Someone Else

Chapter 34 (Ben)

"Or maybe the video store!" Desperate to protect his family, words continued to spill out of Revere. "Jeff owns Red Carpet Video. Right there in Brickyard Plaza."

"A video store? This state is a time warp." Key shook his head in dismay. "Okay, here's what's gonna happen. You're going to call Jeff and get him to come back to your house with the money. And if I hear his phone ring from some closet or wherever he's hiding, I'm gonna shoot you in the head, then go kill him and your entire family."

"You can't kill my family," Revere said weakly. "Please!"

"Then make the call."

Revere glanced at the home phone on a table in the corner of the room. "I don't know his number."

"You don't know your own brother's phone number?" Key sounded unconvinced.

"I know, I know," Revere said miserably. "We're not that close."

"Not close?" Key replied, in a tone as near to sarcasm as he got. "He showed up at your house in the middle of the night to borrow your car?"

Revere threw up his hands in despair. "I don't understand what Jeff did," he said, defeated. He looked past Key to Ben who stood by the stairway, ready to ascend. "But we...my family and I...we have nothing to do with it."

"You do now." Key said heartlessly. "So make the call. I'm sure you have his number programmed into your cell."

"My phone's upstairs." Revere sounded as though he had sealed his family's death warrant.

Ben stood by the staircase, knowing the night would end in more death if he didn't act fast. "All right, I'll go grab his phone," he called out, his legs already propelling him up the steps to the hallway above.

"No!" He heard Revere yell, followed by a faint thud of the gun knocking into the side of his head.

Upstairs, he poked his head into the first open door. In the dim light he could make out a woman sitting on a child's bed, stroking the hair of young girl. Unsure of his next move, he remained in the doorway. The woman turned to him, her face showing not fear, but anger. "Rev, what the heck..." Her voice a rough whisper that stopped mid-sentence as her expression changed from anger to disorientation. "Jeff? What in the world's going on?"

In an instant, Ben devised a comprehensive course of action, not only for how to get out of the house without Key killing the family, but for how he could survive the night and still have a future. Jeff pretended to be me. Why shouldn't I pretend to be him?

For his plan to work, Ben Flanagan would need to be sacrificed. Ben Flanagan didn't have a future. Jeff Rydell did. And his first act in his new life would be to save this family, so he responded to Katie's confusion as Jeff.

"I can't explain it right now," he said in a concerned whisper, "but there's a bad man downstairs and Revere needs our help. Do you have a gun?"

Katie gasped in terror and shook her head.

"Okay, then you need to lock this door and call the police."

Katie's maternal instincts kicked in. "The bedroom doors don't lock and Paxton's in the next room."

Ben listened for footsteps on the stairs, but could only hear Key's distant mumbling. "Okay," he said, thinking. "How about the bathroom? Can you lock the bathroom door from the inside?"

Katie shook her head wildly, "Yes, yes!"

"Then I need you to grab both kids, get them into the bathroom, and call the police. Tell them to get here now!"

Katie scooped up her daughter, "Where's Rev?" She asked frantically as she moved quickly toward the door.

Ben grabbed her arm as she brushed by him, spinning her around to face him. "No matter what you hear downstairs, do not open that door. Do you understand?"

Katie's hands trembled as she nodded affirmatively. She took a couple steps down the hall toward her son's bedroom, but then skittered back to him, her face desperate. "Jeff, don't let anything happen to Rev. Promise me?"

Ben locked onto her eyes and, for that moment, he became her brother-in-law, a man who would do anything to prevent her suffering. "I won't," he said with conviction. Then he waited outside the bedroom until Katie had grabbed her cell and corralled the kids into the bathroom. When he heard the lock click, he hustled to Revere's bedroom, found his phone on the nightstand, and jogged back down the hallway. At the top of the stairs, he paused to listen. He could hear what sounded like the whimpering of a wounded dog. He took a deep breath and hustled down the stairs. The next few minutes would determine whether the family would live or die.

Revere was on his knees and blood streamed from a gash above his right eye. Key stood behind him, his gun aimed execution style at his head. "We've got to go now!" Ben clamored, not worrying about whispering anymore. The volume transmitted his words with extra urgency. "Dude's wife already called the cops!" He tried to hook his hand under Key's arm to lead him to the front door, but the enforcer shook him off.

"She called the cops?" Key's lips curled in anger.

"Yeah," Ben shouted, "so let's go!" He took two steps toward the door, but Key didn't follow.

"We've got to kill 'em all," Key said, as if his hands were tied.

"We can't!" Ben responded, again grabbing an arm that felt like a steel cable, trying to drag the large man across the room. "She's locked herself in the bathroom."

"So?" Key became more enraged by the second. He waved the gun recklessly, like he might shoot Ben as well.

"The cops will be here any second," Ben pleaded. "We don't need more bodies on us." He waved Revere's phone in the air. "And I've got this so we can call Jeff."

The more frantic Ben became, the more Key slowed down, his nostrils flaring, as if he might be able to sniff out Ben's motivation. The creases on his forehead smoothed with a realization, when the sound of sirens penetrated the room. Key rotated the gun back to Revere's head. "I don't leave witnesses," he said, causing Revere to squeeze his eyes shut.

"We've got to go!" Ben begged, the sirens growing louder by the second, probably only a couple blocks away.

Key stuck his face next to Revere's. "I hear the cops got a description of anyone that looks like me and I'll be back to slit the throats of your entire family. You understand?"

With his eyes still clamped shut, Revere nodded.

"Say it!" Key commanded, his finger touching the trigger.

"I understand," Revere affirmed. "I won't say anything to the cops."

"Good boy," Key said,before smashing the gun down onto Revere's head with a swift arm motion.