Karma, baby

Kate took a deep breath and pushed open door number 2, a jolt of fear and uncertainty lancing through her chest.

How did she know this was the right door? How did she know this psycho really did have Izzy back there? Could she still change her mind? She hadn't stepped all the way through door 2 yet and she couldn't see anything anyway, just a blank wall. Should she try door number 1 before going any further? What if Izzy was right behind it, waiting for her, waiting to go home, and she had chosen the wrong door?! Was anyone really watching? What in the holy hell was going on?!? Was any of this really happening? 

Kate screwed her eyes shut and tried to quieten her frantic thoughts; she had to stay as calm as she could to get through any challenges that awaited her. Her throat was dry, her heart pounding. 

Get a grip Kate! Izzy needs you! You CAN’T mess this up, you just can’t, please.

Just then, she heard a plaintive cry coming from somewhere nearby. Izzy!

Kate felt the panic and fear threatening to overcome her. Threatening to crush her into a sobbing heap of uselessness on the warehouse floor.

Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths…

Her racing mind continued to work overtime, even as she tried to focus. Who would do this? Who would kidnap a helpless soul and threaten to kill her?! It was crazy! This whole thing was crazy. She should call for help, what if she failed? She should have called the cops to get this nightmare sorted out.

Except... ...except the note specifically said not to involve anyone else. That she'd never see Izzy ever again. Not alive anyway. 

Not alive.

She closed her eyes and took a moment to steady herself against the doorframe. Dear god, she was only 2 years old!!

Kate hadn't thought she would ever be able to care about another living being as much as she'd come to care about Izzy. She really loved her sweet, innocent character, her playfulness, her fondness of snuggles.

And now! Now someone unhinged had taken her, right out of their backyard. She’s only been outside for a few minutes and Kate knew there was no way she could have gotten out of the yard herself - it was totally secure. And when Kate went out to look for her, the gate was still closed and there was a note pinned to it;

'I have Izzy. If you ever want to see her alive again TELL NO-ONE about this letter.

Tomorrow morning, at 8 am, go to the abandoned warehouse just off Highway 14, opposite the Red River bridge. Leave your cell phone on the roof of your car. The fire exit door at the back of the building will be unlocked and you enter there. In room 117, you will find an inner chamber with 2 doors. You have to decide whether to go through door 1, or door 2 - once you've chosen a door, you won't be able to change your mind. Through either door, you'll find a puzzle you have to complete before you can access the innermost room where you’ll find Izzy. The puzzle has a 5 minute limit for completion. If you fail the puzzle, Izzy will die.

One door will let you access Izzy, the other will lead to an observation window where you will watch Izzy die. Should you choose the right door, complete the puzzle and find Izzy, you will both be allowed to leave safely. You will never hear from me again.

If you tell anyone anything about what you're doing or what has happened, Izzy will die.

I'll be watching.'

She’d not slept a wink all night of course. Had vacillated between telling a trusted friend or not. Of going to the police station. Of somehow leaving a clue for people if she was never seen again.

If she and Izzy were never seen again.

She’d fretted and sweated and hadn’t come up with any sort of concrete plan. She’d always thought of herself as a confident, got-her-shit-together kinda girl, able to handle anything that came her way.

And yet here she was. On her own. In an abandoned warehouse, on the verge of completely losing her shit all together… She’d seen enough movies to know this was NOT how you handled things in such scenarios. You don’t go on your own to the place where the psycho tells you to go; a quiet, abandoned place.

She took a deep breath, and gathered what reserves of courage she could find.

This was real life. And she had decided she was completely responsible for Izzy, she couldn’t just abandon her or take stupid risks. Who knew what imminent danger Izzy might be in - one wrong step from Kate could see her short life ended in who-knows-what violence and pain.

Kate moved to her right down a little hallway, there was an opening to her left that she cautiously walked through. She was in a smaller room now, well lit with blank white walls. To her left there was a small window into another room, and next to it, a door. Kate moved closer so she could see through the window more clearly… ...Izzy! There was Izzy, sitting in the centre of another small room! She looked so small and forlorn, but her head jerked up as Kate banged on the window.

“Izzy! Izzy, oh my sweet girl! Oh my god, I’m here, I’ve got you, I’m going to take you home!”

She moved to the door which was locked tightly when she tried the handle. There was no give in the door at all as she alternately pulled with all her might or slammed her shoulder against it. But at least there was a door, potentially a way in to Izzy; she felt a flood of relief that her original choice of door number 2 had been the right one.

“Izzy!”

Izzy’s room was empty save for 2 dishes of dog food in the middle of the floor. Each dish was in a perspex type box with what looked like a perspex sliding door at the front. Both doors were closed at the moment. Izzy had turned away from the window and was snuffling along the floor to the boxes, sniffing round the base of each, whining softly.

“Oh poor baby! You must be so hungry! Don’t worry, I’ve just got one little puzzle to do then I’ll come and get you sweet girl.”

Kate felt hot tears of desperation well up and her vision blurred. Wiping them away impatiently she frantically looked around for the puzzle mentioned in the letter, the puzzle she had to solve in order to win access to Izzy. In the middle of the room, there was a large cardboard box with a blank envelope on top. Kate approached the box cautiously - was there something dangerous inside? Something really horrible? She her Izzy whimper softly in the room behind her and so she steeled herself and tore open the envelope;

‘Remove the funny bone, wishbone and broken heart. You have to remove all three in order without setting off the buzzer. If you set off the buzzer, you have to put all the items back in their place and start again. You have 5 minutes.’

‘Funny bone, wishbone and broken heart.’?? Oh dear god, was there going to be a dead body in the box?! Was she going to have to cut up a dead animal?

Kate recoiled from the box in horror.

But wait a second, what was that about a buzzer? Was the animal going to be booby trapped or something? That didn’t make any sense.

Cautiously, Kate peeled back the tape that held the box closed, slowly lifting the cardboard flaps. 

Please don’t be a dead animal. Please don’t be a dead animal…

Staying as far away from the box as possible, she peered inside.

It was the children’s game, ‘Operation’.

Kate looked around her in bewilderment, looking for someone to come in laughing, hand her Izzy and explain it had all just been a joke. A really, really bad joke. Kate felt anger beginning to replace her fear. This was someone’s idea of a joke?!?

“OK! You’ve had your fun! I’m here, I followed your instructions, now please, please just let me take Izzy home. Do you want money? Did you just want to see me as a pathetic, snivelling mess? Breaking my heart over a goddamn dog?! She may be ‘just’ a dog to you, but she’s so much more than that, please, PLEASE!’

Nothing happened. No-one appeared to laughingly tell her she’d been pranked.

She gritted her teeth and told herself she just had to do as she was told, couldn’t give up now, had to keep playing whatever twisted game this was so she could get Izzy and leave. 

Deep breaths, deep breaths, deep breaths...

OK, funny bone, wishbone and broken heart. That didn’t sound too bad. Kate vaguely remembered having had this game as a kid, and even though it could be challenging, she thought she recalled it was definitely do-able. Fingers trembling, Kate picked up the tweezers and looked for the funny bone. Very carefully, she removed it without the buzzer going off and let out the breath she hadn’t been aware she was holding in a loud sigh of relief. Next, the wishbone. On her first try, she touched the side of the well containing the small, plastic v-shaped ‘bone’. The patient's nose flashed red as an angry sounding buzzer noise told Kate she had to start again. She angrily put the funny bone back in its well and tried to calm herself. How much time had passed? Was there enough time left? Kate steadied her hand as she reached for the funny bone again. 

Bzzzzzzzzzz!

Kate couldn’t prevent a frustrated sob escaping her lips. She had to calm down. In the recesses of her mind she clung desperately on to the notion that this could still all be a practical joke - Izzy didn’t look to be in any imminent danger, she didn’t look injured. Kate’s cheeks burned with humiliation at the thought someone might be recording all of this, recording her falling apart trying to rescue a ‘stupid little dog’.

Who though? Who would want to torture her like this? Kate was 23 years old, and had a fairly ordinary life. Sure she’d been a bit of a bitch in high school, had been a typical spoiled little rich kid. She wasn’t mean to anyone any more though! Her Dad made a lot of money at the time but he’d lost nearly all of it in the financial crash. She was now an average young adult, just trying to get by. This stupid game was from her childhood, so maybe that was a clue to who was behind this? 

Stop! Stop! Stop!

She had no time for speculation, that could come later. Right now she had to focus on this stupid task and get Izzy out of there.

She adjusted her grip on the tweezers and narrowed her focus as best she could. Tense with concentration she removed first the funny bone, then the wishbone successfully. She turned her attention to the broken heart - oh she hoped it wasn’t a symbol of how this would all end! Studying the shape of the broken heart piece, and then the shape of the well, she poured every ounce of her attention into first gently grasping the piece, and then slowly, very slowly lifting it out of the well. She didn’t dare breathe. Just as she was lifting it out, the edge of the plastic ‘broken heart’ piece caught on the edge of the well and she dropped it back in through. No buzzer, thank god, but she had to start the whole process of extracting it again.

Acutely aware that time was running out, she gritted her teeth and repeated the process, being sure to keep a good grip on the heart this time.

Success! Kate sagged with relief, feeling a mixture of both triumph and frustration. She was pouring every ounce of herself into this and she didn’t even know if the threat to harm Izzy was real or not. But she couldn’t take that chance.

Kate ran to the door to get to Izzy. It still wouldn’t budge.

She pulled at it and pushed it and banged her fist against it to no avail. She stepped to the window and saw one of the perspex doors to one of the food bowls had swung open. Izzy was happily gobbling up the dog food there.

Kate put her hand to the glass, gazing through with frustration but a little relief. At least Izzy was getting something to eat. She had always been a bit of a chow hound ever since Kate had got her as a little 8 week old puppy.

Even as Kate watched, Izzy seemed to sway a little. She finished eating the food and turned to look in Kate’s direction. She started to stagger, looked a bit dazed, and then her legs completely gave way.

“Izzy!”

Izzy couldn’t even hold her head up anymore. She lay on her side, her legs paddling weakly, until she lay completely still.

Kate pounded on the glass, then pounded on the door again. “Izzy! Izzy! Izzeeeeeeeeee!”

Izzy now lay motionless. Kate wasn’t sure she was still breathing, though she couldn’t see clearly through the tears. 

What had happened?! She’d done the task. She thought she’d chosen the right door. And now that motherfucker had poisoned Izzy! 

Kate let out a yell of frustration and grief. She hadn’t really believed it would come to this. Hadn’t really believed that anyone would really kill her dog. Why?!? Poor Izzy. Poor sweet, innocent Izzy. Kate pounded on the door again and to her surprise, it swung open.

She rushed in to the room and cradled Izzy’s limp and lifeless body in her arms. She wailed loudly and held her close. 

“I’m sorry Izzy, I’m so, so sorry” she sobbed.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that but she suddenly realized she had to tell someone about this. Get the cops on the case so they could find the sick fuck who had done all this. She had to make sure to touch as few surfaces as possible; had to try and preserve any evidence.

She stood up and went to rush outside to get her cell phone, when on the back of the door she’d entered through, she saw yet another goddamn envelope. On it was written ‘Karma’s a Bitch’. With an angry sob, she tore it open and pulled out the note;

‘Kate, you probably don’t remember but 5 years ago, almost to the day, you were at a house party on Wiltshire Drive. You stayed over and as you were leaving the next day, you ran over a small black dog in the driveway.’

Kate gasped - she hadn’t thought about that incident for years! She closed her eyes as a wave of guilt crashed over her. She figured the dog must have been a neighbor’s dog, her friend hadn’t had pets. She thought it would have been ok. Probably. But mostly, she was sure no-one had seen her so she had just driven off. She had had somewhere to get to, she forgets where exactly, but she told herself she didn’t have time to deal with it. She shuddered as she recalled her indifference at the time - she hardly recognized that person she used to be. 

‘I saw you Kate. I saw you drive off as if nothing had happened. Leaving poor old Tucker there on our neighbor’s drive. We rushed him to the veterinarian's office but he died. Died on the operating table as they were trying to remove his ruptured spleen and stop his internal bleeding.

He had a broken leg and head injuries too. He must have been in so much pain.

I wanted to cause you pain too, Kate. Wanted you to understand the pain and suffering you caused a dog, a family, a 12 year old girl. I’ve waited all this time but today I honored Tucker’s memory.’

Kate felt her body heave with remorseful sobs, genuine regret and sadness flooded her brain. And guilt. So much guilt. She may as well have killed Izzy herself; she was dead because of her. Because of her cruelty and selfishness.

Kate sank to the ground and wailed and sobbed. She could see Izzy’s little lifeless body on the cold, hard floor and she buried her head in her arms and sobbed louder. 

She managed to gather herself and grabbed the note again. There was one more paragraph and maybe there would be some clue there to the identity of the girl.

‘Izzy isn’t dead.’

Kate gasped in disbelief.

‘Izzy isn’t dead. She just ate some food laced with a powerful sedative. She’s in a deep, deep sleep but she’ll wake up in a few hours none-the-worse. You’ll get to enjoy your dog for many more years, which is more…’

Kate dropped the card and spun back to examine Izzy, she was still warm to the touch. Frantically, Kate laid her hand on Izzy’s ribcage and felt a slow, soft;

Ba-doom. 

Ba-doom.

Ba-doom…