If this is not rated correctly, please let me know. I couldn't decide if it should be 'R.' I don't use the f bomb, but I do use sh*t a lot, and there's death. *Shrug*

Again, title suggestions are very welcome!

This is for the contest Ten Minutes To Live. In this contest, I have to write about three different characters who have ten minutes to live. The other two are in part two, which is a bit shorter than this one.

Introduction

“Honey, you can’t do this.”

The man ignores her, folding the wrinkled paper gently in his hands. He folds it one way, then the other, his motions slow and precise.

“It’s murder.” The paper rips as he pulls the two halves apart. His lips are pursed.

“Honey!” She’s frantic now, but he doesn’t look up, doesn’t acknowledge her.

“You are killing two innocent boys.” The words come out slowly as she struggles to make him understand, but he continues to ignore her, picking a pen up off the table.

There’s a click as a black nub appears at the tip of the pen, gleaming with ink. He lowers it to the paper and begins to write the message. It’s replayed in his mind so many times that the words come naturally.

“They’re not innocent.” He speaks, but he does not look up. His hand glides across the paper flawlessly, and he acts as if she weren’t there. “They took away our Sarah.”

She lets out a whimper at the name. “No, honey, they didn’t. She left on her own accord.”

He smiles, a crooked, half-smile that brings fear to her heart. “She would never leave without their urging.”

He looks down at the words he has written. It’s repeated twice – once on each half of the paper.

You have ten minutes to live.

Six hundred seconds.

What will you do with them?

Matthew

The paper’s right there. Lying on the table. Mocking me.

I tell myself that it’s just a joke. Some kid from school was being a moron and stuck this in my mailbox. It can’t be real.

“Matt?” The voice comes from the hall. I don’t answer. I just stare at the paper.

“Matt! Are you in there man?”

The doorknob twists, but he can’t open it. The lock shields me from him.

He stops struggling with the door, but he doesn’t leave. “Matt, come on. Let me in, man.” His voice is softer now. I can picture him out there. Leaning against the door, his baseball clutched in one hand – the dork never goes anywhere without it.

“Fine.” His voice sounds irritated, and I know he’s rolling his eyes. “I’ll just go then.”

I glance at the letter but don’t move to hide it. “Wait, Justin.” I stand and walk to the door, my steps echoing in the bare apartment. I open the door.

He’s still there – he wouldn’t have left.

“Took you long enough, man.” He walks past me, leaving me in the doorway. He sits on my couch. His feet go up on my coffee table, and mud stains the light wood.

“So, what’s up, man?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I lie. I look over at the paper. “Nothing.”

“Cool.” He tosses his ball from hand to hand, whipping it side to side.

“You going to stand there all night?” he finally asks, looking up at me. I step into my apartment and close the door behind me, the lock clicking into place as I press my thumb against it.

Am I keeping out death, or locking it in?

“I just had a crazy-ass game, man.”

Was it just coincidence that he came right when the letter said I would die? Would he be my killer?

No. He wouldn’t.

“You win?” I already know the answer, but he expects me to ask anyway.

He grins, tossing the ball up with a twist. He catches it.

“Hell yeah. Seven to zip. We left ’em crying, man.”

I nod and look at the clock.

How will the sender know when it’s been ten minutes? Is he watching me? Was he waiting for me to open the letter? How much time do I have left?

My eyes fall back on the little paper rather than stay on the clock that’s slowly eating away my minutes. My life.

“Matt!”

I jump. “Yeah?”

“What’s up with you, man?” His eyes follow mine. “What’s that?”

He’s stopped throwing the ball now. He stands up and goes for the letter. I let him.

Did he get one, too? Is this how he wanted to spend his last ten minutes – bragging about some game to me?

‘Cause it sure as hell wasn’t how I wanted to spend mine.

He reaches across the table and picks up a piece of paper. On the front, there’s a picture of Sarah, her beautiful blue eyes – they’re gray in the picture – staring up at the reader. Underneath is a physical description of her and a cash reward for anyone who has any information on her whereabouts.

He picked up the wrong paper.

“Shit, that’s a lot of money!” he says, skimming over the words. “Her father’s pretty messed up right now, huh?” I shrug. “It’s not like we could have done anything, man. She wanted to run, so she did.”

His explanation is just as much for him as it is for me. Neither of us believes him.

He tosses the paper back on my table, and it joins the pile of junk. It blends in among the other clean white papers.

The yellow one sticks out. It catches his eyes and he picks it up, and I still don’t stop him. His face falls as he reads. “Shit, man.”

He sinks down onto the chair I was in before he arrived. He holds the paper – the flimsy little piece of paper – in front of him.

I stand just feet from the door.

“Guess he got really mad?”

I shrug. I guess he didn’t get one.

At least not yet.

“You think it’s from him, then?” He looks up at me. His eyes have suddenly become dead.

I don’t look at him – I can’t. My eyes are glued to the couch, were his ball still lays, forgotten. Unmoving.

“Who else would it be?”

He nods. “Shit.” That’s all he can do. That’s all he ever does. Swear.

He’s whispering now. “How long’s it been?”

“I don’t know. Almost ten minutes.”

He stands, the wooden chair creaking as he shoves it back. “We’re in deep shit, man.”

“We?”

He nods. The paper is still in his hands. “I was there, too, man. Remember?”

I remember. How could I not? “Yeah.”

He drops the paper, and it falls to his feet. “If he’s after you, he’ll be after me.” He doesn’t seem aware that I’m there anymore – he’s just thinking out loud. “I’ve got to go…” He walks past me, his shoulder brushing against mine in the tight space, and his hand closes around the doorknob.

“It’s just a joke,” I say. He freezes.

“You wrote it?” His voice is pleading.

Part of me wants to lie – to tell him that it is a joke, that nothing will happen. Anything to keep him there. Even if he’s not strong enough to fight the guy off, it’s better to have someone there. A witness. A friend.

But he is my friend – I can’t let him share my fate. I shake my head, then remember that he’s facing the other way. “No, but her dad won’t do anything. We didn’t do anything wrong.”

The room’s so quiet I can hear the knob jiggling beneath his shaking hand. “Whatever, man. I’m outta here. Hope you make it longer than ten minutes.”

He doesn’t look back at me, and I don’t watch him leave. My eyes are locked on the couch.

He opens the door and walks out. A warm breeze reaches me – I always keep my room too cold.

The door hangs open behind me, but I don’t turn to close it. I can’t take my eyes off the couch.

His ball is still on it.

“You didn’t spend your ten minutes very constructively, now did you, Matthew?”

I don’t turn, and I don’t jump. I’ve been expecting this. My ten minutes were dying fast.

I hear the bullet clicked into place, and the gun is pointed. I can see what’s happening in my head. Sarah’s father, his face wild, unshaved. His arm shaking in the air. His eyes glued on my back, waiting to put a bullet in it.

“Do you know what I’m going to do, Matthew?”

I answer, because it’s the only thing I can do. “Kill me.”

He chuckles, and he seems human for a moment. But only for a moment. “Correct.”

How much time do I have left? Two minutes?

Two seconds?

“Is there any way you can escape this death, Matthew?”

I know what he wants to hear, so I say it. I always do. “No.”

He chuckles again. “You know, if you’d only been this reasonable when she came to you that night, I may not have this gun in my hands right now.”

My eyes are still on the ball. It’s disgusting, really. It was the first ball he ever got a home run on, when he first started playing. Seven years ago.

“Do you know that, Matthew? Do you know that you could have easily saved yourself?”

The ball has seen more than I ever will. It gets the thrill of rushing through air, through space, at a hundred miles an hour.

“Yes.”

The man steps closer until I can feel his breath. It’s tainted with beer, and feels warm on my neck. The metal of the gun is cold even through my shirt. “If you’d told her to go home, you’d live to see another sunrise.”

Even if I’d told her to go home, I’d never get to fly through the air at a hundred miles an hour.

“But you didn’t.”

I’ll never feel that thrill; I’ll never feel like my entire body is being ripped from me, leaving only my soul. Leaving only sheer happiness. Bliss.

“What did you do, Matthew? What did you tell my Sarah?” The gun digs into my back.

I’m weak, so I answer. “I told her to run.”

The man’s breathing is heavier now. It matches the second hand on the clock. “Yes, Matthew. You told her to run – away from me. You took away my Sarah.”

He pauses. He’s waiting for me to cry, to ask him to stop. To beg for mercy.

I give him nothing.

“Now I’ll take away you.”

My eyes are still on the ball. It has had so many adventures I’ll never be able to experience.

He rams the head of the gun deeper into my spine, pushing me until I fall to my knees. The ball disappears from my view, leaving only the letter.

The letter. The thing that started this all.

Or was it the phone call?

Or Sarah’s first beating?

Or before all of that?

When’s it all start?

I hear him pull the trigger. I feel the bullet blast into me, a sharp pain in my back, my body go numb. The letter fades from my vision, and I close my eyes.

Edited 5/05/08