Unexpected Rival

Next day, Alan arrives at the address on the perfect time. The place was a deep underground basement of a public library. As he descends down the stairs, he finds the place totally dark with no lights. He walks around and keeps his pistol in his hand.

All of sudden, the blue lights turn on. He gets alert and looks around where he finds George standing in front of him. He looks at him pretending to be calm,

‘Look George, we both can deal with our matter ourselves, let Christina go.’

‘Alan, today, you’ll see someone new and unexpected, who is actually your real rival behind every task.’

‘Whom are you talking about?’

‘About me!’ a familiar voice replies from behind.

Alan turns around and sees his elder brother Raymond standing in black clothes and with a little beard grown. Alan gets more shocked than ever and feels like a heavy thunderbolt in front of him.

‘You’re alive? But Alfred and this guy killed you, no?’

‘Alfred killed me? What a joke!’ he taunts, ‘I will tell you a true joke to laugh on…’

‘What sort of a joke?’

‘The day you and Alfred confronted each other in order to get me killed, I learnt about my murder task from my personal security guard whom I had kept to follow you, so that I could get reported of your each and every move…Then after a little time, George came to murder me but I gave him a word that I would give him three times more sum of money than you were giving him, only if he would help me kill both of my twin brothers. Now, I wanted an unusual way to get you arrested by the police, and Alfred made my work easy by spending a day with your girlfriend, breaking up with her and by fighting her brother, enforcing you to kill him. Another evening at 8:00 sharp, I went to Alfred’s home, thanked him and shot him on his forehead. After killing him, I kept that pistol in his hand and at sharp 8:20 I left his apartment’s building.’

‘Unbelievable man!’ Alan says touching his forehead, ‘so, I thought that it was Alfred who was behind your death,

but actually you were behind his murder. So, did he knew

that George had double-crossed him.’

‘The last thing he came to know before his death was about this betrayal. Okay then, I told George to get arrested by that Inspector if he arrests you, which actually happened and then narrate them the true story of both the twin brothers. The main purpose was to make them believe that you were actually Alfred. This plan failed, so I decided to go for plan B which was to kidnap your girlfriend and then take the perfect revenge.’

‘You’re a very cunning animal,’ Alan sighs, ‘I appreciate your intelligence. Anyways what do you want from me?’

‘I want your dead body, I didn’t want this, I just wanted my brothers to give up their bad work. But they didn’t agree and instead turned on me so I decided to…’

‘…Shut up!’ Alan interrupts calmly, ‘You didn’t want us to give up the bad work, you only wanted us to live a distressed and miserable life without earnings and luxuriousness. You were jealous.’

‘You know you are a very good observer because you’re absolutely right…’

‘So, you were following me since long even before I met Christina and knew that I was a tramp, and so turned me into a scamp.’

‘Alan!’ George calls him from behind.

Alan turns around and sees Christina tied up with ropes and lying on ground with George aiming his pistol on her forehead. He gets angrier but remains calm and looks towards Raymond.

The Brothers Wrestle

‘Raymond, I know you can kill me very easily, but I suggest you to make it a little interesting. You know what I mean, let’s just give me a chance, you fight with me and if I win I’ll go out safely after killing George.’

‘Hey!’ George exclaims from behind.

‘And if I lose you can do whatever you want to do with me and Christina, what do

you say?’

‘What do you mean by what he says?’ George yells angrily.

‘Shut up George,’ Raymond replies, ‘I like his suggestion’.

‘Okay good, now to win this fight, the player has to break any body joint of his opponent’s body, like his elbow or knee. Use of weapons is allowed.’

‘Oh! you sound tough, someone’s going to cry today.’

‘Let’s begin on,’ Alan says taking off his shirt.

‘You’ve got biceps and triceps, but you’re slim unlike me.’

‘Shall we?’

‘Match begins now!’ exclaiming this Raymond kicks his chest.

Alan fells on ground, but stands up with a back flip and punches Alan hard on his left eye. Raymond gets back and is about to fall, but manages to stand. Alan jumps higher till Raymond’s chest and hits him on his head with his elbow.

As Raymond fells, George gets angrier and thinks of shooting Alan, but stops and watches Raymond bleeding from head. Raymond stands up aggressively and hits Alan on his face with his own hand. Then he punches him thrice wildly on his left cheek. Alan gets a little weaker and fells.

George drags a chair close to Raymond. Raymond puts Alan’s right foot on the chair that his leg gets straight. He keeps his foot on his knee and decides to break it. All of sudden, Raymond’s other leg is kicked by Alan’s left foot. Raymond fells, and Alan stands up. As he stands up, he first pushes away George and then kicks Raymond on his face. He grabs him from his shirt and beats him till he gets more injured.

Meanwhile, George rushes towards Christina and aims her with his pistol. Alan runs after him and pushes him that he falls on ground. Alan quickly unties Christina and makes her run towards the exit. He picks up George’s pistol and walks towards Raymond, where he shoots him on his both knees. Raymond cries out in pain.

‘I told you, use of weapons is allowed.’

As he says this, Raymond’s two hit men come in front of Alan and aim him with their pistols.

‘Put your hands up,’ Raymond orders him in pain.

Alan angrily throws away his pistol, and puts his hands on his head.

All of sudden, some police officers enter inside the room from where Christina was entering and start showering bullets on them. Another cross fire takes place, but during this cross fire, Alan runs and picks up his pistol and targets his brother from a little distance. Then, he stops and goes near to him where he was lying. Saving himself from bullets, he goes nearer and says to Raymond,

‘I can kill you now as easily as a hunter can hunt animals. But I won’t do that, because we’re the same blood and if I shoot you, then there would be no difference between you and me…So, I’ll let you go in police custody which is your actual place, good bye!’

Saying this he kicks him badly on face. Alan escapes the place and runs towards exit.

Christina sees someone running towards her, but because of the smoke and dusty atmosphere she can’t see him properly. So she calls him,

‘Come on, Alan! let’s go!’

As she says this, she sees him getting shot from someone behind her. As she turns around it was Mr Jack. She realises he had avenged her boyfriend by killing him. So, instead of running towards the dead body she runs away on the staircase. Where she sees Inspector Kevin entering inside. She keeps on running weeping out thinking about Alan shot dead.

Whereas Inspector Kevin reaches the last step of the stairs, Jack aims him with his pistol from behind and says,

‘Coming events cast their shadows before, which you should have observed while the girl was running.’

‘That running girl once told me,’ Alan says from behind aiming his head with his pistol, ‘hope for the best, but prepare for worst.’

‘You’re alive Alan?’ he asks angrily getting surprised.

‘Unfortunate for you, the guy you shot was George not me.’

He shoots Mr Jack on his forehead.

‘Thanks for saving me but right now you must leave, this is police operation.’

Alan slowly walks away, seeing the crime world for the last time, waving it good-bye.

Scamp to Lamp

Next day, while Christina was packing her bags and stuff weeping since morning, a doorbell rang outside her home. She wiped off her tears and went towards the gate. As she opened the gate, it was Inspector Kevin. He said to her,

‘Good morning, Ma’am!’

‘Yes, how can I…’

‘There’s someone who wants to meet you.’

‘Who is it?’

‘The wild scamp!’ Alan exclaims interfering them from Inspector’s left side.

‘Alan you’re alive?’ Christina asks happily getting astonished, ‘I knew it, I swear to God, I had a doubt.’

‘Your sixth sense was right.’

‘I know someone else might have been shot, but look at you Alan you’re looking so weird, with bandages all over on your face.’

‘Identity of a scamp, this time I’m proud of being a scamp.’

‘Scamp? A trouble maker?’

‘Yes ma’am,’ Inspector says to her, ‘a scamp is someone who creates trouble wherever he goes, but he is a special scamp because wherever he creates trouble, he comes back alive with success, which is a very rear case.’

‘Anyways, sir, it was a nice adventure with you,’ Alan says to him, ‘Thank you for the job, now we can live individually. And if you need me please ask for help without hesitation.’

‘Sure!’

They both shake hands, and Inspector Kevin leaves.

Alan and Christina soon get married. Alan for the first time earns his livelihood with drugs but legal according to laws of his country. And now, they never had a chance to deal with the crime world because Alan now was neither a tramp nor a scamp, but a sort of lamp for patients.

***************

As he finished reading the story, he felt quite amased. He kept on thinking about the story and while thinking, he went to sleep.

He woke up the next morning and opened the next chapter where the new story started entitled, ‘The Suicide Game!’

He began reading it:

The Reality Show

Megan says:

‘This is what happens in my show, both the contestants who dare to perform my final challenge die. Likewise, it happened with Isaac and Ronald. One of them died attempting the challenge and the other one died getting hanged.’

Story goes back several weeks earlier.

In an unnamed city, Megan Smith a host of a dangerous reality show is sitting at her studio. Her show is about to begin in few minutes. However, she is talking to one of the contestants,

‘In my show, people come to die and return back to live. Many competitors have also died intended to commit suicide or not…Everyone like you guys knows that there are two players in this game: A and B. If B dies, then A dies getting hanged by the police.’

Moments later, she is standing with her team at the seaside. Her team has cameramen, few competitors, the sponsors of the show and two women standing in front of them. Of those two women is a dark coloured who was labelled A on her shirt. And a brunette, who was labelled B.

A contestant locks B contestant’s arms with handcuffs and ties her legs with chains. After Megan fires her pistol on air, the competition begins, A pushes B that she fells over water side with her tied arms and legs. The cameramen shoot the video of water where B might be drowning. However, one of the cameramen records Megan’s speech. Megan speaks to audience,

‘Now, we have two possibilities, either both of them will die or they both would survive and B would win. If B drowns and dies then A shall be hanged. And if B manages to escape, then B would win and shall be given her desire as promised by our team.’

Moments later, the brunette girl who was B comes up all wet and her legs are still tied but her handcuff’s chain was broken. The entire team gets surprised and claps for B. Megan smiles and says:

‘As expected!’

An hour later, when the show was over, and was getting packed up, J.L. a man with long hair but small height comes to Megan and says:

‘So, how was it today?’

‘Just like every time, nothing seemed new to me.’

‘Come on escaping death of water drowning is not that simple.’

‘I know the method behind,’ she replies, ‘anyways, the point here is that no one has yet escaped suicide game’s final challenge. Either people have not attempted this one or if anyone has, B dies facing the challenge which results in A’s automatic death.’

to be continued...