A Game of Choice

The light autumn rain caused beads of water to form on Karl’s cellphone screen as he checked the text message again, “I challenge you to shoot Mr. Z.” The text after contained the details about where the man lived and the best time to find him. He sighed heavily, causing a puff a fog to escape his mouth. He wasn’t sure about this particular challenge and sometimes he felt like their game was going a bit too far, but he wasn’t going to give Scott the satisfaction of a victory. He closed the flip phone, put it away and zipped up his coat. He shivered slightly in the early afternoon air and wished he picked a better spot to wait. At the time, the large oak tree in front of Mr. Z’s house seemed like a good idea. There were a lot of branches for him to perch on, a good view of points of entry, and what he thought was plenty of foliage for cover. He discovered that oak leaves might be good for not being spotted but didn’t do much for keeping the freezing rain from falling down his back. And yet, he still would not give up and let Scott win.

As the sun began to set and the temperature began to fall with the rain his entire body began to shiver. His eyes started to slowly close and he had to shake his head to keep from falling asleep. Karl wasn’t sure exactly how long he had been waiting when bright headlights pulling into the driveway startled him. He suddenly realized how much of his body had gone numb when, upon trying to go for his gun, he fell out of the tree and landed with a thud on the grass below.

Unfortunately, his body hadn’t gone completely numb and he fully felt the root digging into his back. The pitter-patter of raindrops on his face stopped and he heard a soothing voice ask, “Are you alright, young man?”

Karl rolled to his side and groaned, “I’ll live. I just hurt my pride.’ He attempted to stand and dropped to a knee with a horrible pain in his side, ‘Also my spleen. Might have hurt my spleen. I think people still have spleens, right?” He tried to stand again, but from either the pain or the cold, he passed out and ended up face down on the ground.

He woke up on a soft couch in front of a roaring fire. A warm blanket was wrapped around him and other than that, he was completely nude. Karl was starting to regain feeling in his extremities, but when he sat up, he felt dizzy. “That was a nasty spill you took from my tree, young man.’ The soothing voice, presumably Mr. Z’s said from behind him, ‘I obviously can’t tell you what to do, but if it were me, I’d take it easy for a bit. Looks like you cracked a couple ribs on a root and you likely got mild hypothermia out there.”

Of itself, his hand went to where his back hit the tree root sticking out of the ground and winced when he touched it. He was surprised to find that he had a bandage wrapped around his torso. He tried to turn to see Mr. Z behind him, but it hurt too much to move that far. Resigning himself to being stationary for the moment he asked, “Can I ask why I’m naked?”

Mr. Z chuckled, “Haven’t you ever seen one of those survival shows? The first thing you’re supposed to do is remove the cold wet clothes and get the person suffering from hypothermia into something warm and dry and next to a fire. And hey, if it makes you feel any better, when I was changing you I found your gun and cell phone with a challenge to shoot me and I didn’t call the police so I’m not weirdo or anything.”

A chill when down Karl’s spine that had nothing to do with the cold outside. The surprisingly calm man was staying out of sight. He didn’t know whose benefit that was for. “Follow up question, why?”

Mr. Z walked around the couch into view. He was short, chubby, had a deep widow’s peak and wore the rest of his hair in a long ponytail. He sat down on the chair across from him, stroked his beard and said in the soothing voice that suddenly didn’t match the body, “‘Why’ That truly is one of the great questions we face as sentient beings isn’t it? I suppose that if you want to know the answer, you must ask the right question. Why did I help you? Because it is the right thing to do. Even if you may or may not have caused me to need a new pair of underoos when you fell out of the tree. Why do I care about doing the right thing for a dumb kid who doesn’t even know to get a phone with a password and could have shot his manhood off keeping a gun in his waistband? Because I’ve dedicated most of my life trying to get through to other kids like you and I figured ‘why stop now’.”

Karl shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It had nothing to do with being cold or nude under a scratchy blanket, rather, from a feeling of guilt he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He cleared his throat, trying to sound much more adult than the “kid” or “young man” that Mr. Z had been referring him as and asked, “Who are you? I mean, really?”

“Another great question. Who are any of us, really? The simple answer for me is Harold Zikher, retired juvenile parole officer. As for you, young man,’ He said leaning forward in his chair and staring at Karl intensely, his voice shifting from soothing to slightly threatening, ‘Who exactly are you?”

With a bit of hesitation, Karl nervously said, “My name is…Larry…Larry Reynolds.”

Harold sat back in his chair and nodded taking in Karl’s answer. “Excuse me for a moment.’ He said briefly walking into another room then returning with Karl’s formerly rain soaked, now dry clothes. Harold turn around so Karl could dress. When Karl turned back around, he saw that Harold was holding his wallet. The older man pulled out his driver’s license and asked, ‘Do you want to try that name again, Karl Anshur of 865 Oliver Drive, twenty-two years old, and not an organ donor?”

Karl was instantly enraged. He stood up and shouted while pointing an accusing finger at Harold, “If you knew my name the whole time why have you been messing with me, you psycho!?”

Harold didn’t flinch at being screamed at. Instead, he calmly dropped the wallet then grabbed the finger and hand that was being thrust toward him and twisted it around into an armbar submission hold that made Karl cry out in pain. He then returned to his soothing voice and said, “The way I see it, you have spent a long time making a series of very poor choices. The most recent being coming at me in a threatening manner. I’m going to let you go then I’m going to talk and you’re going to listen, and you’ll have a chance to better your life. Or not. That’ll be another choice you must make.”

Harold let Karl go. The young man glared at the older one but sat down on the couch and indicated that he should speak. Harold sat across from him, cleared his throat and began, “First things first. Not an organ doner? You’ll be dead, it’s not like you’ll be using them. Might as well let someone in need have them.”

“I didn’t know that’s what it meant.’ Karl interjected, his anger starting to fade. With a bit of embarrassment, he went on, ‘I was sixteen. I thought it was something else. I can change it.”

Harold snorted with laughter then said, “I suppose that’s understandable. It’s simple enough to fix, but that’s something you’ll have to do yourself.’ He reached in his pocket and pulled out Karl’s cellphone. He flipped it open then read, “’I challenge you to get a gun’… ‘I challenge you to rob a store’… ‘I challenge you to steal a car’… and of course ‘I challenge you to shoot Mr. Z’ this Steve guy sounds like a not great influence to put lightly. Tell me about these challenges.”

Karl was resistant and shifted uncomfortably on the couch but decided to come clean after agonizing about what would happen if he didn’t, “A few months ago me and Steve began to challenge each other to do stupid things. It started out with stuff like drinking hot sauce and eating raw fish. But at some point, Steve changed and made things get a little dangerous. He wanted to do crazier and crazier stuff and said that if I lost a challenge there would be really bad consequences. He seemed so serious I was too scared to say no.”

Harold stroked his beard as Karl spoke. When the young man was finished, he asked, “This wouldn’t happen to be Steven Krank would it?’ After Karl slowly nodded, Harold continued, ‘I think I know what inspired your friend’s change and why he wants me dead. I was his brother’s parole officer and a few months ago was when I retired. I passed all my cases off to a very competent officer, but from what I understand, he went back to jail almost right away. Steve must blame me for his brother’s arrest. Two more questions before I give you my suggestion on how to get out of all this mess, do you give Steve challenges too and did he ever say what exactly would happen if a one wasn’t completed?”

Karl’s confidence was starting to grow. He could almost see why someone would be enraged to lose Mr. Harold Zikher as a parole officer or even as just an acquaintance. He sat up straight and answered, “Yes, I give Steve challenges too. Though they’ve never been as extreme as the ones he’s sent me. He never said what would happen if one wasn’t completed, just that it would be bad.”

Harold got up and retrieved the gun stored it. He loaded a single bullet into the small revolver and tossed the phone to Karl. “I have an idea for how you can get out of this mess, but to start, we need to complete your challen-”

“I don’t want to kill you!’ Karl interrupted, tears starting to form in his eyes. “I’ve done a lot of bad things, but I’m not ready for that.”

“I’m glad, but you don’t have to worry.’ Harold said quickly to calm Karl down. ‘Your challenge doesn’t say anything about “killing” me, merely “shooting” me. That is how we’ll get around things. Take this and shoot me in the left leg just below the knee.” After seeing the confused look on Karl’s face, he added, “Trust me.”

Warily, Karl took the gun, but fired before he could change his mind. Instead of the sound of a bullet hitting flesh and bone followed by blood spewing everywhere, there was only the bang of the gun and bullet hitting the solid wooden floor.

Karl’s face was pale and his heart was racing, but Harold started to laugh. He rolled up his pant leg to reveal a prosthetic leg with a small hole in the shin. “Oh no, you shot me.’ He said with a chuckle, ‘I don’t know how I’ll ever survive.”

Once he realized what had transpired, Karl started to laugh as well. He dropped the gun and sat down heavily feeling a large weight being lifted from him. “So, what is the plan to get me away from Steve’s challenges?” He asked somewhat hopeful for the first time in a long time.

Harold wrote something down on a piece of paper, folded in half, handed it to Karl, and said, “The only way to end your game is to make him lose. If you are willing to live with the consequences of what the “something bad” might be, text him that and this will all be over.”

With no hesitation at all, Karl read what Harold wrote and texted, “I challenge you not to accept this challenge.”

The next morning, Karl went to Steve’s house to see if Harold’s plan worked. He knocked on the door but there was no answer. After knocking again louder, he let himself in. “Steve! It’s me!” He shouted trying to make sure he didn’t surprise his friend into attacking him, “I’m coming up to your room!”

He climbed the stairs to Steve’s bedroom and opened the door. He nearly vomited when he realized what the “something bad” from not completing a challenge meant. He took out the phone that he would no longer be needing, dialed 9-1-1 and said, “I’d like to report a dead body.”