Today, I offer you a free preview of my story, “Adam
Mahoney, You Just Won!” If you read it and are intrigued, you can purchase the
full electronic version here.
Other stories are also available:
Note: When you purchase one of the stories, you can download
and read it on the Kindle app on your computer or phone; you don’t have to own
a physical Kindle.
Adam Mahoney, You
Just Won!
By Jay Colle
Chapter One
Adam Mahoney was a
tall man, too long for his bed, which reduced sleeping to a necessity and
rarely a joy. He had developed a habit of waking up one minute before his alarm
released its peal, a habit so ingrained into his daily routine that he had
forgotten what his alarm sounded like. That explained why one particular
morning in August the piercing whine that woke him sent a shock through him so
complete that he lost control of his senses as well as his bladder and,
subsequently, soaked his sheets. He was so disoriented that he had said “hello”
three times into the phone receiver before he realized the racket was coming
from his alarm clock. After slapping the night stand aimlessly for another few
seconds he finally found the box and mashed every button until the screaming
stopped.
It took him several
minutes to calm down, aided by deep, cleansing breaths and several long draws
on a cigarette, at which time the full impact of the wake-up call registered
and, as his heart rate calmed, he began the process of cleaning up. He stripped
his bed of all the linens and was relieved to see there had been minimal
soak-through on his mattress. He gathered the large wad of sheets and headed
toward the washing machine that was sharing space with the kitchen pantry on the
other side of the house. As he crammed the offensive mess into the washer’s
opening, he stripped off his clothes and added them to the load. He dusted the
soap powder on top, closed the lid and moved toward the kitchen, naked and in
dire need of coffee and another cigarette.
He started the
brewing process, pulled a chair away from the dining room table and dragged it
into the kitchen, setting it in front of the counter where the coffee was
starting to gurgle and hiss. He sat down, lit a cigarette, leaned forward and
rested his chin on the countertop, watching the slowly filling glass canister
two feet away. As he stared, the adrenaline from his earlier scare finally
released from his body and a flood of tired washed over him. He drew on the
cigarette but its usual medicinal effects weren’t enough to cut through the
haze. His eyelids began their shutting flutter and he gave in, just for a few
seconds, until the final growl and wheeze of the coffee maker alerted him it
was time to drink. He stood, ground out his cigarette in the sink and opened
the cabinet door directly above the coffee maker, grabbed a large mug and
reached for the sugar. He liked to add the sweetener first and let the hot
liquid obliterate the crystals when they met at the bottom of the cup. He
thought the sugar never evaporated as well if you dropped it into a full cup
although he had no proof beyond his experience to prove it was true. Instead of
his fingers hitting the metal of the sugar container they grazed against paper,
an envelope resting against the container, white and clean, the size of a
greeting card. It startled him not because he rarely received mail, which was
true, but more because he hadn’t left the card there. He was sure of it.
He picked up the
envelope and saw his name on the front in a fancy script, obviously handwritten
with care and skill. “Mr. Adam Mahoney,” he read aloud. “Well, that’s me, but
where the hell did this come from?” He rifled through his memory, trying to
remember if he had been handed the envelope elsewhere and had absent-mindedly
left it on the counter but he knew even as he walked through that mental
exercise he had nothing to do with the letter or card or invitation. That meant
someone had snuck into his house and placed it there, which wasn’t that big of
a surprise since his hometown was small and his neighborhood was safe; locking
the house was more of an afterthought than a necessity. He turned the envelope
over and chuckled as he saw that it had been sealed with red wax, an
unintelligible imprint of an official looking seal embedded sloppily off
center. “Fancy,” he said as he turned it to a severe angle, manipulating the
light to hit it in such a way that he could see it better and possibly read it.
Unfortunately, there had been too much shift when whoever created it had mashed
the seal into the wax. It offered no clues about its origin.
He set the envelope
down, dropped two spoons of sugar in his cup and poured the coffee. He wasn’t
one to rush into a mystery and this definitely qualified, at least in his life.
Ever since his divorce he became even less spontaneous, a process his ex-wife
believed was emotionally impossible. His lack of improvisation was, according
to her, one of the contributing factors to their breakup. She never could
understand that, after spending full days in a cubicle answering phones at the
customer service desk at the plant, he had no burning desire to stretch his
wings, go wild, cut loose. She was much more social than he and it had been a
constant struggle to please her. But even she might agree this seemed like a
great situation to practice some discipline. So he enjoyed his coffee and was
content to just stare at the paper intruder.
He finally set down
his nearly empty coffee cup and picked up the envelope again. He turned it over
and gently pulled at the flap, cringing as the paper lost the battle with the
wax, ripping between the seal and the crease. As he lifted the folded sheet of
paper out of the envelope he caught a faint whiff of strawberries and assumed
the papers were scented. “Must be from a girl,” he thought and that brought a
slight, knowing smile to his face. “Not bloody likely.” He set the envelope
down and unfolded the paper that had been stuffed inside. The contents were not
at all what he was expecting, if he was expecting anything at all.
Dear Mr. Adam Mahoney,
This letter is to inform you that you are now the
last man standing on earth. As of four this morning (E.S.T.) your planet has
been wiped clean of all human life by a small group of extraterrestrial beings,
aliens if you must, though we prefer the term Squatters. We were bored and
wanted to see what would happen if we left only one person on a reasonably
functional planet such as your own. You can consider it a science experiment
except that we aren’t scientists, just satiated, super-intelligent beings
looking for something to do on a Saturday night. We did you a huge favor by
disposing of all of the bodies because to not do so would have been uncivilized
and, quite frankly, a bit gross. One other thing, when we referenced “human
life” earlier in this note we, unfortunately for you, are including the female
of your species as well as all animals. Yes, you really are “it.” You are on
your own and we wish you the best of luck as you survive. Good luck and we’ll
be watching.
P.S. In case you were wondering (but why would you?)
there is a small wager amongst us on how this little experiment will conclude
but we will try to refrain from influencing your decisions. Our sense of fair
play will, hopefully, overrule our competitive and individual desires to win.
You can only hope…
Adam was confused
and then amused as he read The Note. It was handwritten but he didn’t recognize
the script, which was beautiful and meticulously rendered. He was convinced it
was a joke but he could not imagine anyone in his life clever enough to come up
with the idea much less pull it off. Certainly no one at work would have done
it and, unless the delivery guy from Tony’s suddenly had a burst of
motivation—and he could barely look him in the eyes during transactions—that
crossed off the people from his anemic social life. He glanced at the clock
over the stove and realized it was too early to call anyone and see if they had
been included in the joke so he decided to take a shower and deal with it after
he was clean and dressed. On the way to the bathroom he stopped to turn on his
computer so he could check email before he left for work.
After showering,
Adam lit a cigarette, walked over to his desk and sat down to see if he had
received any overnight emails. He double-clicked his browser icon and was
surprised how fast it loaded onto the screen. “It’s not that early,” he
thought. “But no complaints. Good for me.” His inbox flashed up on the screen
almost before he had finished selecting the link. “They must have upgraded the
lines,” he reasoned. “This is damn fast.” He finished checking his messages in
less than five minutes and glanced at his watch to make sure it wasn’t too
early to call someone and ask them about the prank letter. It was 7:30 so he felt
comfortable contacting a co-worker considering they all had to be at work at
eight, just like himself. He tried Peter first but he had apparently left for
work early so he left a message on his answering machine. Blaine didn’t answer
either, but he usually went to eat breakfast at the diner before work so there
was nothing unusual about that. As a last resort he called his mother, sure she
would be home because she never went anywhere. His heart rate began
accelerating with each unanswered ring and for the first time a small finger of
dread reached up and poked his belly. “This is ridiculous,” he said. “I can’t
believe I’m feeling like this. Mom’s probably in the bathroom.” He hung up the
receiver and lit another cigarette.
He moved through the
house and out the front door, deciding to check in with his neighbors. It was
now less about the letter and more about seeing a smiling, familiar face.
“Hell, at this point I’d accept someone grumpy.” He walked through his front
yard, ignoring the damp grass coating his bare feet and hopped over the
two-step landing to the front porch of the Harrison home, his long time
neighbors to his right. He knocked on the door and waited. There was no sound
coming from inside the house, a strange silence for a family with three
children under eight, but he pushed down any negative thoughts and rang the
doorbell; he would apologize if he woke up one of the babies. After two long
minutes and several doorbell rings he decided they weren’t home. “I think they
mentioned to me they were going out of town,” he thought. “I just didn’t
realize it was this week.” He walked quickly to the neighbor’s house on the
other side of his property, knocking politely and waiting. After two more
knocks and three doorbell rings he started becoming concerned. “Why didn’t
anyone tell me they were leaving town?” he asked out loud, a little too loud,
not expecting an answer.
As he jogged across
the street to see if the Broughton’s were home, something stopped him, an
internal brake that sensed things weren’t right. He stood still and listened
for a moment and realized there was nothing to listen to. No dogs barking, no
trucks on the interstate, no churning of school busses or squealing delivery
vehicle brakes. He had never heard it so quiet, anywhere. It wasn’t right, the
silence, it was too thick and still. Something was wrong but he refused to let
his mind drift toward the contents of the letter and sprinted to the front door
of Phil and Sue Broughton’s home. He rang the doorbell, pushing it over and
over with his thumb, simultaneously banging on the front door with his fist.
“There’s no way this can be true, it’s ridiculous. There has to be a logical
explanation.” He kept repeating that thought, trying to convince himself but
knowing with each beat on the door it wasn’t working. Then, just as the quiet
had stopped him in his sprint, a brilliant thought flashed into his brain and
he dropped his hands, turned and looked toward his house. “Television,” he
thought. As he ran across the Broughton’s yard and into the street he yelled
“Television! Television!” unconcerned about waking any of his displaced
neighbors, convinced that seeing live, talking news people would finally poke a
hole in the charade.
He bounded through his front
door and threw the sofa cushions onto the floor, searching for the remote
control. When he found it he wheeled around and aimed it toward his television,
hands shaking, ready to be right. The black screen flickered and light grew
from the center to reveal a commercial for floor cleaner, its existence proving
nothing. He fumbled with the numbered buttons on the remote, trying to push the
correct sequence for one of the 24-hour news channels but he was flustered and
it took three tries before he was successful. In mere seconds he wished he
hadn’t been. On the screen was an empty news desk, no anchors, no people on the
phone behind them in the newsroom and obviously no one manning the camera which
had tilted to the left, creating a strangely cropped view of the empty studio,
cutting off what would have been the tops of the heads of the happy anchors.
The only sound was the remote control hitting the hardwood floor as it slipped
out of Adam’s hand.
© 2012 Jay Colle
