King of Stupidity

This might be the stupidest thing investigative journalist Cynthia Cline has ever done for a story, and she’s done a lot of stupid shit over the course of her career. 

She’s no stranger to putting her life in danger to reveal the truths that her watchdog journalism unveils. Employed by a rather small-town newspaper, she’s somehow become the unsung hero of their investigative department. Always running straight into fires without an exit plan, Cynthia has been crowned the King of Stupidity by her grouchy – and honestly resentful – boss. Most of her assignments in the past have inadvertently flourished under her need to disregard her own safety and dive straight into the worst kind of danger, but the Top Two Stupidest Decisions of Her Life have remained the same for years. 

There was that time she jumped off a bridge to avoid being caught with a flash drive containing damning documents on a corrupt real estate company. They had hired a private security firm to follow her, and that specific team of roided-out jarheads took to threatening her and almost running her off the road a few times. Jumping off the bridge seemed like a legitimate option in the moment, but did result in her plunging down into the freezing cold river below and shattering her collar bone on impact. She almost drowned while fighting against the strong current and ended up being carried over five miles downstream. When the story finally broke, the recognition and rewards she received for her journalism shot her career up to a level she had never believed possible. 

Then a few years ago, when following up on a lead for a story involving a highly organized street gang and their preference for taking out local city politicians who attempted to clean up the streets, she took it upon herself to dramatically provoke their very dangerous leader online. Now in her defense, the story had stalled and they needed a smoking gun. After being kidnapped a few days later in a parking lot, thrown into the trunk of a car, and subsequently exposed to all of the inner workings of their little gang while being interrogated and almost-tortured, a smoking gun she had found. Again, stupid as fuck, but that article made national news and her boss was forced to bite his tongue and congratulate her through gritted teeth, which is exactly how she likes him.

These two events have consistently reigned supreme as the Stupidest Decisions of Her Life. Now she’s in a pickle over which one should be dethroned to make room for this one, because this stupid decision takes the cake.

Cynthia is sitting at her kitchen table, a green foldable card table crammed in the corner of the tiny kitchenette in her run-down studio apartment. The cold metal of the chair is seeping through her long coat into her work clothes, and the winter chill permeating the air raises goosebumps on her flesh. Though that might be the unease and fear finally soaking in, now that she’s sitting with the consequences of her own stupidity. 

The little plastic baggie containing the large sample of allegedly poisoned prison food is sitting on the top shelf in the fridge, the remains of what used to be a simple chicken taco. The clean paper plate in front of her is now empty, but she had only heated up what amounted to the world’s tiniest little bite on a spoon. And then ate it. Like a fucking idiot. 

This is one of those times where her admittedly large ego takes a back seat for a second to make room for her glaring lack of common sense and uncontrolled impatience. The polite new intern named Brady who works at the independent laboratory right outside of town had called a half hour ago to inform her that the smaller sample she had dropped off earlier that day was no longer getting a rush order, and the toxicology report she wanted wouldn’t be available until after the weekend. Today is Thursday, the lab is closed on Friday, and the weekend staff does not run tests, or so she’s been told. 

Well technically, Cynthia glances at the clock, it's 12:08 AM Friday. That’s important to note, since she probably just killed herself with poisoned food. This story is going to be the death of her, in more ways than one. 

She’s investigating the suspicious deaths of numerous inmates at a medium security federal prison roughly three hours south of her apartment, all of whom received a cause of death by the medical examiner as being a “natural accident”. No amount of pressure from the deceased inmates’ family or from the public at large has yielded in the prison facility administration releasing any sort of information as to why inmates in their care are dropping like flies. Not so much as an apology has been issued to the families and friends of deceased incarcerated individuals, or to the public for wildly blatant misconduct. People are pissed, and rightfully so. 

When she started pulling on this particular thread, she had known of four inmate deaths all happening within an eight month period. Now that number has doubled, with different family members coming forward to her with their own tragic story of losing an incarcerated loved one at this particular facility. The deaths go back almost three years, right around the time when the current executive administration was appointed.

Naturally they have not been interested in speaking to her on such matters. The one and only interview she was granted about a month ago started in the Warden’s office and ended about five minutes later with her being escorted out. The visit was ultimately a success since it put her in the path of her strongest anonymous source, a correctional officer on the night shift who’s seen too much over his decade-long tenure and knows more than anyone. 

A short burly man with a thick salt-and-pepper beard and a secret heart of gold, Officer Johnson has been her only saving grace during this entire investigation. He’s single-handedly given her so much information surrounding the deaths that it became the basis of her theory; inmates that cause too much disruption around the daily injustices they face while incarcerated are covertly poisoned by executives within the administration, who ultimately receive a rather large payout to cover up said deaths. It's always poison, dolled out through different methods, and it's always labeled as an accidental death.

Officer Johnson is the nervous type, prone to bouts of senseless chatter to soothe his anxieties around speaking to someone in the media, and had vehemently refused to meet with her face-to-face. After weeks of building a rapport over the phone, last night she awoke to a frantic phone call from him, demanding to meet in a few hours. And he brought her a nice little gift for their first meeting, the poisoned chicken taco. 

There had been another attempt on an inmate’s life yesterday, a man who was causing commotion over being hit by one of the younger, more rowdy guards. Officer Johnson had been privy to noticing a specific meal being prepped and set aside in a very suspicious manner, and had acted on his own volition. Quickly swapping out the meal for something else, he was able to bag and pocket the food without anyone taking note. The inmate was served a regular meal, and Officer Johnson had left the prison frantically calling her to meet. It had been a stroke of genius, or luck, or both, and honestly Cynthia really doesn’t care which.

She drove two hours out of her way to meet with him at the ass crack of dawn this morning, yielding to all his demands about where to meet and when to facilitate a smooth hand-off, plus his stipulations. He wanted to keep it between the two of them, scared about losing his job or alerting authorities before having concrete proof that couldn’t be swept up under a rug. Check. He wanted an independent lab to test for toxins. Check. He wanted to meet under a specific street lamp at a random truck stop off the highway. Weird, but whatever. She got there early, of course, and when she finally spotted him scuttling about towards her he all but threw the bag at her face, telling her to not fuck this up before practically running away. 

Now, because she has as much patience as a spoiled toddler, she went and fucked up. Though not in any way Officer Johnson was probably imagining she would, because what absolute idiot would actually eat potentially poisoned food just to see if it was truly poisoned? Who the fuck wouldn’t just wait three days for the toxicology report to come back with confirmation? She hates that she’s like this. She’s also lowkey freaking out, and her mind is starting to play tricks on her.

Cynthia’s been staring at the plate for too long now, not daring to move yet. It’s taunting her. She can still taste a little of the meat on her tongue, even though she washed the bite down with three glasses of water. Does her stomach actually hurt? Or is the anxiety coursing through her whole body just churning her stomach up into knots? Deciding it's both, she stands up and walks the few steps to her bed, removing her coat and tossing it on the side chair. She sits on the edge of the bed, methodically taking off her boots before falling backwards. 

This is gonna be a long night, she thinks. Almost as an afterthought, she shoots a text to the neighbor she's friendly with to come check on her in the morning. She wants to say it feels like a suicide note, but that’s just her regular dramatics. 

An hour passes, then another. She stares at the ceiling, counting the small tiles across, then the tiles down, and then starts over and does it again, and then again. Her stomach still churns, never truly settling. After another hour, she psychs herself out and gets up to take a shower. Maybe the bite she ate really was too small to have any effect on her. Or maybe the food wasn’t really poisoned, and Officer Johnson got it wrong. 

She showers, puts on clean clothes, and climbs into bed. Still nothing but an insane amount of anxiety.

She relaxes into the bed and allows exhaustion to reign long enough to slip her into a light sleep, and the next time she opens her eyes the room is swimming and she's nauseous. She tries to sit up, plans on reaching for the dusty glass of water on the nightstand that's probably days old by now, but her stomach gives a sharp, body-curling stab of pain and a loud groan is forced from her throat. She sinks back against the bed, and the nausea rackets up a few notches.

Fuck, she thinks, should have grabbed a bucket.

The next few hours are a blur. At some point she breaks out in fever sweats, full body chills spasming her muscles and she's simultaneously scorching hot and freezing cold. She vaguely remembers swiping the old glass of water and dipping the edge of the sheets into it to dab across her eyes, which she’s pretty sure now have hot lava in them. It's too much movement for her body, and when the nausea reaches a tipping point she has no choice but to lean over the edge of the bed and vomit on the floor. Several times. The intense pounding headache keeps her from falling asleep, but she does steal twenty minutes here and there.

The body cramps finally start to subside right as the first beginnings of dawn creep up, and she works on breathing calmly while watching the early morning light steadily grow stronger from behind the window curtains. It's not until true sunlight streaks across the ceiling that she musters up the courage to try and reach the bathroom. Ignoring the stale vomit on the floor, she takes the tiniest baby steps from her bed to the nearest wall and uses it to prop herself up while inching her way across the room. Reaching the bathroom door felt like running a literal mile, and she forgets to not look up at herself in the mirror. 

Her reflection looks horrendous. Stale death warmed in a microwave. She relieves herself and takes advantage of the break off her feet to rest her weak body. By the time she's gathered enough strength to stand, she forces herself to cup her hands under the faucet to rinse out her mouth and splash her face with the coldest water possible. The trek back to her bed takes twice as long, and she can't stop herself from falling face-first onto the bedding. 

Somewhere off to the right, her phone chirps. Groaning loud and long, she slowly moves her body across the bed like an inchworm, arm reaching haphazardly in the direction she thinks the chair is. The back of her hand smacks hard against the wooden armrest, and she lets out a cry, sharply recoiling. It takes her a few minutes to recoup before she tries again, this time aggressively grabbing her coat and pulling it towards her. The phone slips from its place inside the left pocket and falls to the floor, and she almost screams with frustration and anger. 

There she lies, defeated and exhausted for what feels like hours. The movement of the sun tells her it's probably only been one hour max. Determined more than anything for some sort of distraction from the fresh hell she's experiencing, she swings her arm down and fishes for the phone, successful on the second try. 

Messages on messages, of course, but the only one that she cares about is the voicemail. Headache still pounding, she opts for reading the transcript. 

“Hi Miss Cline, this is Brady calling from Allegiant Analytical Labs. We were able to finish the rush order you requested on the food sample brought in yesterday ahead of schedule, and the results were conclusive with what appears to be large amounts of rat poison. The full toxicology report will be emailed to you shortly.”

Rat poison? No fucking shit, she thinks, tossing the phone down on the bed. She's angry with herself for acting so dangerously, and for not having the patience to just wait for once.

It's hard to feel grateful for being alive when she still feels like death, but she still sends up a silent prayer of gratitude. Maybe she'll dethrone the jumping-off-the-bridge event. That, at the very least, was an act of self-preservation, no matter how detrimental. This was just plain stupid.