Tom Schreck - Out Cold

"We have the knowledge of what's going on-no one but Newstrom seems to know or care," Karl said.

"Which is why he cares about us. We know what he's up to, but everyone thinks we're nuts. Why does he even bother with us."

"We're loose ends. He's military, he hates loose ends," Karl said.

"So why not just kill us, make us disappear and be done with us?"

"He might do that, but think about it Duff. You're reasonably well known and I'm your client. If we both turn up dead for no good reason, there will be questions asked. It's not efficient." Karl petted Al's head while he talked.

"So you think his goal is to eliminate us while he has his gang of misfit kids go Columbine on McDonough."

"That seems to be what he said. He would prefer it if I just killed myself. Then he might not have to do the other stuff here."

"Do you think he believes you'd do it?" Karl looked down at Al, thinking.

"There was a time I would've, and it was when he knew me. He could still believe I would," Karl said.

"Could we fake your suicide and get him off our backs and maybe save ourselves and McDonough?"

"How do you fake a suicide? We'd need help and everyone who could help thinks we're nuts."

"Yeah." I stopped pacing and looked Karl in the eye. Al opened his eyes for a second and furrowed his brow. Then he closed them and rolled over on his back.

"So if Newstrom's goal is to take us out and do a Columbine at McDonough, what can we do?" I said. The room got quiet while we both thought.

"Duff?" Karl almost whispered.

"Yeah?"

"We can get him another way." Karl stood up.

I looked at him and waited.

"Look, he's used to getting what he wants. Shit, he's good at getting people to do what he wants. He's committed and he does what he sets his mind to. His goal is to get us out of the picture and get his Columbine. It's all about efficiency."

"Yeah, so?"

"Sometimes you got to go with the flow." Karl smiled.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"We set ourselves up."

"Huh?"

"We make killing us and the school thing easy." I stared at him wondering how nuts he really was.

"Look, Duff, we send him a message that we're going to be there to foil his plans and he'll have to kill us to make it happen. Give him what he wants on a silver platter." Karl started pacing in the living room too. It made for a tight space. "That way he'll come for us and we'll be there knowing he's coming."

"So we somehow get a message to him saying we're going to stop him and he'll react and come for us. We tell him we're going to protect McDonough or something like that and he'll know exactly how to plan everything."

Karl broke into a smile.

"Can we get the message to him?"

"Yeah, I can get it to him easy enough with a call or two. He'll be waiting. It won't be hard." Karl was excited about his revelation.

"Karl, so we'll flush him out by making it easy to kill us and do his school project at the same time?"

"Yes!"

"You mean make ourselves sitting ducks?"

"Exactly," Karl almost shouted.

The kid with the bad skin pulled out a rifle and shot me in the center of the forehead. Blood ran down my face and in into my eyes. My chest hurt. The second kid, the shorter one, pulled out his own gun and shot me in the chest. Blood poured out of me but I still stood.

Jamal is saying to me I'm nuts and nothing is really happening, it is really all inside me. As he speaks to me he is shot in the head and though half of his skull is exposed, he continues to talk to me like nothing's happened. Blood continues to come out of my head and get in my eyes to the point where it is getting very hard to see.

Jamal keeps on talking, asking me what's wrong with my eyes.

My heart feels like it will implode inside of me. Then, the first shooter, the zit kid is right in my face smiling.

"Duffy, you've gone crazy, you know," he says.

A piecing sound and a wet swipe across my eyes made me look up. Al is sitting on my chest telling me to stop dreaming. He looks like he's hyperventilating and concerned.

"I'm all right, Al. Take it easy."

Al flopped off of me and headed to his chair to keep an eye on the sparrows.

Nightmares suck. In fact, they suck so much that not sleeping is almost a better option. That is until you get about three days in a row without any sleep at all and you feel subhuman.

Subhuman or not, I needed coffee. Taped to the Mr. Coffee was a note from Karl.

I'm going to make contact with Newstrom. Wish me luck. I can't wait until we get the bastard.

K.

That's great. I was about to go to war with a guy who has a lifetime of espionage and dirty military tricks up his sleeve. I bet he wasn't sleep deprived or having creepy nightmares about zitfaced kids shooting him in the face. The other great thing, my partner in all of this, good 'Ol Karl, who I kept kind of forgetting was certified Looney Tunes. Currently, he was supposedly out to make contact with an agent of worldwide terror and corruption. The fact Karl might be wearing his Redskins helmet didn't give me a ton of solace. My coffee was only marginally better than the job's. Just not having to drink it within the proximity of the Michelin Woman probably accounted for the improvement in the coffee's taste. I called in again and said I would be faxing a doctor's note, which was a lie, but one I was confident I could get around. I flipped on the TV and went to one of the cable news networks. I could tell by the graphics and the reporters something out of the ordinary had happened.

A reporter who looked half-black and half-Asian tried to keep an ear piece in while he posed in front of what looked like a high school. The graphics underneath him said "High School Slaying Outside of Nashville-Three Known Dead." The reporter got his cue to speak.

"This is Karl Bendorf, in Crawford, Tennessee, where there are reports of a Columbine type assault on Crawford High School. Information continues to come in. Already there is conflicting information about what has occurred. One report is three students dressed in trench coats opened fire on a library filled with students, killing three and wounding several others. There is one confirmed death. A school employee named Elaine

Fogarty was fatally shot in the face. There are other reports that as many as ten students have been killed but the report has not been verified. I repeat, it has not been verified…" Crawford, Tennessee? I didn't even know there was a Crawford, Tennessee. Did somebody get their information twisted and do the wrong crazy terrorist act? Is it just some sort of bizarre coincidence? I had no idea what to think. Almost as if on cue, the phone rang. It was Karl.

"Where the hell are you?"

"I tried leaving messages for Newstrom with my contacts and left word for him to contact me. So far I haven't heard anything yet," Karl said.

"Have you been listening to the news. There's been some sort of shooting at a High school in Crawford, Tennessee."

"What?"

"You heard me." Silence came from the other end of the phone. After a long pause Karl came back on.

"That's a mistake, a coincidence. It just can't be Newstrom."

"How can you tell?"

"It just doesn't fit."

"You know, Karl, a lot of shit doesn't fit."

"Hang on Duffy, I'll be home in an hour, and we'll make a plan then."

He hung up. I looked at Al. He furrowed his brow and lay down to go to sleep. The whole thing didn't seem to make much sense to him either.

I sat around the house waiting for Karl to come back and wondering where the hell he would go to meet the elusive, ghostlike Newstrom. Karl wanted to keep this one to himself. For whatever reason-probably my looming insanity-I respected his wishes.

Around 1:30 he pulled up in the El Dorado.