Lucky-winners Luncheon: Leprechaun Logistics Episode 1

I slumped down onto my trashy old couch. It was time I pretended to pay some bills.

I had a system. I checked my balance, subtracted food and rent, then the rest went to whichever past due bill seemed most urgent.

I was a prisoner and I would never be free.

I pulled up my online banking on my phone and then...I dropped the phone.

Was this some kind of prank or scam?

I picked it up and looked again. Current balance: $22,564.62

There were seven numbers in there if you counted pennies, and I always counted pennies. $20,000 more than I had yesterday.

My phone rang and I almost dropped it again.

"Hello?"

"Is this Tamika Monroe?"

Damn. Who was calling? FBI? CIA? IRS? It had to be about the money.

"And who's askin'?"

"My name is Natalie Rodgers. I'm with Leprechaun Logistics."

Oh good. It was a sales call. Relieved, I said, "Never heard of them."

She sounded shocked. "But you entered the competition, didn't you?"

"Competition?"

"Leprechaun Logistics Lucky-winners Luncheon."

Sounded like a tongue twister. "What’re you talking about?"

"It’s been all over the news. 20 lucky winners get 20 thousand dollars and attend an elite, invite-only luncheon with Garrett McNamara himself."

I opened my mouth to say something. Then shut it so I wouldn't say anything stupid.

"You did enter the competition, didn't you?"

I was flipping out. Don't screw this up!

"Oh yeah. Of course I entered the competition. So… uh, what were you calling about again?"

"Well, Tamika, you're one of the lucky 20. I'd love to meet up with you and go over everything."

"Sure," I said, head spinning. "Tell me when and where."

***

"Sign here."

"Okay." I scratched out my signature.

She turned the top page over. "And here."

I signed again. She turned the page again.

"Here."

"Hold it, what is all this?" I grabbed the first page I'd signed and started reading.

"The lucky-winners luncheon is a marketing campaign. As such you’re expected to agree to our media guidelines, reality TV agreement, contract labor, non-disclosure, and various other legal documents. It was clearly stated in the contest rules. Didn't you read them? That was one of the requirements."

"Oh yeah, I…" I flipped the papers back over and signed the next one. "It slipped my mind, you know."

"I understand," Natalie said. Then turned to another page. "Sign here."

***

"Oh my gosh, can you believe this? We won! We totally won!" The woman sat in the hairdresser chair beside me, throwing her hands around in excitement.

"Please sit still."

Her hairdresser had saintly patience. I would have just burned her platinum blond hair with the curling iron.

"Sorry."

She folded her hands in her lap and tried to sit still, but she was like the six year old twins I used to babysit. First her feet started moving, then her hips, then her ribcage. Soon she was trying to turn her head and talk to me again.

"So, like, did you expect you were going to win when you entered? Cause, you know I've been doing a lot of like, send your wish into the universe to do your bidding and all that stuff you see on YouTube you know, and it totally worked! I mean, we're really here!"

Big sigh. "Please sit still."

"Sorry." She looked straight ahead but kept talking to me. "So, tell me about you!”

Really? I tamped down the thought. "I never really expected to win." Especially since I never entered the contest in the first place.

"Oh." Her shoulders slumped a little, as if I'd just told her Santa hadn't given her that Gucci last year.

"What did you say your name was?" she asked. Her energy levels had come down a notch.

"Tamika."

"I'm Brady."

I smiled politely at her then looked at my updo in the mirror. It made me look like Rhianna. I'd already seen my dress, and when we were all done I would most definitely look like Rhianna.

This was all so out of the blue. This morning I thought my lunch would be a bag of peanuts and that Snickers bar I splurged on last week. Not the Lunatic Leprechaun Luncheon Whatever thing. I don't know if I ever saw the ads for the contest.

"What are you going to do with the money?" Brady asked.

Get out of debt, I thought. But that didn't sound like a Rhianna thing to say. "Not sure yet."

"I'm going to start a hospital for stray puppies," Brady said, her voice full of emotion. "You know. Like you see on YouTube."

***

I have to admit, the food was amazing. The cameras made me a little nervous, but that was fine. Brady attached herself to me, which I couldn't understand when there were 18 other men and women who seemed much more willing to be social than I was. Truth is I didn't mind too much. She was kind of cute… like one of those abandoned puppies she wanted to save.

When the luncheon was over everyone headed to the dance floor. I felt completely out of my element. I could pretend to know what I was doing in front of those cameras when all I had to do was eat food, but dancing was a different story.

I sat at a table and snagged a drink from one of the passing servers. I'd barely taken a sip of it when Brady found me.

"Come on! You have to dance!"

"No. I don't want to."

"Oh come on!" She took my drink and set it on the table, pulling me to the dance floor. The music was so loud I could feel it in my chest. Green lights flashed overhead and bodies writhed like snakes.

I hate snakes.

Brady told me she'd show me how to dance. She'd learned it on YouTube.

The fog machines started up, spraying a thick mist over the mob. It hit my throat like a fist. My heart beat faster and harder than it ever had before. Too fast. I couldn't breathe. A pressure in my chest clenched tighter and tighter.

I fell, hearing a repetitive thudding noise that wasn't from the music. It took a while to realize it was the sound of my feet smacking against the dance floor as my body convulsed.

I tried to look around but the fog was too thick. I couldn't see Brady anymore. I couldn't see anyone dancing, even though the bass still thumped and the lights still flashed.

And then the screaming started. Five or six other voices yelling and crying until they were silenced.

I didn't scream. It took me that long to realize I wasn't even breathing. I tried to inhale. My throat was closed up. No air entered my lungs.

I blacked out.

***

When I came to it was eerily quiet. The music was silenced, the lights were still, and giving a constant green glow.

Every muscle in my body ached as if I'd just done a triathlon without training for it.

I rolled onto my stomach and saw Brady lying a few feet away so I dragged my aching body over to her.

"Brady? Brady!" I shook her shoulder and then froze.

I'd never touched a dead body before, but somehow I knew instantly that she was gone. My eyes grew wide and my senses heightened from the fear. What the hell was going on here?

As my senses went into overdrive I could hear other people moving, I could hear other people breathing. I could hear… heart beats. Twelve of them to be exact, not including my own.

I pulled my phone from my bra to call 911 but the screen was so cracked I couldn't unlock it. Really? I'd dropped that damn phone a thousand times and one episode of convulsing on a dance floor cracked it?

I stood up and looked around. All the servers and cameramen were gone. With one quick glance I knew that all 20 of us "lucky" winners were here.

Not so lucky after all.

I heard something.

I left the other winners and went to hunt the sound.

The closer I got, the more I could hear. It was a voice. Not clear enough for words yet, but my mind drew a picture of exactly where it came from; where the hallway twisted, where the doors dampened the sound. As I searched, I found that the map in my head was perfectly accurate, as if I used sonar to navigate the labyrinthine halls that led to the voice. This was all so weird!

Words started to form but I only caught every two or three of them. "...ppears to… specimen… was successful…"

I hurried. That map in my head said I wasn't far from the speaker. I came to a double door that led into a lab. A chain was wrapped between the handles.

The voice was clear. It was a man on the other side of that door. He was alone; there was only one heartbeat, one set of lungs breathing in and out as he spoke.

"...to see her mental capabilities and problem solving, but I have high hopes. I'm not sure how she found me so soon. Quite impressed."

I grabbed the chain, trying to figure out how I would get inside. Frustrated, I yanked on it.

The door handles snapped right off.

Weird. They must have been rigged to break off like that.

"Ah. And here she is." A man in a dark green suit stood by a desk, a voice recorder in his hands. He had red hair and a red goatee. He was no more than five feet tall. Somehow I knew he was Garrett McNamara.

"I'm quite impressed with ya, Tamika. You'll be my star student for sure."

"There never was any contest, was there?"

"No. Never. Each one of the twenty lucky winners was carefully selected, recruited, and brought here for the first phase of testing."

"Recruited?" I asked.

"The contract, of course. You agreed to take part in the preliminary testing and, depending on the results of that test, you would continue working in my service."

"Continue? For how long?"

Garrett chuckled. "You tell me. If my hypotheses are correct you should have a photographic memory now. Go back and read the contract if you'd like."

I did. It took me a matter of seconds to recall what each paper looked like, and to read every word. My gut sank. How long would I continue? As long as he wanted me...and as long as I wasn't dead.

"You can't do this," I said under my breath.

"Of course I can. And I believe you realize I can as well." He smiled at me, and there was almost a twinkle in his eye. "It's been lovely chatting, but I've other business to attend to. Have a look around my office. I'm sure you would even if I didn't give you permission."

I watched him leave before walking over to his desk and picking up a little black notebook. I flipped through, seeing several names I didn’t recognize before finding my own.

"Tamika Monroe. Preliminary genetic testing on hair follicles and fingernail clippings show promising results for positive reaction to first phase testing." And then it went into a bunch of genetics mumbo jumbo that surprisingly I understood.

I flipped to the next page. "Brady Powell. Genetic testing on hair follicles and discarded makeup applicators shows no reaction to first phase testing. Use as a control to see what will happen to the general population."

My eyes blurred and I dropped the book.

I slumped down into Garrett's cushy office chair and looked at the clock on his desk. It was after midnight on the first day of the month

I had twenty grand in my bank to pay my bills.

Too bad I was a prisoner and couldn't use it.

Read Episode 2