Heres a short piece of flash fiction (675 words)suitable for Halloween. Takes only a few minutes to read. Dont let the title fool you. :) _________________________ Mothers Day The entire length of Juniper Avenue had but one dead street light. It was a dark night and no one would notice the chocolate-brown Mercury Marquis parked in that lonely unlit spot of pavement directly in front of the Harrisburg Bank. The car held two silent figures. Simon Fuller, and a particularly nervous fellow named Willy. Simon was a clean-cut young man, and in contrast, Willy had a pointy, unshaven face with deep-set eyes that were a little too close together. In the dim light, he looked more like a rat than a person. Shifting uneasily in his seat, Willy asked, “How long will this take?” “Maybe fifteen minutes,” Simon said, reaching around to the backseat for his laptop. “Two million, right?” “Calm down, you’ll get the damn money. Then, I don’t ever want to see you or any of Capriotti’s other goons again. I’m leaving this town, and don’t even think of following me. Im out and Im not coming back.” “Sure thing,” Willy grinned. “Mr. Capriotti said to get the money and then let you go… a deal’s a deal, until it aint.” Simon opened up his laptop and within a few seconds, the computer was scanning for the nearby Wifi network. He started up the Hex-key encryption decoding tool; it would only take a moment or two to gain access to the server. He drummed his fingers on the velvet dash as he waited. The two men froze when flashing lights and the sound of a siren came up the street. Simon lowered the screen of the laptop and Willy shrunk his head down between his shoulders like some kind of pathetic, cowardly turtle. The tension passed when they saw it was only an ambulance turning into the Valley Medical Center across the street. “Damn Hospital,” Simon sneered. “I hate hospitals!” A blinking cursor on his computer screen soon indicated his success. Simon chuckled; the little tool that he had downloaded from an online forum of teenage hackers had actually done the job. Funny. He set right away to tapping keys and muttering to himself. “Third floor server array… got it. Now, where is that login… LSS-ICU-03… Okay… Yes…Just about there…Okay, I’m in!” “Already?” Willy asked, raising an eyebrow. Youre pretty good at this computer stuff. Maybe Mr. Capriotti shoulda kept you around after all. Simon let his finger hover over the execute button for a second, like he was enjoying his victory a little too much. He pushed the key. “This will take about eight minutes.” Willy got nervous and after only five minutes he started rubbernecking the street every few seconds, “What if the cops come by?” “They won’t.” After a couple more minutes, Simon clicked a few more keys. “I’ve just gotta power everything back up. Can’t leave any trace I was here.” A few more keystrokes and he closed the laptop and sighed. He kept his eyes forward and gripped the steering wheel with tense hands. “It’s done.” He started the car and slowly pulled away down the street. Willy finally relaxed. “I had no idea it was that easy to hack into a bank.” Simon showed no emotion answering cold and matter-of-factly, “Not the bank… the hospital across the street.” “Hospital? But, what about the money? Boss aint gonna be too happy about this.” “My mother was in that hospital. She’s been in a coma for three friggin’ years, while my inheritance gets leached by lawyers and… caregivers.” He spat the last word like a poison off his tongue. I hate hospitals. Simon turned to Willy, and for the first time since he had closed his laptop, he smiled. It was a cold, unnatural smile that seemed distant and uncaring. “Two million dollars…and all it took was powering down her life support system for eight short minutes.” Willy turned in his seat and looked back at the hospital. He suddenly didn’t feel comfortable sitting next to Simon. “She was on the third floor?” Simon smiled. “I’ll send flowers in the morning. After all, it is Mother’s Day.”
Posted on: Fri, 17 Oct 2014 03:46:33 +0000
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