WeeklyStoryContests           ... Theme 2 ... "Good Badguy" ... (2K) ... Due Mar. 02nd, 2018

NOTE: There is mild language and a disturbing scene in this short story. Please be advised.

Tanner worked and worked the lock until it finally gave the telltale click she'd been wanting to hear. Without hesitation, she slipped into the darkened apartment and silently closed the door behind her before any residents in the apartment complex could see her. It was pretty late and chances were slim that anyone would be up and around. But, even so, not knowing if she'd be caught or not, made her feel nauseous.

Once safely inside the vacant apartment, Tanner leaned her shoulder against the wall for support and slowly let out the breath she'd been holding. Her hands were shaking so badly this time around that she wasn't sure she'd be able to do it. Now that she was in she felt almost giddy. The maddening thing was, she didn't have any trouble shooting someone in the head at point blank range but she fell apart whenever she had deal with the stress of time-sensitive jobs like picking bloody locks. Tanner groaned inwardly. There was something seriously wrong with her.

While she was bemoaning her quirks, an unusual sound caught her attention in the vacant apartment. It was a strange sort of gurgle. Something about it made her pause and when she heard it again she wasn't sure whether to freak out or to speed dial Kenny. Her mind was suddenly flooded with creepy images from all the paranormal shows she'd watched earlier in the week! Gawd, she hated that stuff but at the same time she couldn't get enough of it. Now she regretted sitting through the paranormal TV marathon that had been on a couple nights ago! She peered into the dark hallway and shivered.

The gurgling sound came again and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Crap! This was more than she could handle on her own. She fumbled in her jacket pocket for her cell and speed dialed Kenny. He didn't pick up. She texted him and kept one eye on the screen and the other on the unfamiliar hallway as she waited for the cell to buzz in her hand. A text never came. Tanner cursed under her breath.

She didn't have time to be playing ghost detective though. She had to set-up and wait for the kill shot. The contract was time sensitive, which meant she didn't have time to waist standing at the doorway all night waiting for the gurgling to stop. She had to keep moving. Whatever it was, she would deal with it when she got to it.

For now, she slipped her cell back in her pocket, slapped on her night vision glasses and pulled out her LC9s from her shoulder holster. Her backpack shifted and she readjusted it before moving from the apartment door.

Tanner took a deep breath, exhaled slowly and then advanced down the hall making sure to check and clear the small apartment closet directly to her right and the little empty apartment kitchen on her left. The closet and kitchen were both clear and she felt a little relieved. Maybe the gurgling was just in her head - some sort of stress-induced audio figment (or phantom). She gave her head a little shake. It was time to get serious, get herself together and get the job done. Otherwise, Kenny was going to start thinking she was losing her edge.

Tanner took in a fortifying breath and exhaled slowly. This was all routine. There was nothing strange going on. She had nothing to worry about. She kept repeating this to herself as she passed the kitchen and got closer to the living room. Only, before she reached the end of the hall she heard it again - the gurgle. She hesitated. When her cell buzzed in her pocket she nearly screamed and gave herself away!

It was a text from Kenny. It read, "What the hell?"

Tanner looked at the screen and felt confused. What was he complaining about? She'd called him a dozen times before while on a job about things that came up (okay, never paranormal crap but still!). How was tonight's job any different? What was he so ticked off about?

She tapped the screen and wrote, "Something is up." She wanted to send some angry emojis but knew that was seriously unprofessional. Even if it was just Kenny.

Her phone buzzed almost instantly with his response, "Get it DONE!"

Tanner frowned deeply. Kenny was a real jackass when it suited him. If the roles had been reversed and he was facing some weird gurgling sound in a vacant apartment that the two of them had already cleared, well, he'd be having second thoughts too. It just wasn't her fear of the paranormal kicking in here. It was her instincts. Something was wrong. She wasn't alone.

Even so, she slipped her phone back in her pocket with a little curse. It was time to advanced a little more. The hallway opened up into a spacious open dinning and living room. There were two large windows and a glass sliding door on the opposite side of the room. Even on the 5th floor, far above the street lights, the city's lights shone through the broken and trashed vertical blinds illuminating the room as if there were a full moon on display. Tanner scanned the empty room. There was nothing and no one there.

Whatever was gurgling had to be coming from the hallway with the bedroom and bathroom. Tanner adjusted her goggles and her backpack before taking another deep breath, which she exhaled as slowly as all the rest. Whatever it was, she told herself, she could deal with it. She kept repeating that over and over to herself as she inched forward slowly and silently until she found herself in the little hallway.

She stopped to listen. The gurgling sound was louder and it was definitely coming from the bedroom. But, before entering it, she first cleared the bathroom. There was nothing and no one there. She exited the bathroom and hesitated at the bedroom door.

It was open and she could look in but she could not get a good look at the room itself. All she could see was a narrow strip of carpet and a large window on the exterior wall. The bedroom wall, to the right of the bedroom door, was not flush with the door. There was a 3 foot wide wall there, which enclosed the closet, and it prevented her from having a full view of the room. If she walked in, she'd be walking in blind on the right side.

It was risky when she didn't know who or what waited for her inside the bedroom. However, the window on the exterior wall let in all kinds of light because the blind on the window was as broken and useless as the ones out in the living space. So, whoever or whatever was in the room couldn't hide in a dark corner and take her unawares. Tanner was just going to have to suck it up and slink along the wall to the left of the bedroom door until she could get a better look at the room. Instead of exhaling this time, she sucked in a deep breath and held it.

She hoped to God her cell didn't buzz. If it did she was going to lose it right then and there because the gurgling sound was so obvious now that her skin crawled. Whatever the hell it was, it was holding her up, and contracted hits were serious business. She didn't have time for anything ghoulish!

With trembling legs and shaky hands she stepped in, slowly, and inched her way along the adjoining living room wall until she could get a good look at the room. Clear, she thought with relief as she pushed herself further along the wall.

She held her LC9s out in front of her with the safety off and her trigger finger ready in case anything jumped out at her. She still had to clear the bedroom closet, which was one of those huge 'his and her' closets with the sliding mirror doors. But, a rush of cold air swept over her and she froze.

She barely turned her head and looked at the window again from the corner of her eye. The vertical blinds danced a little. The friggin' window was open! Her instincts were right. She really wasn't alone! Tanner immediately whipped her eyes back to the closet and saw it. The source of the gurgling.

It was a young female - maybe a teenager - and it looked to Tanner like the girl had botched a suicide attempt. Crap! The girl was still alive and she was the source of the gurgling sound or, more precisely, a choking sound. Tanner holstered her gun, took off her night goggles and dropped her pack on the floor by the closet. Then she came forward. The girl was looking directly at her. Her eyes were pleading with Tanner to help her.

Tanner let out her breath in a whoosh as she knelt down near the girl. It looked like the poor thing had tried to hang herself from something in the closet. Only, it appeared that the material she used, some kind of wire maybe, had actually sliced through her neck rather than strangling her. She was lying in an awkward heap, on the floor, holding her fingers to her neck and trying to keep herself from bleeding out. There was probably blood everywhere but it was difficult to see in this light. Tanner could just see the blood on her fingers. Her fingers were dripping with it. It looked like the girl was only half there but she was still clinging to life, despite her suicide attempt. Tanner felt compelled to help her.

Normally, if the site was compromised, Tanner would take care of it. She'd put a bullet in the intruder's head and consider her/him collateral damage. However, Tanner couldn't kill this girl. It wasn't that she hadn't killed women before or even teenagers. Sometimes teen's stumbled into rooms they had no business being in and Tanner had taken care of them with a bullet like she did everyone else who got in the way of her target. She was a contract killer after all. Killing came surprisingly easy.

But, it was something in the girl's eyes that did it to Tanner. Usually people pleaded with their eyes for Tanner not to kill them. But this girl was pleading with Tanner to save her. It was different - fundamentally different. And Tanner just knew in her gut, if she didn't try to help her, she wouldn't be able to live with herself. Those eyes - that look in them - would haunt her day and night until she died. Tanner shivered. She was terrified of being haunted.

Fumbling in her jacket pocket, she got out her cell. She texted Kenny. "Site compromised. Had to abort." He was going to be so pissed at her and her phone was going to be buzzing like crazy for the next half hour. But, what was done was done. Tanner wasn't turning back now.

She slipped her cell back into her pocket and reached back for her pack. Out of it she grabbed her spare T and her untraceable cell. She pressed the T against the girl's neck to help stop the bleeding while she made the call to 911. She'd stay till the paramedics got there and then she'd slip away before the police could question her. She'd melt away into the hustle and bustle of a Saturday night and the police would never be able to track her down because there was no surveillance and no cell-phone trail.

Slipping away was the easy part. Watching a teenager die right in front of her was the gut-wrenching part.

The 911 operator was suddenly speaking in Tanner's ear. "911 emergencies."

Tanner responded. "I need an ambulance."

(1996)