Conundrum

By Jeremy Wong

As Duncan McAllister drove through the desolate streets of Ambon, he was feeling anxious and excited about meeting his client. He was looking for an old Victorian style house on the outskirts of the Great Plains to talk to a farmer who claimed to have one of his cows abducted by a UFO. The road was fairly dusty due to long-term effects of the Dust Bowl that gave the rural scenery a turbid look. Duncan gazed out towards the city limits and saw no signs of life. The only other sign of life came from the voice of Howard Reig on his radio announcing a commercial for General Electric. The road finally led to a single story house with a red barn right next door. The house was in need of a paint job and many windows were in need of repair.

Duncan had worked for a small local newspaper before coming to the State News Esquire. He was intrigued by the Roswell Story published a few years back and he really wanted to write something just like that – something that would gain the world's attention. However, he could not meet the standards of his predecessors in the competing world of journalism and he was jealous of it. He had spent many perpetual months following the Roswell story even after it lost the interest of everyone else. He was so fixated in the story that he and his girlfriend argued many times; his girlfriend felt they weren’t spending enough time together, but she couldn't reach out that message to him. It was his dream to spark the attention of his readers with a story he could exploit. However, he could never find a story truly worthy of gaining world fame.

Duncan's job, as he told his many readers in the Chicago Winter Journalist Convention of 1955, was to report on the odd news for the State News Esquire. However, Duncan hadn't found his big break since the start of his job not so long ago. He refused to write about what his supervisors pushed him to write about because all of those stories bored him: the last state fair of the century, the outbreak of the toxic water, the birth of a panda bear at the state zoo. Duncan would take long, hard looks at his adversaries' pieces of journalism and criticized them harshly. He accused his adversaries for stealing his stories. His boss was fed up with Duncan's indolent behavior for refusing to write what his supervisors pushed him to write about, so Duncan was given one last chance on writing a worthwhile story or he would get the boot.

Just a few hours before driving to Ambon, Duncan was reading George Orwell's War of the Worlds and neglecting any reporting work. When Duncan was about to call it a day, the operator in Wichita asked him whether or not he wanted to accept a call from Ambon. Duncan, seeing no reason not to, asked the operator to put the call through. It was a farmer from Ambon who claimed he saw aliens and said that the aliens actually abducted some of his cows. The phone call had a substantial amount of static on the other line, which puzzled Duncan. But that didn't matter. Duncan was very intrigued by the story, so he put on his old Trilby hat and his trench coat to set off on the two-hour drive to Ambon.

The sun was just setting when Duncan got out of his car. He reached the doorsteps breathing the earth's dead cold air and seeing a line of maggots crawl under the floorboards of the porch. Duncan knocked on the front door with his ice-cold fist. The door creaked open.

"Hello?" Duncan yelled. Duncan slowly opened the door. Warm air wafted passed his face. "Is anyone home?"

There was silence. Duncan crept into the hallway and into a dining room. He saw magnificent landscape paintings that resembled the works of Thomas Cole or Albert Bierstadt. One peculiar picture that appealed to Duncan's eye was a picture of dogs sitting around a green table playing poker. He looked over at the living room table and saw an opened bible that was turned to Proverbs. A defunct radio was next to the bible that was on a strange AM transmission: 616. Duncan took out his watch from his pocket. It was 6:19 PM and he looked out the window to see the dim, blood red sunset.

Duncan was anxious to find the farmer. He peered into other rooms of the house to find any whereabouts of the farmer or any clues to the alien abduction. There were even more pictures and paintings in the other living rooms and bedrooms. Many of these pictures captured a young man and a girl who were ambling, playing, wading, and posing in these pictures. He stepped into the farmer's master bedroom and saw his bed, his armoire, and many drawers. He rummaged through some of these drawers and found some dresses, blouses, and lingerie, which he couldn't help but savagely sniffed a few times. His body raised his testosterone levels. How voluptuous, he thought. He looked around before he slowly closed the drawers and crept to the kitchen.

Duncan saw a kettle on the stove steaming, so he immediately closed the fire. He looked outside the window to see the farmer watering his crops. "Hello?" Duncan, now very excited, yelled out the window. The farmer looked up.

"You that reporter that I called earlier?" the farmer said.

"Yes, Duncan McAllister, sir. I'm from the State Esquire," Duncan pronounced.

"Excellent. Let me come on in and show you 'round," the farmer said.

The farmer went inside his house, introduced himself, and showed Duncan around. Both men sat down at the living room table and had some tea.

"So Gill, How is it that you're able to have such a big house?" Duncan asked.

"Why inheritance of course! My grandfather had it, his grandfather had it and his grandfather worked fo' the man that owned this farm. I grew up on this here's farm until the war," the farmer replied.

"And do you have a wife?" Duncan asked. "There's an awful amount of pictures of a pretty lady around this house." Duncan declined to mention the clothing.

The farmer's eyes furrowed up. "Not anymor'. My young, sweet Irene passed away last year."

"I'm so sorry to hear," Duncan said.

"But of course, she has remnants of her 'round 'ere's house." The farmer pointed to a lime green urn next to the old grandfather clock. There were a few moments of silence.

"Gill, can we continue with what I'm really here to do?" Duncan asked.

"Yes, of course. I wouldn't have called you down 'ere if there wasn't anythin' happenin'. You have a story 'ere to write down and I have a story 'ere to tell," the farmer said.

"What kind of evidence did you want to show me of the alien abduction?" Duncan asked.

"It's over in the barn," the farmer said. Duncan followed the farmer outside and to the barn. It was pitch-dark now. There seemed to be no indication of moonshine anywhere. Duncan shivered like a dog. He looked at the sanguine-colored barn and noticed the telephone pole had a few ripped wires where small sparks flared the night sky.

"Come on in, sonny," the farmer bellowed.

Duncan touched the cold metallic doors of the barn and went through. Just then, Duncan felt a cold, chilling electric current run down his spine. He looked inside the barn to see a dead corpse on the ground half burned. In fact, it looked like the corpse of the farmer's wife lying on the ground. Right next to the corpse was a tub of freezing water. The red roof and the red walls created a terrible, bloody atmosphere.

"What in the world? Gill, what is th –"  

Wham! The farmer hit Duncan in the head with a steel, metallic bat. Duncan fell hard to the floor, unconscious.

*          *          *          *          *

Duncan woke up tied to a chair. The smell of the farmer's house air wafted through the tiny cracks from the ceiling of this particular room. Water was leaking through the corner of the roof and there was poor lighting from what Duncan could see, though Duncan's sight was still fairly hazy from the blow to his head. He could not make out what was on the ground next to his feet.

A door in the distance swung open.

"Good evening, Mr. McAllister," a sinister voice said.

"Gill, is that you?" Duncan said wearily.

"Well, truth be told, my name isn't Gill, Mr. McAllister. You see, my name is not important, and neither are you," the farmer growled. Duncan could finally make out the farmer's body shape. He was wearing different attire now. The farmer wore a dark cloak with a nylon vest and suspenders underneath. His army boots and black cargo pants mixed in with his draconian facial expression. He smiled in a sinister way with the grimy spectacles. His voice vibrated around the room creating an echo effect.

"What? I don't understand." Duncan muttered.

"In time you will. Now, you have to listen very carefully, Mr. McAllister." The farmer approached Duncan's chair, making a clacking sound from his boots. "There is a mystery you must explore. And, please, I do implore. Your hunger for the Holy Grail is like the lavish Queen Antoinette; for you will enter pass the territory of Hell. You'll reach a sign that says, 'All abandon hope, ye who enter in!' and wonder if your love for justice has perverted to revenge and spite. The eyes of the raging fire in Juno's glare are your sorrow for another's good. You try to repent and follow the rules, yet you covet thy neighbor's wife and goods. 'Covet,' I say, and nothing more. It's Narcissus's reflection in the pond that gives you the chills. It's Havisham's wealth you want the most. It's your negligence of your idleness and mischief that has brought you here. Life is very precious in many ways, that some can't appreciate, so they inveigh. And if you do not get out of this chamber door, you will be shouting, 'Nevermore!' So I ask of you this riddle: if the dog barks at the North Pole, what might it be alluding to?" the farmer asked in a devious manner. "Solve it, and you may very well live, but fail to do so, well let's just say you know what I am capable of, don’t cha?"

Another chill ran down Duncan's neck. The farmer touched Duncan's neck with his cold hands and licked it. Duncan was left in shock as the farmer began to depart from the room. "Oh, and before I leave, don't mind the maggots. They only devour dead flesh." With that, the door slammed shut behind him.

Duncan had no idea what to think. He really needed to solve the riddle, but he didn't know where to even begin. He is making no sense at all. He's just jabbering some jargon, he thought. The drenched smell of the room, or rather the basement, distracted him from thinking clearly. His eyes started to focus on certain objects in the room now. He noticed a table with a tray of butchering tools. There was a large machete, a chainsaw, wire cutters, and a pair of gloves. There were fangs from a dog right beneath the tray. There was an electrical wire in the corner and a pool of freezing, ice water filled with ice cubes possibly used for torture. There were also dead rats as well as bits and pieces of human fingers. He felt very nauseous of looking at these grotesque items all around him. He looked over to his right and noticed his bag was a few inches away from him and he immediately struggled to get out of the chair. Duncan rocked the chair forcefully and both he and the chair fell, but he fell on something sharp. Duncan screamed in pain. He looked down on his wound. A cuspidate piece of glass went straight through his thigh, and he felt the blood gushing out.

"Why does he want to kill me?" Duncan muttered. "If I don't get out of here, the wacko's going to kill me, if I don't kill myself first." He knew his wits were being tested, and it was a matter of time until certain doom. His hand couldn't reach the thigh, but miraculously could reach the bag. He opened his bag, but all he could find were some rubber bands, tissues, and a book.  

"Damn it, what the hell does the riddle mean?" Duncan shouted. "Get me out of here! I want out!"

No one opened the door. "Please, I don't want to die! Please! Let me go!" Duncan repeated. Silence. Duncan was worried now. Duncan tried again to think about the riddle, but again, he was too distracted by his pain. Duncan crawled al over the floor trying to find anything that might get him out of the ropes. To his favor, he found a razor blade next to the table.

"Thank God." Duncan cut his ropes and freed himself. He quickly, yet painfully, pulled out the piece of glass from his leg. He let out another shout of excruciating pain. After taking a few deep breaths, he tried to get up with the unscathed foot, but fell down a few times. Finally, he got up and limped towards the door and tried to open it, but to his luck, it was locked. "Damn it," he whispered. Duncan limped towards the table with all of the torture weapons. He noticed something that he couldn't when he was sitting down: a copy of an old State News Esquire and a local tabloid. He looked at the circled article of the newspaper.

Ambon County Farmers Use Many Toxins in Their Products. All Consumers are in Danger.

Duncan McAllister.

September 24^th, 1954.

Recent sources tell me that Farmers in the Ambon area are using more toxins in their crops. They advise me that they are extremely harmful and could result in major damage to the body if consumed.

"Oh crap." Duncan looked over at the circled article in the tabloid.

            Local Journalist needs to be brought to Justice

Local journalist, Duncan McAllister, may not be what many people think he is. He is a lying son of a gun who got his way into the business doing cheap tricks for the mafia and the KKK. He is known to steal other journalists' works and shuts them up when he is told the truth about what he is doing. Last week during the winter journalist convention, he deliberately shut me up and tied me and threw me in his basement so I wouldn't tell the truth. Well look at me now. The pen is mightier than the sword!

"Who the hell wrote this? I don’t remember -" Duncan thought about it thoroughly. "Damn, it must’ve been one of my rivals, but I don’t remember his name. Either way, I'm in some deep shit."

Just then, the door swung open. The farmer’s ghastly figure stood tall with unrolled sleeves.

            "Did you solve my riddle, sonny? I've already given you more than enough time,” the farmer said.

            "You're going to kill me, aren't you?" Duncan asked nervously.

            "That all depends on you. Your seven minutes are up. Have you solved the riddle?" the farmer asked again.

            "No. Seven minutes are like not enough time! But god dang it, I don't want to die," Duncan demanded.

            The farmer grabbed a revolver from his holster.

            "Move away from the table, sonny." Duncan did as he was told with his hands in the air. "Good. Now put your hands behind your back."

            "No. I refuse," Duncan said. Duncan felt like this was his last stance, like in the new western movies where cowboys were courageous for standing up to the Indians.

            The farmer shot Duncan in the foot. Duncan screamed like a dog and fell to the floor. The farmer walked over to Duncan and dragged him over to the freezing pool of water and shoved Duncan's head in it. While still submerged in the pool, a thousand volts shocked Duncan's body because Duncan knew there was an electrical wire the farmer could use right next to the pool. Duncan screamed in pain, and when the farmer lifted Duncan's head out of the pool, Duncan panted for breath. The farmer let go of Duncan's head and pointed his gun at Duncan's temple.

"Let me tell you why you're here, Mr. McAllister. You're here seeking the Holy Grail, correct?" the farmer asked.

            "No. No, I'm not," Duncan gasped.

            "Yes it is. You want too much, Mr. McAllister. You're envious of other people, I presume?" the farmer sneered.

            "No it isn't like that. I wanted you to tell me about the alien abduction! It's my job! That tabloid was wrong. So please, please, please don't kill me. I didn't mean to write all those horrible things about you," Duncan shouted.

            "Well, sure you did. The writer knew what he was saying. And for the record, there are no such things as alien abductions, Mr. McAllister. It's all in your head. And you've sinned. Terribly sinned. You have your head so stuck up your ass that you can't realize that the story you should be writing about, Mr. McAllister, comes from your own life, from your own talent. But you can't. You want someone else to feed you to the top. Steal other peoples' stories and shut them up. Is that right?" the farmer said.

            "No. No, you've got it all wrong. I wouldn't hurt anybody. Please don't kill me for the love of God," Duncan pleaded.

The farmer punched Duncan in the face. "I don't like liars, sonny." Duncan tried to wipe off the blood dripping from his nose.

"Sonny, do you ready the bible?" the farmer asked.

"What?" Duncan asked.

"I said, do you read the mother fuckin' bible?" the farmer roared as he cocked the pistol and pointed it to the back of Duncan’s head.

"Yes! Yes," Duncan said.

"Proverbs: six: sixteen. These six things doth the Lord hate; Yea, seven are an abomination unto him: a proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren," the farmer preached. "It's the seven deadly sins, sonny."

Duncan stared at the farmer, then back at his numerous wounds. He thought that he didn't really commit any of the sins, or at least commit all of the sins. The farmer began preaching again.

 "In the olden days, a dog would warn their masters about a danger that might stir. They come to our aid about the dangers of the future like storms or earthquakes, sonny. In Alaska, there are these special breed of dogs that are trained to aid humans in sledding through the snow. They knew that if there was no hope in reaching a town during a winter storm, then they would pout and howl towards the north. You're the same, pathetic way. You didn't realize that you're a failure, Mr. McAllister, and you must pay for what you have done. That is what my riddle is trying to tell you. That you're a worthless dog – a bitch." The farmer cocked the revolver. "There's nothing very interesting about your life, is there? There's only the exploited life of all of your victims out there, correct?"

            "Yes, yes, whatever. Please, I'm begging you." Duncan gasped.

            "Wrong! Your life should be the most important thing in your universe, not the lives of others! You see, the groundhog comes up from his burrow every so often because he needs food to survive after the winter. However, some clever nitwit thinks it is news, so he dedicated that day to become Groundhog's Day. He makes the groundhog into a spectacle so that he can profit from exploiting the groundhog's fame," the farmer ranted.

            All of time had stopped in Duncan brain. His mind flashed back to many moments of his life: his first article that he stole from his colleague, his acceptance to the State News Esquire by his exploitation of another colleagues' work in the local newspaper, his betrayal of a former friend whom he stole many articles from, the arguments he and his girlfriend went trough and the many times he snuck out to see another woman. Somehow, through all of these events, Duncan realized that he had sinned to the fullest and didn't spend enough time living his own life because he was too fixated with conspiracies and stories of alien abductions, because he was trying to reach the top of the writer's world by stealing others writers' works and shutting them up if they squealed, and because he was envious of others since he had no talent in writing. He was just too stuck up his own ass not to realize it before, or else he wouldn't have gotten himself up the shithole.

            "Your time's up now, Mr. McAllister." The farmer pushed his revolver into Duncan's temple.

            "Please don't kill me! I'll spend more time with my own life, living it to the fullest! I'll take back what I said about you. Please, please, please," Duncan repeated. "Please, please…"

            "Me? This isn't just about me, sonny. This is about the bounty that other farmers and I and perhaps all of the other journalists have on your head." Duncan's eyes widened. "You still think it's all about you? You know, once you've sinned once, you know you'll sin again; there's no going back. You see, my wife didn’t want me to go after you. I burned her to show how committed I am of defeating you." A tear ran down the farmer's eye while a hit seems a gallon of water poured out of Duncan's eyes. "They say after you've killed once, killing again won't be as hard. This is your judgment, so take this as your salvation." The farmer pulled the trigger.