DiaBA chapter 5 - Increased Risk

“Don't keep me waiting here

Lead me to your door”

—The Beatles

Rob, Raven and Kitten faithfully followed Ann’s directions to the subway station, and onwards to Randall’s house. After boarding the red line, they talked little as the train crossed the river and carried on underground. 

Rob stood and stared at the other passengers, noting their vacant expressions, and unassuming postures, and thought to himself:

Look at these people. Glassy-eyed automatons going about their daily lives, never stopping to look around and think! I’m the only conscious human in a world of sheep.

He was the only one standing up, because none of the seats were big enough for him. After a while Kitten also stood up to look out the back window because he became convinced that “Some creepy guy is following us.”

Still, there was no sight of him as the train carried on through all the downtown stops and back out into the suburbs.

“Not yet.” Ann said at another station, sensing a growing feeling among the others that they had gone the wrong way. Wrong way or not, Rob guessed they were well south of the turnpike by now.

When they finally got off the train, they emerged into a suburb where most of the houses were clad in tacky wooden sliding. And unbeknownst to them, their pursuer slipped back into the shadows.

They could not be far from Randall’s house now. Ann led them down the main road, and before long, they saw a little green sign for Rogers Street. Excitedly they followed it. They were walking down the very street that Randall Munroe lived on, and XKCD fan’s wet dream. They kept going, until they reached a three-storey apartment block at the end of the road.

It was clad in the same wooden sliding as all the other buildings in the area, painted in a murky shade of green, and it looked quite newly built. They soon found the front door. Rob examined the list of doorbells, and saw that 101 was on the middle floor.

Without thinking, he pressed the doorbell with his fat finger.

“Shit, what do we say to him?” said Rob.

“Does it matter?” said Ann.

“We could pose as fans and ask to look around.” Raven suggested.

“He’ll never believe it.” said Rob. “Shiiiit.”

They waited tensely for a few minutes, and no answer came.

“Maybe he’s out.” said Ann.

“In that case I have an idea.” said Kitten. “I got it from an Episode of Sherlock. All we have to do is befriend the guy who lives directly above, then drop right down from the balcony to Randall’s.”

“That sound like a terrible idea.” said Rob “You should totally do it.”

Before the others could stop him, he rang the doorbell of a top-floor apartment directly above Randall’s. An annoyingly shrill female voice answered.

“Who’s this?”

“Hi,” said Kitten in his worst fake American accent. “Me homies an’ I recently acquired the flat downstairs. We wanna come take a look round yur place and intr’duce ah-selves.” 

“Doesn’t Pat live in that apartment?” said the voice.

“No he does-in’t. I just lost mah key so I gots to use yurs.”

“Um, I don’t think so.”

“LEMME THE FUCK IIIN!” shouted Kitten. His accent had gone completely redneck.

“I’m calling the cops.” said the woman.

And her voice cut off.

“Stop it, Kitten.” said Raven.

“Okay, let’s move on to plan B.” said Kitten. “I’m breaking in.” 

“What...”

Kitten shoved his fist through the glass door, and twisted the handle from the inside. There was blood on his wrist, but he wiped it on Ann’s ironic T-shirt.

“...the fuck?” said Rob.

“Wait, did she say Pat?” said Raven, but Kitten had already ran in.

“His middle name.” said Ann.

“Oh fuck this.” said Rob, and ran in after him.

Kitten rushed upstairs, and knocked on the door of the shrill-voiced woman. She opened the door cautiously.

“Good morning, Ma’am.” said Kitten, trying and failing to sound Canadian. “Ah’m a plainclothes police officer and ah understand there’s bin an intrusion in...”

“Get out!” she screamed.

“Sorry, ah have to inspect yur flat first.”

At this point, Rob caught up with him, and forced the woman out the way, and they rushed into her apartment.

“What now?” said Rob

“Now we go to his balcony.” said Kitten. “And... Shit, there’s no balcony!”

“Don’t move, you assholes!” said the shrill female voice from behind them. She was pointing a gun.

Meanwhile, Raven stood next to Ann at the smashed entrance.

“The police are gonna start arriving any minute.” he said to Raven. “And Rob and Kitten are still in there.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“What are we gonna do?”

“We could make out.” Raven suggested.

“We were probably gonna do that anyway.” said Ann. “I mean how do we rescue them? Going in the front door is too risky.”

“Well...” said Raven. “I could use my emo powers and teleport us into the Nether World, and we could pick up Rob and Kitten from there.”

“Whaaat?! Why didn’t you tell us you had this power?”

“Because every time I use it, a random person on the other side of the world drops dead of a heart attack.”

“Awesome.” said Ann, before adding: “But only if you’re comfortable using it. How exactly does it work?”

“Most emos activate the power by cutting.” Raven explained. “I do it by writing a shitty poem on a post-it note.” She withdrew a little square pad of yellow notes from her coat pocket, took out a ballpoint pen, and slowly wrote:

Wet pines stand watch

over silent streets.

Drowning worms die

beneath worn boots.

“Now, we both need to be touching the note.” said Raven. She held it in her palm and Ann placed a single finger on it. “3... 2... 1...” she said, and then they were both sucked off

into...

darkness.

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DISCLAIMER: this story and its characters are fictitious. Any resemblance to persons or cuddlefish living or dead is purely coincidental.

Author's note: for those are are curious about what route they were taking, I have mappped it here.