Every year I enter the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. This is a writing competition where you are pitted against other writers around the globe in 2 rounds. Round 1 gives you 8 days to write, edit, and submit a short story where the genre and subject are picked randomly. The winners of each genre category are then put into a final round were you again write on a genre and subject that are randomly picked for you… but this time it needs to be completed in 24 hours.
The following is my round 1 entry for 2011. Genre was “Fantasy”, Subject was “A Bank Robbery”. The reality was that I thought about it for 7 days, and actually wrote it in the last 24 hours – I’m a rebel that way. I hope you enjoy it, comments are welcome.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
TITLE: My My Myan Stones
SYNOPSYS: There are ancient things we do not understand, and fools who fool with them are destined to pay the price. This is the story about one ancient legend finding a modern home.
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
41… 16… 78…
Ryan finally took a breath before whispering, “I love that sound”. He stood up and backed away from the TI-9000 Secure-Safe so the rest of his crew could step in and empty it’s contents.
“Nice work, squirrel”. Sarge had come up behind Ryan and was supervising the crew extract cash and jewels from the safe. “I think you beat your best time”. He looked at the stop watch in his left hand, then back toward the safe. “30 seconds… 20… 10… Done – Lets go!”
Less than a minute later, all four men were stepping onto the street heading for the van they had parked around the corner. As Ryan closed the van door, he heard the store alarm sound in the building they had just left.
Sarge did not look impressed. “That should have been a 10 minute delay, Booby. My watch says that was only 8.”
The 19-year-old blonde surfer and tech specialist who had rigged a time delay on the store alarm gave Sarge an apologetic shrug. “Sorry boss, I’ll make sure it is longer next time.”
Back at the warehouse where they planned their jobs and divided the take, Ryan headed for the bar fridge to get a soda. He liked to just sit back out of the way and let the others count the split.
And that’s the way life was for Ryan Schel. Sarge had been the only parent Ryan had ever really known. His parents had both died in a car accident when Ryan was only 2 years old. They did not have a will or any close family but Sarge was closer than a brother to Ryan’s father and agreed to take him in. Sarge always had a tendency to save lost puppies and rescue orphans – God only knows how a guy like that ends up robbing jewelry stores and banks for a living.
Bobby joined the crew after installing a satellite dish service for Sarge. Somehow the conversation had turned to alarms, and cameras and how Bobby could hot-wire, hack or fix anything electronic and the rest is history.
Ryan did not really know anything about Driver except that he drove the getaway car every time – and he could drive anything. One time he had to improvise and ended up hot-wiring an ambulance, another time, the job required a city dump truck, which again was no problem for Driver. He was talented, but the guy never said a word, and he disappeared completely between jobs. Ryan was not even sure if even Sarge actually knew Driver’s real name.
A few weeks passed before Sarge called the crew together again. This time is was a bank job. Ryan liked the bank jobs because the vaults always posed some unique challenge. Even though many of the vaults were similar, they were usually installed with different options and trips. In this case, it was a fairly standard time lock, spin tumbler with two-inch bar-bolts. These had ten-inch thick doors, which Ryan always thought was foolish since all he really needed to do was move a 1/16th inch pin in the lock and it all just opened up real nice. It would still take a few minutes and he would need extreme quiet to hear the tumbler, but it was definitely doable.
Cracking the vault door was a lot harder than getting into the safety deposit boxes inside. While Bobby and Driver were packing up cash, Ryan was picking the locks on each of the boxes. “Left, right up, and…” – each one was basically the same with a bit of jiggle and a dash of personal magic, each opened as easily as if he had the key. “… and twenty… last one”.
Bobby and Driver had already started emptying the boxes starting at the other end of the vault, where Ryan had unlocked the first one, so he started to work on emptying the boxes from his end. Sarge was standing at the vault door, somehow watching his crew work, keeping an eye on the bank door, and counting down the time from his stop watch. “That’s 10 minutes now. Lets move, people.”
Ryan was at the 3rd box when he noticed it. The glow was faint, but it was there, painting the edges of the box opening a dull orange. He only realized he had stopped moving and was just staring at the box when Sarge’s voice startled him. “What’s goin’ on Squirrel?”
“Ah… nothing.” Ryan reached out and pulled the box open, made a twisting motion to dump its contents into the duffle bag, but nothing came out. Turning it back over he saw 2 small black stones inside. He trued the dumping motion again, but nothing came out. Thinking they had stuck to the bottom of the box, Ryan reached in and picked them up with his hand, but they lifted surprisingly well – they were not stuck to anything.
“Time” Sarge snapped, ” Lets go!”
Driver and Bobby had managed to clean out all the other boxes while Ryan was working on the one box with the stones. He quickly tossed the stones into the duffle bag, zipped it and headed out the vault door with it. A minute later the team was in the van pulling away and before they hit the first corner Ryan could hear the bank alarm sound. Bobby threw a big grin at the sound of the alarm as he looked at his watch. “Perfect timing”.
Ryan smiled back at Bobby “Nice work, kid”.
Bobby just said “Thanks”, but a second later followed it with “looser”.
Ryan was startled by this unexpected comment. “What did you say?”
Bobby looked confused. “Thanks, man, I just said Thanks”.
Ryan let it go, thinking he may have just heard wrong, but it sounded very clear. Later, back in the warehouse dividing the take, Ryan stood back against the wall watching the others make the split. He shoved his hands in his pocks and leaned back into the wall, but then felt something in his hand. He wrapped his hand around the small warm object in his pocket and pulled it out. There in his palm were the two small stoned from the vault. The same stones that he had tossed into the duffle bag. – the bag that Driver and Bobby were pulling cash out of 30 feet away. Ryan was now completely freaked out. “Hey Sarge, I’m gonna get some air” he quickly said as he headed for the door. Passing the big garbage can by the front door, he tossed the stones in, double-checked that they were really in there and headed out into the parking lot.
Ryan took a look around, checked his pockets for the stones (not there) and drew in a deep breath. It must have just been a mistake; he must have slipped them into his pocket by accident. That’s what it was. No weirdness here.
“You ok squirrel?” Sarge had come up behind him.
“Yeah, I just needed some air”, Ryan lied.
Sarge put a hand on Ryan’s shoulder, “Come back in, we’re just about done and Driver wants to leave.” He smiled, and turned, the Ryan heard him say “High maintenance brat.”
“Excuse me? What did you say?” Ryan had stopped, completely in shock at Sarge’s comment.
Sarge had turned back to Ryan. “What’s wrong with you? You’ve been acting strange since the bank. I just asked you to come in ‘cause Driver wants to get out of here. Now get your ass back in there so we can get this done.”
Ryan waited for a few seconds, then heard Sarge’s voice say “This kid is gonna make me nuts”… but his lips never moved. It was like Ryan was reading his mind. Hearing what Sarge would not say out loud. Sarge was just staring at him, waiting for Ryan to move. “Well?” That time his lips actually moved.
“Yeah, right…” Ryan was not sure what was going on, but did not want to sound like a lunatic explaining it to Sarge. He headed back into the warehouse, but as he moved his leg, he felt something in his pocket. Something small. Actually, two small stone somethings. Ryan was sure that you could actually see the hair sticking up one the back of his neck, as he turned completely white. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the 2 small black stones.
It only took a few minutes to split the take, so Driver and Bobby could leave. Sarge offered Ryan a ride, but Ryan turned him down and headed down to the library instead.
On the way there, he passed a number of people, each one said something to Ryan as he passed. Each one was derogatory or rude and in each case the people did not actually speak.
When he reached the library, he located one of the empty study desks and put the stones out on it. He carefully examined them and found them to be completely smooth, perfectly black with the exception of a small dot in the top center of each stone. There seemed to be detail to the dots. Ryan located a powerful magnifying glass in the resource section and placed the stones under it. “X” was on one and “H” was on the other. They appeared to be carved into the top of the stones with mechanical precision.
Ryan’s curiosity was stronger then his fear of weirdness, so he started searching for references to the stones, the initials, pairs, and anything else that might have led to some answers. Several hours later he found it.
The computer screen showed
Ref: “The Mayan Book of Life.”
… recounts the adventures of the Twins, Hanahpu and Xbalague. These twins’ constant pranks angered the gods of the underworld. To punish the twins, the gods captured them and imprisoned them in two small stones for eternity.
There was also a news article from June 1968, describing how an American explorer, James Tilley, had discovered the fabled stones in a Mayan temple, but was never able to produce them to the Museum for cataloging. He apparently lived right here in town. Ryan was willing to bet that this explorer banked locally too.
Another quick search produced an address for the intrepid explorer and it was definitely local. Ryan quickly hailed a cab and gave the driver the explorer’s address. Ten minutes later he was paying the cabbie and looking up at the old brownstone with the address that matched his search.
After 2 presses of the door buzzer, an old male voice answered. Ryan explained that they needed to speak. “Mr. Tilley, I think I have something that belongs to you, please let me in”.
James opened the door to the extent that the door safety latch would allow and spoke through it. “What do you want?”
Ryan knew he would sound crazy if he tried to explain, but if this were really the guy, he would recognize them. He pulled the stones out of his pocket and opened his hand in front of James.
“oh my God… Where did you find those?” James’s eyes had grown quite large and he was suddenly quite eager to open the door for Ryan.
“I found them in a garbage can”, Ryan lied. I did some research and I think they belong to you.
As James Tilley opened the door for Ryan to come in, the stones disappeared from Ryan’s hand. James smiled a bit as he felt the stones materialize in his pocket.
An hour later James was still recounting his story of how he found the stones and how the legend was really true. How the twins in the stones were still playing tricks on whoever possessed them. How they were stolen from him by a collector and that he had not seen them since.
Ryan left the stones with James and never spoke of them again to anyone, ever.
The Bleeding Edge 