.

            “Do your mom and dad know you talk like this?”  asked Lea.

            “She hits me if I swear,” said Rad.  “And her arms are like both of your legs put together.  My dad’s not around anymore.”

            “Then why do you swear?”

            “It pisses her off.  But she’s got to catch me.  It’s like a game, sort of.  An RPG where you get busted up if you lose.”

            “Kind of like now,” said Lea.

            “Yeah, like this,” agreed Rad.

            “Twelve minutes,” called Robin.  “You got twelve minutes to make a decision.”

            “Twelve minutes.  But I’ve got to get to my keyboard first, so could like one of you get me out of these handcuffs and legcuffs or whatever they are?”

            “First tell us what’s going on,” prompted Robin.

            “It’ll take too long,” said Rad, “and you’ll never believe me anyway.”

            “Eleven minutes,” said Robin.

            “Okay, okay— just bring my hat over and take a look inside it.”

            To Rad’s surprise, neither girl objected.  Robin went over and got the hat, and both she and Leah sat cross-legged in front of him.  Ahhh, he thought, the joys of tight shorts.

            “So what are we looking for?” asked Robin.  “All I see here is a bunch of smashed electronic stuff inside of a hat that looks like it came from Mr. Science’s head.  You trying to build your own robot or something?”

            If it weren’t for the ball, the chain, and the manacles, Rad would have barracrawled over to sit on her lap.  He could listen to her talk down to him all day.  Even if she was missing a few brain cells.

            “No,” he said,  “it’s my Portal Hat.”

            “You made that up,” said Lea.

            “Yep,” said Rad, “I sure did.  I never had a name for it.  All the wiring and stuff is part of the last present my dad ever gave me before he left town.”

            “Let me guess,” said Lea, “with his bimbo secretary.”

            Rad sneezed and wiped his nose on his forearm.  “Some dispshit chick shot a blast of carbonic acid up my nose.”  Before Lea could say anything back at him, Rad added, “He didn’t leave with anyone.  He was just afraid of my mom.  She’s like this huge hunk of woman and he’s this little wimpy runt guy and I don’t even know how they did it to make me.  I mean—.”

            Robin held up her hands.  “Don’t, okay?  Just don’t go there.”

            “You’d rather hear about the hat?”

            “Yeah,” Robin told him, “and the game.”

            “I’m not real comfortable here,” said Rad.

            “You’re running out of time,” said Lea and pointed up to the wall clock.

            The clock was as digital as Times Square.  Eight minutes left til death.

            “Here it is,” said Rad.  “Before my mother stepped on it and turned it into a piece of shit electronic pancake, I used to put that thing on my head, hook it up to my computer, and pop off into the Internet.”

            “Like a virtual reality helmet?”  asked Lea.  “So what?  Big deal.  What’s that got to do with anything?”

            “No,” said Rad, “it turned me into a bunch of electronic signals and moved me into the rodeo world of digitalized reality.”

            “You are one weird little kid,” said Robin.

            “Six minutes,” said Lea.

            Rad looked up at the clock and suddenly felt his blood began to crank through his veins.  “It’s true.  I can’t tell you in everything in the next six minutes, but the big deal is that the game is alive.  There’re all sorts of life forms wiggling around the energy world and most of the main ones just hate my ass.”

            “This is so lame,” said Robin. 

            “Unlock me and let me take my turn so the game doesn’t toast me,” begged Rad.

            “We don’t have keys,” said Lea.

            “What?  What do you mean you don’t have keys?”  He held his manacled hands out like a supplicant asking for grace and the chain links clinked and clanked like a ghost from Dickens.  “I’ll never vote for a woman president when I grow up.  Do you have a hacksaw?”

            “Well, no,” said Lea.

            “And we can’t go get one because some little asswipe disappeared our door and all the windows,” added Robin.

            Rocking back and forth as though he were a toy horse, Rad cried,   “Enough already.  I’ve got four minutes left and then it’s going to make me dead.”

            “Maybe we could ignore the deadline and see if the game does anything,” said Robin.

            “What?  Like killing me?”  yelped Rad.  “My mother is sane compared to you.”

            “Let’s move the computer to the end of its cord,” suggested Lea.

            “Too short,” said Robin.   “We could stretch him out to make it work.  We can’t move the ball and chain, but we could stretch out animal boy until his fingers reach the keyboard.  What do you think?”