text: [Themes: modern, thriller]
  
  Before you can finish this second round of Fireball, however, the cabin shudders in what must be a tremendous gust of wind. It is enough to cause the pots and pans hanging from nails in the kitchen to sway and ding into each other, as well as to cause the windows to clatter even behind their wooden covers.
  
  "What's that noise?" Charlei says, visibly concerned. "It sounds like there's an airplane about to crash!"
  
  You hear it too, a sound like that of a roaring jet engine, but suspended in place above the valley. "It's just the storm, I think."
  
  "I've never heard a storm like this!"
  
  "Neither have I."
  
  Then comes the sound of gunshots — or rather, what is probably the snapping of trees, the splintering of live wood as the gale rampages through the forest. Certainly this wind must be severe enough to cause extensive blowdown, and for a moment the thought of trees crashing through the wall concerns you. But then you remember the scrubby nature of the woods that you briefly saw in the truck's headlights before turning them off, trees that were too short and too far away from this cabin to cause any structural damage. Your truck, on the other hand...
  
  You have been so distracted by the sounds of the storm, trying to visualize what you can't see, that you missed the point when Charlei reached across the space between your chairs and grabbed your hand by the wrist. You follow the line from wrist to forearm to biceps to bare shoulder, but her attention is focused on the windward wall, just as yours had been a moment before.
  
  When the horrific sound of destruction finally comes, however, it is from the front of the cabin, not the side. You recognize what must be the rickety porch succumbing to the wind, but it instills panic into Charlei. Before you can resist she leaps from her chair into yours, seeking security in your lap like a child frightened by a summer thunderstorm. She is no child, however, but a heavy adult — muscular despite her pretenses, with all of her feminine mass now fetally curled on top of you, preventing any possibility of escape.
  
  "What the hell—" you start to protest, but she shushes you into silence. Then, almost as an afterthought, she reaches over toward the lantern and dims the light entirely.
  
  This is a very peculiar predicament, in more ways than you can count: a grown woman in your lap, one who you've barely known for a couple hours, and whose motives and actions have all been highly suspect. And you, with a perfectly good wife back home who wouldn't deserve to be put through any of this nonsense, if word of this were to survive the evening.
  
  But you can hear Charlei's breathing against your chest, and feel the rise and fall of her own chest. The thin sundress may have blocked what you could see with your eyes, but this close physical contact leaves little to the imagination for some of your other senses. And you fear that it may provoke an uncontrollable response of your own that she will feel as well — a place you really, really do not want to go.
  
  That's the moment when the kitchen door bursts open. At first you assume it's a result of the wind. Charlei flinches, holding onto your shoulders even tighter and further immobilizing you, pinned in the depths of the ancient recliner. Then a beam of light penetrates the dark room, searching restlessly until landing on the two of you.
  
  "Aha!" a voice shouts above the wind. "I should have known!"
  
  Of course this would be the moment Gordy should come barging in; your already-suspicious mind is telling you that you should have suspected this, that this was the trap. Here you are, forced into an intimate embrace with his wife, and now here he is presented with the motive for killing you that he lacked before.
  
  "Gordy, I—" Charlei starts to say, her tone one of studied contriteness.
  
  "Honey, move away from him. Let me see this bastard."
  
  You can only hear him, as Charlei is weighing you down with your back to the door, but you can tell he has forced the door shut behind him and has stepped into the kitchen.
  
  Charlei stands up in the beam of his flashlight, making a show of pulling up her shoulder strap as if it had been pulled down in the darkness into a scandalous position. You recognize it as a show for Gordy's benefit, intended to incriminate you. It's a charge for which you have no defense; the evidence and the witness testimony will be nothing short of damning.
  
  "Gordy, you don't understand!" Charlei says, but you know better than to believe any of this. When she had cracked the door open a moment ago, it was probably to confirm her husband had arrived and was awaiting the signal to act — which came when she turned off the lantern.
  
  "What is there not to understand?" he says. "I come all the way over here in the rain only to find my wife in the arms of another man. That's pretty open and shut to me. Wouldn't you agree, Al?"
  
  The honey trap that you suspected from the beginning has been sprung, but it is proving to be more effective than you hoped. You stand from the recliner slowly, hands outstretched at your sides. If this is to be the end of Al Flansburgh, you don't want it to be in the embrace of that Naugahyde chair.
  
  Turning toward the source of the light, all you can see is his silhouette twelve feet away, with both recliners and the end table between you. If you were to try and charge him, going on the offensive rather than being a passive participant in your own demise, you'd have to go straight through the furniture — and the closest thing to a weapon is that kerosene-filled lantern.
  
  On the other hand, these two people do seem to like their verbal head games, so maybe the only way out of this is to engage them at their own level.
  
  > call them out on their head games.
  "So long as you care what I think," you say in answer to Gordy's question, "I think all three of us know what's going on here."
  
  "Then you admit it?" he says, signs of agitation growing in his face.
  
  "Yes, but not the way you think. My only crime has been giving you two the time of day."
  
  "You disgust me, Al," Gordy says, stepping forward to face you, nothing but a Naugahyde chair between you. "We come to you for help, and next thing I know you've got your hands all over my wife!" He's clearly trying to appear menacing, but his attire is undermining the effect: over his ridiculous clothes he's now wearing a thin plastic poncho, the kind you might wear once and then discard. The material swishes loudly as he gestures, like a trash bag flopping in a breeze. It's a wonder the thing survived the walk over from the Bear's Den.
  
  "Oh for crying out loud," you say, aspiring to a certain level of condescension. "You're a child, Gordy! A little boy in a big boy's clothes. And that goes for you too, there, missy."
  
  That last bit is directed at Charlei, standing in the fringes of the flashlight beam. "But Al, don't you see I'm on your side? I—"
  
  "No, of course you're not. You never have been. Maybe for about five minutes you had me hooked, but this has always been about that fool husband of yours. I'm nothing more to you than a pet stooge you bumped into along the way."
  
  She reaches forward to touch your arm, but you move away. "Al, I don't know how you could think that—"
  
  "No! No more games," you say. "Don't you get it? You're living in a make-believe world!"
  
  The Goodcheer-Fellows look a bit stunned, like the night is taking a turn they hadn't anticipated. Gordy, however, makes a feeble attempt to maintain the charade. "You have no idea how livid I am with you, Al, for—"
  
  "Well that's just the thing, right? You needed a reason to be angry with me. I don't know why, I don't know what you expect to gain other than maybe a sense of power and control over another human being. Charlei here said you want to kill me. For the life of me I can't figure out what I ever did to you, but whatever. If you were for real, if I really offended you that badly for some reason, then you could've done me in an hour ago. We were all just sitting right there drinking beer, remember? Perfect opportunity, wasted."
  
  "I seem to recall saying the same thing," Gordy says to his wife. She shifts uneasily between you.
  
  "So then why didn't you?" you challenge him.
  
  "You'd have to ask her," he says.
  
  "I think it's because you can't," you say. "All this blather, all this running around in the rain, and I have yet to see any evidence of you injuring anything besides my patience."
  
  "Why, look at you get the scolding of a lifetime!" Charlei says to him.
  
  "These are all clever theories, Al, though possibly the results of an overactive mind. Keep this up, and you're going to burn out all your hamster wheels."
  
  "No, Gordy, no! You're doing it wrong," Charlei says, tugging at his arm. "Don't you see? Al here is an adult, and you and I have been naughty little children. You need to start showing some respect, young man!"
  
  For a while you had them off balance, but this sudden switch to sarcasm has you concerned. It's apparently all too easy to trigger their self-defense mechanisms, causing them to find some contrived new way to bend reality to their advantage.
  
  "Well, whatever. Sir, yes, sir." He puts two fingers to his forehead and gives you a half-hearted mock salute.
  
  "That's better," Charlei says. "I think someday we'll all look back at this night and have a big laugh. Don't you think?"
  
  "I wouldn't be so sure about Al." Gordy's glare is obvious, even with the flashlight pointed at the floor.
  
  "You're right, maybe not Al. Al needs to lighten up, methinks." She's standing next to him again, not unlike when they first appeared at your door, the quarrelsome but strongly-bonded couple. And in their world, you're the obtuse interloper.
  
  > Next page.
  "So, Al, let's finish this story you started," Gordy says. "I wanted to kill you, but I couldn't; I believe that's where you left off. I'm curious why you think that is."
  
  This isn't going well. "Well, you know, I mean—"
  
  "Is it because you think I lack the means? The resolve?"
  
  "I just wanted to see you come to my rescue!" Charlei says cheerfully to him. "It can't possibly be any fun gunning people down at random. There has to be something at stake! A matter of honor that needs to be settled."
  
  "You should listen to her, Al — or are we supposed to call you Mr. Flansburgh? I keep forgetting he's our superior and we're supposed to treat him with respect."
  
  "That's right, Mr. Al Flansburgh, this is not about you, never has been. I've been trying to help my husband find the joy again in what he does. You were just a means to an end. And like a self-righteous blowhard, you had to go and ruin it by trying to explain the obvious to us."
  
  "Now, Al, if I'm not mistaken there is a hole in your theories, something you couldn't account for. Am I right?" Gordy lifts the poncho and reaches under his green vest. The next time you see his hand, it is holding a small revolver with a stubby barrel. "You took a look at me and couldn't believe how I could possibly be a threat to anyone. Am I right? Don't bother answering; I know how you are. But here's what you're not getting: this is what I do. It's like my calling in life. Some people become bakers or lawyers or dentists, because that's what they're born to do. Not me, though. Do you know where I got this cutesy little .38? From my last two customers. You probably knew them, come to think of it. They owned a nice camp just up the road, an A-frame."
  
  The blood drains from your body. Indeed, you do know two people who fit that description, and they'd be the type to have a gun like that lying around their camp.
  
  "So... you just do this... for fun?" you say, finding the concept almost impossible to utter.
  
  "It might've been fun in your case, until you ruined the mood by going off-script. Now I might just take pleasure in shutting you up."
  
  "Well, then," Charlei says, "this might be my cue to go upstairs."
  
  "All right, hun, Al and I won't be long."
  
  "Good night, Al," she says to you. "I'd stay and see you off, but I never like this part."
  
  "I love you," he says to her as she begins to climb the steps.
  
  "Back atcha. I'm sorry my idea didn't work out the way I wanted."
  
  "I think it's sweet that you tried!" he says. They blow each other kisses, then Charlei disappears through the trapdoor at the top of the stairs.
  
  Gordy then turns his attention — and the .38 — back to you. "Now Al, did I answer all your questions?"
  
  "Gordy, please no— I—"
  
  "If you're squeamish, you might want to close your eyes," he says. With the flashlight pointed at the floor, he and the gun are just a silhouette. There is a burst of light as the gun fires, and you fall across the recliner behind you.