The Realtor

"You're absolutely going to love this property, Mr. Garcia. They're willing to let it go for $112,000. You won’t find a better deal. "

Friday carried that same familiar tone Devon Garcia always woke to. The alarm buzzed right on schedule, along with the sharp morning squeal of breaks stopping the school bus on his street to pick up kids. His usual first thought was to reach for the snooze button. Instead, he lingered for a few seconds in that half-wake state, until his mind snapped back to the thoughts he paused before falling asleep. Like a disciplined soldier, he was always out of bed within three minutes to start the day.

The morning sun had shone in the same familiar places inside Devon house as it did the days before. Most subtleties slip pass unnoticed—until daylight begins to shorten, revealing the quiet movement of time. People are much the same in ways; you can't always tell what faces they're hiding, tucked beneath that version of themselves they choose to present...

Some of us find a clear direction early on in life. But not Jasper Duquene. He never found his dream job, so he drifted through the workforce for years, starting as a janitor at a bowling alley when he turned seventeen. Jasper held more than twenty jobs before finally landing a position as a realtor in his late thirties. He needed to make a sale.

Looking for a place to renovate, Devon bookmarked a local ad on craigslist that led him to the property a day later. Him and two colleagues were excited to see the inside of the old building with Jasper's lead.

"Here it is!" Jasper said.

They were looking at an open-plan warehouse with a catwalk-style upper level that went around the entire perimeter. Four sets of metal stairs, each situated in one of the corners, led up to the top level. The bottom floor was covered in dirt and grime, but beneath that grime, the painted concrete looked ready to shine again.

"It's 19,000 square feet, with plenty of extra storage rooms up top. You could even turn them into additional office space." Jasper said.

"Yeah, I think I like what I'm seeing so far." Devon said. "Walk me through the foundation integrity."

"Well, given the age, it's smart to have a structural engineer come in and evaluate the load capacity, especially if you plan to use heavy machinery. But as far as the listing goes, the owner believes it's in good shape. He claims you won't find any major cracking." Jasper said with rehearsed flair.

"How about the electrical room? I hope there's only one. Can you show us that next?" Zach, Devon's project manager asked.

"Yes, there's only one. Right this way."

All four of them walked to the requested area to a room near one of the staircases. There hadn't been electricity flowing through the veins of that warehouse in thirteen years.

"This is it. It's the master control room for everything." Jasper said.

Zach pulled out a flashlight and shined it inside the 8x8 room. Besides the cobwebs and dust-ridden, tiled floor, the room looked functionable.

"Not too bad." Zach said, motioning to his assistant to come inside. "Andrew, take a good picture of this connector thing and google it to see how much it would cost to replace."

"Okay, but I can tell you now, it won't be cheap. My guess is it's going to be at least 900.00." Andrew said.

Where the main line was attached to the 6ft box, corrosion had been silently eating away at the connector for years. Andrew took several pictures.

"Um... I'm guessing this place doesn't have Wi-Fi, haha. I don't have signal in here." Andrew said.

"I don't have one either." Devon said. "The walls in this place are thick. Just keep the photos. We can check later. Show us the upstairs next. I need to see what kind of storage spaces you are talking about."

"Alright fellas, right this way."

They climbed the nearest staircase, gripping the oxidized metal railing as the grated steps rattled beneath them. At the top, the walkway stretched out in the same meshed metal, tracing the upper level, leading to a half dozen evenly spaced rooms.

"Here we are. All of these rooms are the same size. You might find miscellaneous items left behind. Don't worry. The owner says most of the stuff will be gone after he sales the place."

"Nice! I think we could fit a ton of inventory in these rooms." Devon said. "Zach, check your contacts for the company that builds shelves that we've worked with before. We'll give them a call after we leave here. I could fit at least ten shelves inside these rooms... Jasper, do you have the specs? I think I could make this work for what I would need."

Standing in the doorway, watching the men's interest turn to spark, Jasper spoke.

"Here." He threw the listing to the ground. "It's all on there. You'll have plenty of time to look it over. And turn your phones to airplane mode so we can communicate."

With that, he slammed the door shut, locking the men inside.

"What the fuck was that? This is a joke, right?" Andrew said.

It was not a joke.

The men ran to the door to try and get it open; it lacked a handle on the inside, taking away the option of trying to pull it open with brute strength.

Exhausted from all the pounding, yelling and charging the door, the men had given up for the moment. They each tried their 911 emergency buttons. The message each of them received was, 'failed to connect'.

Who the hell was Jasper anyway? Devon thought.

"Wait! That piece of shit said to turn our phones to airplane mode if we wanted to communicate." Zach said.

They fumbled with their phones to quickly activate the setting, readying themselves to threaten Jasper into ending whatever this was.

"I'm gonna beat the shit out of that motherfucker when I get out of here!" Andrew said afterwards.

The men were trapped in a room whose only window was placed high on the back wall, fifteen feet off the ground. Even if they could get up that high, the bars would stop them from escaping.

Daylight filtered through that grimy window, hazy but enough to brighten the room. Devon stood in place, grinding his teeth while staring at his phone trying to understand what Jasper might have done to frazzle the signal. Andrew stayed at the door, leaning on it with his forehead and left hand, lazily slapping the door with his right as if that alone was helping the situation. Zach sat Indian style on dust-caked floor, shaking his head at the predicament while using a small piece of wood to make circles in the dirt. They had no idea how to get out or what was going to happen next.

That was until minutes later when Jasper finally rang in on Devon's phone....

"Dude! What the fuck are you doing man? You know this is illegal, right?"

"Save your harsh words, Mr. Garcia, and listen to me if you want to get out of there alive. I'm sure you realize I have the upper hand here."

It took everything for Devon not to slam his phone into the ground. He knew Jasper was right. The other two men gathered around him, both on edge as they also had a word or two for Jasper. Devon motioned for them to keep quiet, setting his phone to speaker. Jasper calmly spelled out what was at stake, enjoying every moment of it.

"Okay, now that I have your attention, let's play a little game of ten questions. Between the three of you, if you get them correct before time is up, you will be allowed to leave. If you don't, then, well, have you ever been blown to bits? Haha."

"MAN! IF YOU DON'T LET US OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW, I'M GOING TO-" Andrew yelled, but was cut off.

"NO NO NO... Temper temper, young man. We'll have none of that unless you want me to hang up and leave you there to die. This will be my last call, best pay attention." Jasper said, his character completely changed from earlier.

"Let him talk, Andrew." Devon said, completely annoyed with everything.

"Thank you! Now, before we start, I'll let you in on a little secret. This property is scheduled for demolition tomorrow morning at 8am. It was never going to be yours, Mr. Garcia. Sorry... In the back left corner, you will see a red object the size of a shoe box. It contains dynamite. There are twenty others like it throughout the entire property. The city has zoned this area for modern development and has already rigged the entire structure to come down in a spectacular display of destruction. All that's left to do is secure the area around the building... and then, they'll press the button. BOOM! No more building. You can try and unrig the box inside that room, but I would be careful, you wouldn't want to blow yourselves up prematurely. You will answer the questions by text ONLY! You will receive one question every hour, having that hour to answer the question. They will become more difficult as we go. If you get the question right, you will receive another one the following hour. If you get a question wrong, no further questions will follow, and the game will be over. BOOM! They'll eventually find your bodies in the wreckage and give you a proper burial. Now, I hope you have a full battery, Mr. Garcia. And sorry for robbing you of the internet. Google or Siri or none of those things will help you answer any of the questions. That's cheating anyway. Hope you paid attention in life, haha. Ten minutes from now, at 1pm, the game will start. You can now ask me ONE question before we start. Make it good."

"What? Alright, give us a sec." Devon said.

He quickly put his phone on mute so they could discuss the evil scenario.

"This dumbass is crazy." Zach said. "But I wonder what's his motive. Did either of you piss someone off lately?"

"I never pissed anyone off that I remember." Andrew said.

"Me neither." Devon said. "But I also wonder what his motivation is for doing something as stupid and dangerous as this. I think that has to be the question we ask him. Everyone agree?"

"Yeah. I don't think anything else matters at the moment." Andrew said.

With a face stuck on anger, Devon unmuted the phone.

"Okay. We want to know why the hell you are doing this. That's our question."

"Phew...That's a relief. I was hoping you didn't ask if there was another way out of that room, haha. To answer your question, I like playing games and this one is exciting for me. Your only mistake, Mr. Garcia was answering the ad."

With that, the call ended.

Eight minutes later the first question appeared in Devon's texts.

Who was the 19th, President? 1:00pm

"Oh my god, you guys. Is he being serious? There has to be another way out of this place. He even hinted at it. I don't want to play this idiot's game." Andrew said, spitting to the ground.

"I know it's dumb." Devon said. "But we have to go along and look for another way out between questions. You already said it's a real dynamite box."

"He's right." Zach said. "Just try and chill, Andrew and play the game. Lincoln was the 16th president, I know that. Who came after?"

They pondered over the answer for five minutes until Andrew remembered something.

"I got it! I think... It was Rutherford B. Hays. I know because when I was in 8th grade, we had this schoolhouse rock thing and a bunch of us were cast as the presidents. Chaz... I forget his last name, but he stood three spaces from Lincoln. The answer is Rutherford B. Hayes."

"You sure?" Devon said.

"Yeah, I'm positive now. It was Lincoln then Johnson, Grant and Hayes. He was the 19th!"

"Alright. Great job! I guess it doesn't matter since neither of us have a clue. I'm going to type it in." Devon said.

"Do it." Andrew said.

After a total twenty-three minutes, Devon typed the answer and sent it.

The answer is Rutherford B. Hayes 1:24pm

While waiting to see if the question was correct, they began checking every inch of that room for another way out. Before long, Devon's phone dinged.

Name the states part of the four corners. 2:00pm

"Jesus... This one should be easy, but I'm out, Andrew said."

"We can get this one." Devon said. " I know for sure that Colorado and Utah are part of it. Any clue, Zach?"

Uhh... Yeah. It has to be whatever state is below Utah and below Colorado because they are side by side."

"Arizona!" Andrew blurted out. "Arizona is below Utah because my cousin drove to Arizona State University a few years ago and had to drive through Utah to get there. She went to ASU for college.

"The other one has to be New Mexico." Devon said. I have family in Texas and can see it on the map in my head. Plus, you have to drive through New Mexico to get to any of the other states. So, the 4th one is New Mexico. We only have six minutes left. I'm going to type it."

The answer is Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. 2:54pm

The men remained agitated and their bellies began to grumble in protest with them. They were confident with their last answer but by 3:05pm, the next question still had not come.

"What the fuck is he doing! That was the right answer!" Devon said, staring at his phone, wishing Jasper was there so he could pummel him.

Maybe they had got the answer wrong and the game was over. They didn't know and were becoming impatient.

Looking at his phone, anticipating the next question, Devon decided to continue texting Jasper.

HELLO????? 3:10pm

What the fuck is going on Jasper? That question was right. 3:15pm

Seriously, man!!! You got to give us something!!! 3:22pm

I'll Kill you myself! You better hope we don't find a way out. FREAK! 3:31pm

They had all but given up on Jasper. Maybe he wasn't receiving their texts. Maybe they weren't receiving his. They tried calling him but every time, the call failed. With no moves left to make, panic was no longer optional. The yelling and the charging of the door resumed, yielding the same results, nothing. The door had not budged an inch.

"My daughter's birthday is tomorrow." Zach said, wiping sweat off his face. "She's turning ten. We got to get out of here. Maybe if we build a 3-man tower by standing on each other's shoulders, we could at least break the window and yell out if it."

It was an idea they were willing to try. But after deciding whose legs were strong enough to be at the bottom of the stack, Devon's phone dinged.

Who is this? And why are your threatening Jasper? 4:27pm

Devon quickly responded.

Jasper? Wait a minute, who is this? Jasper locked us up in an old warehouse off Charter Square. Please call me at this number. ASAP! 4:28pm

I can't call you from his phone because he has your number blocked with something weird he did to the settings. I just took his phone from him, and he's locked back up in his room. Sorry. He escaped the facility 5 days ago. Whatever he did, we'll get you out. What's the address? 4:30pm

Jasper Duquene's real name was Jasper Benet. A smart, yet cunning individual who lost touch with reality a decade ago. Yes, he was a licensed realtor at some point in the past, but something not fully understood happened to him. This wasn't the first time he had escaped the mental institution, and it wasn't the first time forcing someone to play his idiotic games. The only real danger the men were in was becoming dehydrated. But, if they would have been brave enough to open the red box, they would have found that it did not contain dynamite at all. Instead, it contained bottled water and a crowbar; a tool to open the door that Jasper planned to lead them to after his foolish game was over.

One thing he achieved without question, was planting genuine fear in his client's minds. The men were not amused and tried building a kidnapping case against Jasper and the institution, but were coerced into letting it go when they realized the insanity plea almost always wins...

Some wonder what goes through the mind of a disturbed individual. As for Jasper, if anyone were to visit him this very moment, they would see him engaged in a game of trivial pursuit all by himself.

His obsession with asking and answering questions took a toll on many people in his life. Especially the staff at the facility, who’ve endured the same questions over and over for the past four years.