You Win

The gun clicked.

Andy laughed. "Did you really think you could stop all this that quickly?"

Josh pulled the trigger again, but only got a click.

"The mag is empty, Josh. You might as well think of something else to occupy these last hours with." She lightly brushed hair from his face, and he dropped his gun on the floor. His eyes were blank for just a moment before they started to turn watery.

"Pitiful. Given up already, even when he has the possibility of living and gaining the evidence needed to close his cases." Andy shook her head and got off the couch.

"What did you say?" Josh asked.

She picked up the empty syringe Josh dropped and zipped up her boot before setting the used one on the table. Then she lifted her pleather skirt to show him the pouch she had tied higher on her thigh. "Need I repeat myself?"

Andy returned to the drink cooler and pulled out two beers. Josh sat up as she opened both bottles then returned to the couch. She handed him one before sitting on the arm of the couch.

"What was that strapped to your leg?" he asked after a moment.

"Everything you need, if you're alive when morning comes." She took a pull from her beer and Josh did too. The edges of his mouth turned down as he thought.

"Guess it won't matter then, will it?" he said. Josh got off the couch and went to the bed. He set the beer on the nightstand before tossing his bag onto the floor.

"I was right," Andy said softly. "He has given up. Probably will even cry himself to sleep." She took another drink.

"What did you say?"

"So annoying when the target cries," she said to herself, settling on a couch cushion and tipping my head back. "It's a pointless sound; just like their lives. But silence…. 'tis a blessed sound, silence."

Josh came back around the couch as Andy took a long draw from her beer.

"How can you view lives as pointless when you've taken all this time to try and not kill me?"

Andy didn't respond. She kept her gaze staring at nothing across the room.

"Are you trying not to because you still have feelings for me?"

"No."

"Then why haven't you killed me yet?"

"So persistent the man is. Continuing to dig for answers he'll not receive until the game has ended." She continued to drink the beer in her hand before turning on the television. There was nothing else to do, but wait.

Josh stood in her line of vision for the television.

"Have you made up your mind about how you want to spend these last hours of the night?" she asked.

"How long before the poison takes effect?"

She eyed the clock on the nightstand. "Five hours? It's been a while since I've played with this particular poison." Andy picked up the remote and changed the channel even though she could not see. An Amber alert for several local children was talked about on the screen and Josh turned. She laughed as they showed the pictures.

"Andy, stop it!" he ordered. "These children are missing. Anything can happen to them."

"Nothing will happen to those soft spoken sheep. They will stay right where I put them."

"Where are they?"

"If you live this night, that information is in the pouch. If you don't live, their dead bodies will stay to rot where I've stashed them."

"What are you going to do with them?"

"Nothing. I'm a killer. I'm not a necrophiliac."

Josh turned back to the screen where another news report was being told of a house fire. Then he turned back to Andy.

"Aren't you afraid of being caught?"

"Should I be?" She finished the beer then stood for another. "You really are poor entertainment."

"You need psychological help, Andy."

"Tried," she said, turning slightly. "But… I guess I can't bring myself to care about people enough to change."

She pulled out a bottle of Port and popped open the lid. She leaned against the counter and continued her consumption of alcohol.

"How long did you see this psychologist?"

"A day."

"A day?! Andy, a day isn't enough to…."

"Shut up. You whine too much."

"Then leave. No one is keeping you here."

"Neither of us will leave this room until the game is over. Besides, you fail to remember the prize you get if you are the one still alive in 4 ½ hours." She lifted her skirt, taunting him with the pouch once more.

"Why are you so set on giving me the pouch?"

"I'm not. I could care less if you ever got the information it contains, but until one of us is dead, my job here is incomplete."

"Then why take the time to play the game?"

"Because I find it amusing all the ways men try to spend their dying hours. Some pleaded for an antidote, while bribing me with money. Others used my body so they could enjoy their final screw. But you Josh…. You're as bad as the kids. Crying and pouting when they don't receive what they want. Some even screech like they are being flayed on the rack…. Hmmm, now there's an idea…." She drank more Port then looked back at Josh.

"If you were expecting a reaction similar to what you may have had in the past then you have forgotten much about me."

"Oh, I haven't forgotten. But the wimp I'm playing with tonight is not the thing I have learned much about over the years. Nor the thing I've watched from the shadows these last few months."

"So, we are at an impasse."

"Whatever. I'm just waiting for the game results."

Andy swayed back to the couch and sat hard on the floor between the couch and the coffee table. She set the bottle of Port next to her elbow and stared mindlessly at the screen.

Sighing loudly, Josh went back to the bed and sat. The beer bottle Andy had opened for him scrapped across the nightstand as he lifted it to his lips. The liquid sloshed a little as he drank more. The room remained silent save for the drone of the TV announcers. Soon Josh lay down. He rested, but didn't really sleep. He turned when he heard a groan.

"Andy?" Josh asked.

She didn't respond.

He got up and approached the couch. She was lying on the floor with Port and vomit on the floor in front of her.

"Andy!" Josh pulled the couch back.

She slowly rolled to her back as he knelt beside her. "Game over," she whispered, pressing the pouch into his hand. "You win."

"No. Stay with me Andy." He picked up the phone in the room to dial 9-1-1, but the phone was dead.

Andy didn't move from where she lay on the floor—her chest only rising a little with each breath. She coughed up some stuff before her chest refused to rise again.

Josh slowly set the phone back in its cradle, before putting the pouch into his pocket. He gathered his things finding the battery for his cell under the nightstand and plugging it back in to report her intrusion. Then he waited until the local police arrived with emergency crews to remove her body. The last twelve hours just didn't seem real, and yet they had to have been since he had a hangover from consuming the alcohol. He gave his report, leaving out most of what really happened, before checking out early and spending the rest of his vacation time at home.