Fun and Games

8

I’m kind of a big deal.

—Will Ferrell, Anchorman

THE KNOCKS were rapid-fire gunshots that echoed loudly in the big, empty top floor. Hardie hated to admit it, but his entire body did an involuntary jolt. So did Lane’s. Their heads both whipped around at the same time. Hardie stood up from the toilet seat. He felt blood trickle down his chest.

“Okay,” Hardie said. “You stay here.”

Lane grabbed him by the wrist with both hands and pulled him toward her.

“No! This is where you leave, and then somebody kills you, and then they come in after me. Don’t you ever watch movies?”

Hardie rolled his eyes.

“Could be a neighbor, coming to see if the power’s out.”

“Could be the people, oh, I don’t know—trying to kill me! Look, neighbors don’t talk to one another up here. They certainly don’t go knocking on one another’s doors.”

“I’m not going to open the door. I’m just going to take a look through the peep-hole.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“What?”

“You put your eye up to that and they’ll shoot you through it. Blow the brains out of the back of your stupid fucking head!”

No, Hardie wanted to tell her. That is not how they do it. They don’t knock, they don’t get all clever with peepholes. They just pull up to your front door and shout your name and open fire and take away everything you’ve ever cared about…

“Wait here,” Hardie said.

Hardie didn’t have a real weapon, and the kitchen was utterly disappointing. He opened a drawer and saw nothing more lethal than a bunch of plastic utensils from takeout joints, still sealed in plastic. Freeze or I’ll spork you to death, motherfucker. He’d feel better with something vaguely deadly in his hands. He checked another drawer, then another. Best Hardie could find was a little plastic corkscrew, ninety-nine cents at finer liquor emporiums everywhere. But not exactly deadly. The thing would probably shatter in his hands if he tried to use it.

There were three more knocks—just as loud as the first three.

Lane limped into the kitchen, steadied herself against a counter.

“Promise me you won’t open the door.”

Hardie slid the cover of the corkscrew into a hole on the base. He tucked it between his fingers. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. If things got ugly up close, at least he’d have a shiv.

“Promise me!” Lane repeated.

Hardie told her to please be quiet, and to go hide somewhere and leave him alone for a minute. Let him do his job. Which was protecting this house.

First Hardie checked the front windows, angling his head around so he could see the entranceway to the house. Was there someone— one of THEM!—crouched down, waiting to pounce? Or maybe a guy with a knife in the shrubs along the concrete pathway? Or maybe someone suspended above the doorway, Tom Cruise/Mission Impossible–style?

No.

Instead, Hardie could see a courier van, big-ass Dodge Sprinter, parked in front of the house. A delivery dude in polo shirt and shorts, clipboard in his hand. And Hardie’s missing bag, leaning up against the delivery guy’s leg.

Delivery Dude looked around, knocked again. He looked impatient and sweaty. Dude had the look of a hangover about him, and Hardie was pretty damn near an expert on them.

Lane appeared by his side. Scared the fuck out of him.

“Who is it?”

“Delivery guy,” Hardie said. “He’s got my bag.”

“What bag?”

Hardie craned his neck for a better look. Certainly seemed like his bag. The right color and design. The white airline tag stuck to the handle, fluttering in the breeze. And there was the telltale sign: a Spider-Man without a head. His boy had slapped a sticker on there years ago. The head came off; Spidey’s body was left behind, now fused to the fabric of the bag and drained of almost all color thanks to months of constant travel. Hardie left it there because it helped him ID his bag when it came off the carousel.

His bag. Brought by the airline, as promised.

Not Them, Delivery Dude.

Hardie walked back to the vestibule and squinted through the peephole mounted in the middle of the door for a better look. He was either a delivery guy or a hired killer. Us or Them. As if to answer, the guy called out—

“Delivery!”

—and knocked again, as if it were the last time.

Could he be one of Them? Lane said it would be easy for them to dress up in uniforms and pretend to be cops, or whoever they wanted. No big deal to scrounge up a big ugly truck, a clipboard, and a goofy-looking polo shirt. But then, where did his bag come from? What, was the airline in collusion with these killers?

No.

The very idea was ridiculous, and Lane Madden here—well, clearly she had some issues with reality. She wouldn’t be the first actress to have that kind of problem. Hardie felt lighter; this could all be over in a minute. Not only did Delivery Dude have his bag full of underwear and T-shirts, but he probably had a way of communicating with his dispatcher. LAPD could be up here in a matter of minutes, and then Lane Madden would become their problem. See you in the tabloids, honey.

(Delivery Dude could also have a Glock tucked into the waistband of his cargo shorts and be waiting for you to open the door to give him a clear target! Remember what happened last time someone called out for you, and you looked outside?)

“What are you doing?” Lane asked.

“Saving you from Them.”

“Goddamnit, no!”

Hardie put his hand on the door handle, took a breath, then pressed the latch with his thumb and pulled open the door.

The device mounted on the door frame was called a wasp’s nest.

Nothing fancy, really. You simply mounted it at face level, set the trigger mechanism, and then you were good to go. All the target had to do was open the door, and, boom—load in the face.

The load, though… now, that’s what made the wasp’s nest fancy.

The spray was a weaponized poison that rendered you unconscious within a second, then killed you about a minute later by temporarily shutting down the part of your brain that regulates your heart. After it finished its job, the poison broke down into little untraceable pieces of nothing. A coroner could order all the tox screens he wanted but wouldn’t find jack shit.

And the targets almost never saw it coming.

Something clicked and hissed—

PSSSSSSSSH

—and Hardie felt cold drops spray his face. Even before his brain could form the thought, his body knew something was Real Fucking Wrong. His hand fumbled with the door handle and he felt crazy-weak all of a sudden, overcome with chills and drowsiness, and he didn’t know what was happening, screaming NO NO NO at his mind as if he could talk it out of shutting down and