The Minnesota Candidate (19 page)

Slowly, Shari opened the door. The trapdoor in
the floor hung wide open. From the bottom came the sound of women
screaming. The sound was music to Shari’s ears.

Marie’s arm was broken, or at least she thought
it was. Doris was just happy that she was alive. Marie had ordered
Doris to stand on the end of the steamer trunk and to try pulling
herself out of the hole. Doris had tried, several times, but she
wasn’t strong enough to pull herself up. Finally, the steamer trunk
crumpled under her weight. “Oh shit,” grumbled Marie, “I suppose
you’ll have to keep tossing the crowbar and see if you can hook
something else.”

And Doris had given it a try, but she hadn’t
retained a good grip on the pant leg and the entire contraption had
sailed clear of the hole. Marie cursed Doris a blue streak for her
stupidity. When she finished, Doris moved to the other side of the
pit, making sure she bumped Marie’s bad arm in the process. Marie
howled in pain and Doris felt better.

Marie continued flicking her disposable lighter,
but it eventually died and the women were left whimpering in the
blackness. Legions of sand fleas chewed on their bare flesh as the
rats returned to the darkness. Doris and Marie took turns screaming
obscenities, praying that someone would eventually hear them. And
then the door opened above them and light spilled down upon them.
They both leapt to their feet and the women began to squeal for
help. Doris recognized the light as the beam of a flashlight and
she covered her bosom as it swept over her.

And then Shari stood over them. “Hello ladies,”
she said, cheerfully. “Fancy meeting you here?”

“Fancy nothing,” bellowed Marie. “Get us the
hell out of this damn hole!”

Shari laughed at that and it sent shivers up and
down Doris’ spine. “Oh please,” Doris moaned, “we’re dying down
here. Have pity on us.”

“Have pity on us?” asked Shari. “Wait a minute,
let me try and get this straight. You dug through my underwear
drawer to find the keys to my parent’s house.”

“She did it!” cried Doris, pointing to
Marie.

“Shut up!” shouted Shari. “You knew I didn’t
want anyone in here, but you had to get in here, didn’t you?
Stealing from me wasn’t good enough for you, was it?”

“I didn’t steal from you,” groaned Marie.

“Like hell you didn’t. I found my jewelry under
the bed you slept in!”

“It was a joke, can’t you take a joke? I was
going to give it back to you.”

“And what about you, Mommy Dearest; I suppose
all of those things you stole from me were only a joke, too?”

“Yes, yes, of course it was all a joke. Shari,
we’re old women, how else do you expect us to get our fun?”

“Oh, so you two strip down to your panties and
break into other people’s houses for fun?”

Doris turned her head in shame. “You don’t
understand,” she sniveled, “we had to burn our clothing.”

“Are you going to help us out, or what?” asked
Marie. “Because if you don’t I’m going to call my lawyer!”

“Go ahead and call him. You know, maybe that’s a
good idea. You call your lawyer and I’ll call the police and we’ll
let the courts figure this out.”

“Shut up, Marie!” shouted Doris. “Don’t you know
that honey is thicker than vinegar?”

“Oh my,” chuckled Shari, “I’m not even going to
touch that.”

“I don’t have any honey left,” growled Marie.
“Just get us the hell out of here! My arm is broken and I need to
get to an emergency room!”

Shari put her hands on her hips and smiled. She
had absolutely no intention of letting them off the hook, not yet.
She was going to teach these war horses a lesson they would never
forget.

chapter 15

Tom waited at the window and watched as a
Minneapolis police cruiser rolled through the lot. The car looked
as if it had just run in a demolition derby. “The police are here,”
he shouted. Tom was anxious to give his statement and he jogged
over to the door. But when he got there, the police car was already
speeding down Lowry Avenue. Tom watched in disbelief. When he
turned around to comment, he found another man had joined them. Tom
thought he bore a striking resemblance to Bruce Lee.

The man was dressed in a white shirt over a pair
of khaki slacks. “Did you see that?” he asked, staring at Tom,
angrily. “They just drove away.”

“I know,” said Tom, “I was standing right here.
I can’t believe it.”

“You had better believe it. I’m sorry, but we’re
not going to be able to take you home. My dad meant well, but we
just can’t risk it.”

Tom was about to say that he would call a cab,
but then he remembered that the phones weren’t working. Tom wanted
to go home, even if that meant going back to his mother’s house. “I
suppose I’ll have to walk,” he said. “Will you unlock the
door?”

“Are you on drugs? No, I’m not going to unlock
the door and you aren’t going anywhere. Haven’t you been listening
to the radio?”

Tom shook his head. “I haven’t seen the news
since last night.”

“Oh shit,” sighed the man, “this is going to
take a while,” he offered Tom his hand. “My name is Mike Louie, but
everyone calls me Louie.”

“Nice to meet you, Louie; Tom Picacello, I’ve
been working on my mother’s house and haven’t heard a thing. What
the heck is going on?”

Louie shook his head. “Do you know what jihad
means?”

Tom shrugged his shoulders. “That’s like a holy
war, right?”

Louie grimaced, but he nodded his head. “In a
nutshell, that’s what it means, but there are a million different
levels when we’re talking about jihad. I don’t have the time to
explain them all to you. Let me put it this way: followers of Islam
see jihad as a sacred duty to God. Jihad is the daily struggle to
live a good life and to defend their religion. It’s about
committing to your goals and making the most of your life. Hey,
that’s cool, right?”

“I don’t have a problem with that.”

“But jihad has multiple meanings and levels of
severity. To Muslim extremists, jihad means sacrificing your life
in the name of Islam. They see it as an all-out war against
non-believers. These guys won’t be satisfied until they’ve killed
every last one of us. Well, guess who crashed the stock
market?”

Tom laughed at that. “That’s impossible,” he
said. “The stock market isn’t like a car.”

“Oh really?” said Louie, crossing his muscular
arms. “Anyone with enough money can manipulate the market. Don’t
kid yourself, Tom. The stock market is exactly like a car. When it
crashes, there is always someone behind the wheel. These extremists
crashed the market on purpose; they wanted to weaken us before they
began their worldwide jihad. Tonight, they plan on burning the
cities. Not just Minneapolis, but every major city they’re rooted
in. We’re at war, man. Are you ready to fight?”

Suddenly, Tom felt uncomfortable standing at the
glass door. He motioned for Louie to follow him and they moved down
into the candy aisle. “This is crazy,” he said. “Where are you
getting your information?”

“I’m getting it online. You wouldn’t hear this
on the mainstream media. They know what’s going on, but they don’t
want to start a panic.”

Tom’s opinion of Louie sank like a stone. He had
met many conspiracy theorists in college and Tom had always gone
out of his way to steer clear of them. He saw them as malcontents,
preachers of a twisted gospel. They rabidly believed everything
they read online. Whenever he argued with them, Tom could see the
light go out in their eyes. “You read it online?” he asked. “And
that makes it true, huh?”

“What, you don’t believe me?”

“I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny, either. I
hate to break this to you, but the internet is full of
bullshit.”

Instead of the light going out in Louie’s eyes,
his blazed like hot coals. He grabbed Tom by the arm and clamped
down on it with hands of steel. He then pulled Tom back up the
aisle, to the door. Louie pointed out to the body of the dead
woman. “Why don’t you go out and explain that to her? Better yet,
why don’t you go find that police car? I’m sure they’d love to hear
your opinion.”

“Let go of my arm.”

“Open your goddamn eyes.”

“We’re not at war.”

“The hell we’re not. Go on, I’ll unlock the
door. You won’t make it to the next block.”

Tom was just about to tell Louie to go ahead and
unlock the door, but two dark-skinned men suddenly appeared in the
street. They wore long black beards and were dressed in white
robes, but the robes were smeared in blood. Each carried a
long-bladed knife in one hand. Tom gasped as he realized what else
they were carrying. “Oh my God,” he whispered. “Get away from the
door!”

Louie didn’t move. “You dirty bastards,” he
hissed. He turned to Tom. “Do you believe me, now?”

Tom was staring into the lifeless face of one of
the decapitated victims. The monsters clung to the heads by the
hair. Through the glass, Tom could hear the men shouting.
“Allah
Akbar!”
They chanted it again and again, waving their trophies
in the air for the world to see; brandishing their swords in a
threatening motion. Louie’s father joined them at the glass door
and he grumbled something in a foreign tongue.

“Oh,” said Louie, turning to face his father,
“they’ll pay for this.”

“You take this,” said Bing, pressing an ancient
revolver into his hand. “You know how to shoot gun?”

Tom nodded his head and took the gun. He and his
father had spent many hours at the range. He hadn’t shot a gun
since that time, but he was confident that he could hit what he
aimed at. “Thank you,” he said. He then turned to Louie. “I’m sorry
I didn’t believe you. I guess it’s time for me to get my head out
of my ass, huh?”

Louie accepted a shotgun from his father and the
three men stood at the glass door, watching as the spectacle moved
further down Lowry Avenue. Like a pack of wild dogs, other men
followed the pair of coldblooded killers. They also carried knives,
but others carried tree branches fashioned into clubs; and some, in
broad daylight for all the world to see, carried guns. Tom couldn’t
believe what his eyes were telling him. “What should we do?” he
asked.

“We go up on the roof and we wait,” said Louie.
“If we’re attacked, we give them everything we’ve got. Dad, you
stay down here with Grandpa.”

Bing nodded his head. “I have more bullet behind
counter. Many box, you take them.”

Carrying a grocery sack full of ammunition,
energy drinks, and snack food, Tom followed Louie up five flights
of stairs to a rooftop garden. A four foot wall, constructed of
brick, boxed in the outdoor patio. On top of these walls were
potted plants and shrubs. Louie crept to the wall and took cover
behind a lush growth of ferns. He poked his head through the ferns
and took a quick look over the ledge. “It’s clear,” he said.

With the late afternoon sun shining down upon
them, they sat and listened to the occasional pop of gunshots. The
smell of smoke hung in the air. Tom told Louie a little about
himself, explaining how he had ended up at the convenience store.
Louie laughed. “I feel your pain, buddy,” he said. “I can never
afford to put more than ten bucks in my gas tank.”

“How about you?” asked Tom, are you
married?”

Louie nodded his head. “Yeah, my wife is named
Nora and we live up by her dad, in Big Lake. Know where that
is?”

“Sure, up by Elk River. My dad used to take me
duck hunting up there.”

“Nora is staying with her dad. I didn’t want her
home alone. She’ll be safe up there.”

“So, let me get this straight, you read all of
this stuff on the internet and you hopped in your car drove down
here?”

“I did. I got here five minutes before your car
died at the pumps.”

“How did you know that this was the real deal? I
mean, seriously, the internet is always buzzing with crazy shit
like this. How could you have possibly known?”

“Because I saw what was happening in Stockholm
and London, in Munich and Rome and Sydney, they’re all burning up.
This is the big one, Tom.” Tom was about to ask another question
when they heard a crash. The sound came from below them and Tom
followed Louie as he crab-walked along the ledge to investigate.
Louie peered out between two potted plants and he quickly squatted
back down. “There are about twenty of them,” he whispered, “mostly
kids. Stay down.”

For the next five minutes, the air was full of
shrill screams and banging and crashing sounds. Then, like a roving
pack of wolves, the voices began to fade away. Louie motioned for
Tom to stay down. Once again, he popped his head up between the
plants. “What happened?” whispered Tom.

“Take a look,” said Louie, not bothering to
whisper.

Tom poked his head up over the ledge and found
that they were standing above the parking lot. The dead body of the
woman was still sprawled out on the asphalt. Tom’s eyes moved to
the pumps and he groaned when he saw the Mercedes. The black SUV
looked like it had been to hell and back. The windows were smashed
in and the sheet metal was rippled with dents. “Oh shit,” mumbled
Tom.

“Look at the bright side,” said Louie. “At least
you weren’t in it.”

Shari stared down into the pit and felt no
sympathy for the women. However, the sight of so much bleached
white skin was making her queasy. Without saying a word, she walked
back to her house and tossed some clothes into a bag. Shari stopped
in the kitchen and she added two bottles of water to the care
package. Eventually, she would drop a ladder down to her captives,
but not until she received an apology. The more she thought about
things, the angrier she became. She tried to imagine herself in
their position, caught red-handed, and reacting without an ounce of
contrition. That took a lot of nerve. From what Shari could gather,
Doris and Marie had been walking, unapologetically, over people for
most of their lives. She thought it was high time that somebody
taught them a lesson.