Police, Open Up.pdf

As the sun began to set on another day in the Parker household, teenage sisters Maddie and Emily huddled together in Maddie's bedroom, giggling mischievously as they examined their latest invention - a shrink ray.

"I can't believe it actually works!" Emily exclaimed, her eyes wide with excitement.

Maddie grinned. "Of course it does. I'm a genius, remember?"

Their brother Tommy, who had been lounging on the bed, suddenly sat up. "Hey wait a minute... you're not gonna shrink ME with that thing, are you?"

Maddie's smile turned wicked. "Oh Tommy boy... what gave you that idea?"

She grabbed the shrink ray and aimed it at a dumbfounded Tommy. ZZZZZIIIIIIIPPPPP! A flash of bright light enveloped Tommy and in an instant, he shrunk down to the size of a beetle!

"Holy crap, it worked!!" Emily squealed with gleeful laughter.

Tommy, now tiny, tried to flee but Maddie snatched him up effortlessly. She brought him right up to her face, eyeing him like a bug.

"Hiya squirt," she cooed menacingly. "You're so SMALL! Tiny little Tommy, huh?"

Just then, the front door slammed open and their mother Dana came storming into the house, briefcase in hand. "I'm home!" she called out.

Maddie hastily shoved minuscule Tommy into her pocket just as Dana entered the room.

"Girls, honey, are you home?" Dana asked, kicking off her heels wearily.

As she did, her heel landed right on bulging pocket where Tommy was hiding. There was a sickening crunch and splatter. Maddie felt something warm and wet soak through her pocket.

"Oh my God! Tommy!!" Emily shrieked. Maddie reached into her pocket with a trembling hand and pulled out a red, pulpy smear.

Tommy's shrunk body had been instantly crushed under the weight of their mother's heel. Emily burst into tears as Maddie just stared in numb horror, holding the remains of her brother.

Dana rushed over, concern etched on her face. "What's wrong honey? What happened?"

Maddie couldn't hold it together. She broke down sobbing. "Mommy... Mommy, I killed him! I shrunk Tommy and you stepped on him and killed him!"

Dana's eyes went wide. "What are you talking about, sweetie? What shrink ray? What's going on?"

Through her tears, Maddie tried to explain. "I made a shrink ray and it worked and I shrunk Tommy and then you came home and stepped on him, I'm so sorry Mommy!"

Dana looked utterly lost. Her gaze went to Maddie's bloody hands still clutching Tommy's tiny remains. Then an expression of dawning horror spread across her face.

"No... no no no this can't be happening..." she muttered, backing away. "My baby... is my baby really...?"

Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. Knock knock knock! They all froze.

"Police, open up!" a gruff voice called from the other side.

Maddie and Dana stared at each other in a silent scream of panic as the knocker rattled the knob...

Meanwhile, Emily, still distraught, wandered over to the window and looked out at the gathering crowd of cops and news vans. She gasped as she saw a crowd of reporters thrusting their microphones at a man in a suit the police were holding back.

"It's Daddy... Daddy's here!" Emily blurted out. "Why are the police holding Daddy?"

Just then, the bedroom door BURST open and several officers rushed in, guns drawn. "Nobody move! Police!"

Maddie, Dana, and Emily all threw their hands up, Maddie still clutching Tommy's remains. The lead officer stormed over to Maddie.

"Ma'am, I'm going to need you to hand over the shrink ray and step away from the children," he ordered tersely.

Maddie was frozen in shock. This was a nightmare. It had to be. She looked down at the bloody smear in her palm, at Emily's tear-streaked face, at her mother's stricken expression...

Suddenly, a commotion at the door drew everyone's attention. The police were struggling to hold back a man in a suit. He overpowered them and burst into the room.

"DANA!! My God, baby, are you alright? The police said there was an incident!" the man exclaimed, rushing to Dana's side. "Girls, Emmy, thank God you're safe!"

The man looked around wildly, taking in the scene of his hysterical family members, the police, the blood. His eyes fell on Maddie's hands and he went white.

"Tommy... is that... where's Tommy? What the hell happened?" he cried, voice shaking.

Dana just shook her head wordlessly, tears streaming down her face. The man turned to the police.

"What did you people DO? I'm going to sue this force into oblivion! Get your hands off my daughter!"

He physically shoved the officers away from Maddie, putting himself in between her and them. Maddie was shocked by the raw force of his reaction. It was her father, but she almost didn't recognize him like this.

"Daddy..." she whimpered. He turned to her and his face crumpled.

"Sweetie, give the officers the shrink ray, okay? Everything's going to be alright," he said, though he looked like he wasn't so sure himself. He reached out to take the device from her.

But at the last second, Maddie pulled it back. An angry, desperate look flashed across her face.

"No! It's MINE! You can't have it!" she shouted, brandishing the shrink ray at the police, her father, her family. "I built it! I'm the only one who understands it! You'd never let me have it anyway! Well I'm keeping it and I'm shrinking ALL of you and then you can't stop me!"

"Maddie, honey, please give it to the nice officers," her father tried to reason, hands raised.

But Maddie was beyond reasoning. She backed away, all eyes on her.

"I'm not giving it to anyone! It's MINE, you hear me? MINE!" she screeched. Then she turned and bolted from the room before anyone could stop her.

The officers gave chase but Maddie was too fast. She bounded down the stairs, still clutching the shrink ray and Tommy's remains. At the bottom, the front door was wide open, a portal to freedom.

Maddie could see the police surrounding the house outside. The news vans...this would be all over the news. Maddie Parker, teenage inventor and killer. She couldn't let them take her.

With a wordless scream, she lunged for the door...and just avoided being trampled as her father came barreling down the stairs after her.

"Stop Maddie, please! Just stop!" her father roared, arms outstretched.

But Maddie dodged him easily. She shouldn't have been able to - he was so much bigger than her. And then Maddie noticed the scene out the door and stumbled.

The police...the news crews...they looked tiny. Like they were all less than an inch tall. Maddie looked down at the shrink ray in her hand...and then it clicked.

The device had gone off when she fell going down the stairs. It must have hit her father and shrunk him! Him, and everyone else!

Maddie stood there frozen as her father, now only a few inches tall, looked up at her with pleading eyes.

"Mommy...Daddy...I'm so sorry..." she whispered. A bitter sob wrenched out of her.

She looked at the device in her hand...and suddenly everything seemed to slow down.

The sirens outside...the wail of the police radios. Her family's terrified shouts. It all receded into the background.

Maddie's hand tightened on the shrink ray. The device that had ruined her life. The device that made her a killer.

The device that could make it all go away.

Maddie looked down at her father, at her mother who was trying to get to him but was being held back by the cops...and smiled.

With her free hand, she carefully set the tiny bloody smear of her brother down on the floor. What was left of him anyway.

Then she put her other hand up to her face and pointed the shrink ray at her own head.

"Mistakes all little mistakes," she said, voice hard and flat. "I'm sorry everyone..."

Then she pulled the trigger.

ZZZZZZZZZZZIIIIIIIPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP

There was a blinding flash. A feeling of rapid rushing cold. A moment of agony, of searing, blinding pain...

Then Maddie was falling, falling, shrinking, shrinking...

Down to join the minuscule bustle of the police at her father's feet. Down to a world where everything was so big and scary and she was so very small.

She hit the floor in a heap, dazed. The world reeled and spun. Maddie struggled to her knees, then her feet.

She was still clutching the shrink ray. She looked around wildly, trying to get her bearings.

There was a giant human foot coming straight for her head! Maddie tried to dodge but it was too fast, too big. The heel slammed down...

And Maddie was crushed into a smear as the human foot ground down on her relentlessly in a sickening squelch.

The last thing she saw was her father and mother staring down at her broken body in horror from fifty feet up...before their titanic faces swam together and became one and then went black.