5A Story Contest

     So there was the last question – “Where is your family?”

     He’d been told at some point, but that was before the testing began. Each test five questions. Something thrown in to throw him off, always. Each time he was thrown off… wasn’t good.

     His hand, poorly bandaged, blood dried brown, throbbed. He stared at it. Where was his family? He considered it again. They had told him… before the testing began. He tapped his foot, impatient. The pain that shot up his leg was almost unbearable. Another failed test. The answer to each failed test told him about the trouble. “What is the most vulnerable nerve ending in the human foot,” “What happened to the last man?”

     “Where is your family?”

     Only four possible answers:

1. Dead
2. Apartment 5A
3. Corner of 1st and Adams
4. Freight Line Shipping Warehouse

     There was a connection between the answers. Something he should see. But without sleep, drugged, days into this ordeal. Who were these men holding him again? Why did they have his family? Why did they want to hurt him? He’d gotten in trouble for asking these questions before. He wasn’t supposed to ask questions.

     He stared at the test again. The other four mindless questions, weather, math, trivia and then that fifth question… like all the other fifth questions. Insidious, the one that decided his fate. And he wasn’t getting them right.

     Maybe I’m not supposed to get them right, he thought. Maybe there was no right.

     But they watched him carefully, through that camera, maybe behind that mirror. Hard to know because of the faint flash of the broken strobe light, the disorienting, discordant music that never stopped. He’d seen this done to men once. He’d known this was done to men since. He hadn’t been on this side of it before. But now he was. And he remembered nothing.

     Except he had to answer this question.

     Some kind of mystery, some kind of connection. They probably weren’t dead. That had to mean something else. The apartment? Is this where he lived? Where these men lived. The street corner? Is this where he was snatched? Is this where everything went wrong? And Freight Line? Something about his answer… heavy with implications. But the corner? A tease about getting out.

     The time slipped by. And he had to answer. He guessed, like most other times. Number three. The corner. It felt right. It was where they wanted him to go. The names… Adams, 1st… it felt… was Adams the first. Were they telling him…

     His time was up. He guessed three. 1st and Adams.

     He set his test down. A voice spoke over a speak, “Ready?”

     The man nodded.

     The voice read the answers. Nothing important until the fifth… and then.

     “Only the first two answers mean anything to you. And the correct answer…. Apartment 5A.”

     His family probably didn’t have long. Let it be quick.

Tags: Let it Be Quick, sandra and mouse

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 5:25 pm and is filed under Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.