If you need to catch up, you can read Part 1 over here.
The next morning Ali went to the apartment complex office and asked to speak to the manger. She soon found herself seated across a desk from Aaron Spellmeyer, a smug looking thirty-something in a shirt and tie.
“What do you want to
know about the racquetball court?” he said, flashing an overly
whitened smile. “It's just one of our many wonderful amenities here
at Pine Ridge Landings.”
Ali sighed and looked at
her watch. She needed to get as much information as she could before
it was time for class.
“Yes, I already live
here so I know about the 'amenities,'” she said with a dismissive
wave of her hand. “I want to know why the court closed thirty years
ago.”
Aaron shrugged and smiled
again.
“I couldn't say, my
management firm bought this property a year ago,” he said. “We
just refinished the floor and repainted, one of the many improvements
Home Sweet Home Property Management has made.”
Ali laughed scornfully.
The only change she had seen when the new management took over was
higher rent.
“There are no records?”
she asked. “The old management didn't leave anything on file?”
Aaron shook his head but
maintained his smile.
“The previous owners
weren't much for record keeping, you could say,” he chuckled.
“What about the Building
Division?” Ali asked. “Are there any old permits or reports on
file? Have you checked with City Hall?”
Aaron appeared to be
thinking to himself. He took a deep breath, widened his smile and
folded his hands on the desktop.
“At Home Sweet Home
Property Management we spend our time providing quality housing to
our tenants,” he said. “We don't really have time to do all the
research you're asking for. But let me assure that the racquetball
court is safe and up to code.”
“Well, thank you for
your time,” Ali said, and she got up to leave.
*
Brian angrily adjusted his
headband and cursed himself. The game had started off friendly enough
but had quickly disintegrated into a sweaty testosterone-fueled death
match.
Matt had arrived at the
racquetball court at the appointed time with a mending Kurt in tow.
Kurt explained that the ophthalmologist had prescribed him some eye
drops and he was now ready to play. Everyone had put their tubes of
spare racquetballs in the corner of the court and started to warm up.
Kurt sported a prescription eye patch and he shot Brian an evil look,
his good eye full of hate. Brian suspected something was wrong when
he made a snarky comment about pirates and Kurt was unperturbed.
To Brian's horror, Kurt had simply removed his eye patch and put on a
brand new pair of the thickest goggles Brian had ever seen.
And
now they were killing him.
Brian loathed himself for not seeing the evil duo for what they were:
hustlers. But unlike other hustlers, racquetball hustlers didn't play
for money. They were just ridiculously skilled in the art of
racquetball and masochistically interested in making other players
look very, very foolish, which was exactly what they were doing to
Brian at that moment.
Kurt
had extra reason to see Brian look stupid in light of yesterday's
racquetball-to-the-eye incident. Kurt had won the first two games
without much effort, with Matt in close second. Brian hadn't scored
in the first game, gotten a meager two points in the second and game
number three was looking to have a similar outcome. All notions of
racquetball glory had fled from Brian. He was breathing heavily and
trying to dodge the elbows Kurt was throwing.
“Who's
the pirate now?” Kurt sneered. “You're playing like you have a
wooden leg and a hook for a hand, heh heh heh.”
“And
a parrot,” added Matt with an vicious smirk. “That's, like, on
your shoulder and asking for a cracker and talking a lot and
distracting you and making you suck.”
Brian
shuddered at the sight of Kurt's injured eye: bloodshot and bulging
with the pupil fully dilated.
“Shut
up,” Brian murmured. “Who makes pirate jokes anyway? Pirates are
so trendy and overdone, like zombies and ninjas.”
Kurt
laughed loudly, looked over at Matt and then back to Brian.
“Now
that you mention it,” Kurt guffawed, “You're playing more like a
zombie than a pirate. Like you're thinking about eating brains
instead of racquetball.”
Kurt
and Matt laughed and gave each other high fives. Brian gritted his
teeth and tried hard to think of a snappy comeback.
“I'll...
eat your brains,” he
mumbled, hating himself all the more. “Just shut up and serve.”
Kurt
and Matt laughed loudly again and shook their heads. Kurt stepped up
to the serving line, grinning hatefully. He bounced the ball several
times and called, “Game point.” He threw the ball up in the air.
The
lights went out. The racquetball Kurt had been about to serve fall
back down and hit the floor. The sound seemed extra loud in the
darkness.
“Not again!” Kurt's
voice called out. “What's going on?”
Brian strained his eyes to
see but the darkness was complete. He heard Kurt and Matt grumbling
to each other and start stumbling toward the back of the court. And
then Brian heard a racquetball start bouncing toward the back of the
court.
“Is someone...” he
started to say.
The sound of one bouncing
racquetball slowly grew until it sounded like several balls were
bouncing and then several more. The sound rapidly grew into a dull
roar. It sounded to Brian as if all of their spare racquetballs were
bouncing around the court at rapid speed, ricocheting off the walls,
floor and ceiling. He heard several whiz past his head.
“What's happening?”
Matt called in a choking voice over the din.
Brian was trying to feel
his way toward the door in the darkness. He stumbled through the
hailstorm of racquetballs. The air was full of them, and he could
feel them zinging past. One smacked him in the back of the head.
Another hit him in the hand, almost knocking the racquet out of it.
Brian winced and heard Matt and Kurt yelling.
The racquetballs were
flying all around like an swarm of angry bees. They began to pelt
Brian all over his body and he broke into a run. He ran smack into
the back wall and fell backward. He scrambled to his feet and felt
for the door.
“Over here!” Brian
called out, holding the door open.
Dim light spilled into the
previously dark court. Matt and Kurt stumbled toward the door and
together the three men ran screaming from the court.