Watergun
by
Storytella3000
This happened a few years ago, during a very unseasonable heat wave we had here in New York. Temps in the 80s and 90s, long before anyone was prepared for it. We had to do all we could to cool off.
One day in particular I recall lying on a lounge chair in the backyard, enjoying what little breeze there was, hoping for a sudden thunderstorm for a little bit of relief but no such luck at the moment. Eventually I fell asleep and dreamed that I had somehow caught on fire. I was calling out for someone to come put out the fire, because I was unable to move, not to roll around or even just to open my eyes. I figured that maybe I was asleep or something, because I'm sure that if I were really on fire adrenaline would help me to be able to move no matter what kind of shape I was in.
Anyway, I was lying there burning up, and all of a sudden I felt these streams of water shooting into my face. I opened my eyes to find a green plastic water pistol hanging about a foot away from my face, spraying away.
"OK, now I *know* I'm dreaming," I thought. But the water on my hot face felt so good that I didn't care where the relief was coming from. After a couple of minutes, though, I felt kind of silly lying there with a wet face, so I rolled over and said, "OK, that's enough," in the general direction of the water gun. But whoever or whatever was causing this thing to spray me wasn't paying any attention.
Well, they *were* paying a little attention, I guess, because they began directing the spray further down, at my clothes rather than my face. I began wondering just where all this water was coming from; after all, a little water handgun can only hold so much. "Come on, stop," I said, trying to shield myself from the water. But when I put my hands out in front of the water gun, it just floated up and over my hands and went back to shooting at my face.
"All *right,* now," I added, reaching for the gun. In my haste to redirect the water flow, though, my arm swept right past the gun into... empty space. *Empty space?!* Empty space can't go around shooting water at people! But this gun was just hanging there in space, shooting away. Attempts at knocking the water gun away were like swinging at a tied balloon; no matter how hard I hit the gun, it was drift a certain very short distance away, then float back to its previous location, all without a pause in its spraying.
Finally I decided enough was enough, and just grabbed the thing and pointed the nozzle away from me. And it was the weirdest thing; there was no resistance of any kind coming from the gun as if someone were trying to take it back from me, but rather no matter how I held it, it kept pointing itself at me and spraying. Not seeing how I had any other choice, I put the water gun on the ground and stomped it solidly with the heel of my right shoe, splashing my left sock in the process. I couldn't figure out how a little water gun could hold enough water to soak me like that, but no matter. It was over.
Or so I thought.
I wasn't in the mood for any more shenanigans, so I went back inside to veg out in front of the TV, with the a/c going, of course. About an hour later, though, there was a knock at the front door. I looked outside and didn't see anyone there, so I went back to my chair. As soon as I sat, though, there was more pounding at the door. I looked and again didn't see anyone, but the pounding resumed while I was standing there. I opened the door and didn't see anyone there... at eye level. What I did see, though, floating about an inch off the porch, was two SuperSoakers.
I did a double take at the sight, which seemed to be their signal to begin blasting me. I ran through the house to get away from the barrage, to little avail. Wherever I ran, however fast I ran, they kept pace with me. I even took a running leap over the couch, but it was no obstacle for the pursuing water weapons. Strangely enough, though, there was no sound of footsteps accompanying the assault, as though I were being chased by invisible assailants. It was almost like the guns were charging me of their own accord.
Somehow I managed to put a little room between me and the SuperSoakers, so I used it to my advantage by running through the back door and slamming it shut behind me. Right after the door slammed, I could hear banging against it, seemingly harder than the guns themselves would be able to manage without breaking. But for the time being, it was over. I had no idea how I would get back inside without being attacked again, but for now at least, the attack was over. All the windows were screened, so there was no way for the SuperSoakers to get out until I let them out.
I slumped exhausted onto the bench on the porch and closed my eyes, intending to rest. Momentarily I heard a sound like something sliding across grass, but paid it no mind. I figured it was probably just a squirrel or maybe one of the neighborhood cats. The sound got louder and then there was a thump against the porch, which I both heard and felt. I opened my eyes to find a garden hose hovering in the air over the porch, nozzle pointed at my face, like a snake about to strike. Again I did a double take, which it took as its signal to strike.
The hose let go with a wide-angle blast, which I narrowly missed being caught in by leaping off the bench. I hit the ground running, with the hose slithering after me in hot pursuit, shooting its contents at me full blast. I intentionally made a complete circuit around the house, thinking I would lose the hose along the way. About a quarter of the way around I turned and looked back, knowing that I would lose ground no matter what happened.
I saw the hose stop suddenly, as if it had gotten hung up on something. Amazingly, it appeared to be trying to yank itself free, as if it were alive. I kept running to put some distance between myself and the hose. When I turned to look in front of me, I was met with the sight of yet another hose snaking its way toward me. I'd totally forgotten there was another hose in the front yard.
There was no way to get out of the yard without getting blasted by one of them, so I kept running full speed through the front yard. At one point the hose slithered past and tripped me, but I only stumbled over it without hitting the ground. I didn't escape getting sprayed, though; it got me as I scrambled back to my feet and resumed running. Finally I shot through the front gate and up the block. The hose stretched itself out as much as it could, blasting away, so I kept running for another couple of blocks.
I finally started to run out of breath as I pulled up to a lemonade stand. Not just *any* old lemonade stand, either; it looked like this kid was a little connoisseur of lemonade, with pitchers of five different flavors of lemonade. The stand was at the end of a long driveway; further into the driveway, a man was washing and drying an Acura RL.
"Want a glass of lemonade, mister?" the stand owner asked.
"Sure," I replied. "Do you have..."
"I have regular, pink, cranberry, lemon-limeade, and limeade," he said. "Which would you like?"
"Cranberry," I said, paying him for the drink. But no sooner did I put my money down on the table than the pitcher of cranberry lemonade levitated up off the table and emptied itself on me.
"How'd you do that?!" the boy said in surprise. His volume attracted the attention of the man washing the car, who had begun walking towards the juice stand.
"I-I didn't," I said, as the limeade and pink lemonade pitchers began rising from the table. I took off, not looking back to see if they were following.
"Hey!" the boy yelled after me. "You have to pay for that!" Pretty soon I could hear what had to have been the father running after me. I looked back to see him getting into another car on the street but, thankfully for me, it wouldn't start, so I got put a good bit of distance between us before he got out of the car. I knew, though, that if he decided to come looking for me, it wouldn't be too hard to spot me - he'd just have to look for a wet-faced, out-of-breath black guy in a white polo shirt with wet pink stains and wet jeans.
I ran a block or two more just to be sure, then ducked into a store and under a rack of clothing. As I hid there I realized that it was strangely quiet, not at all what I would expect inside a clothing store in the middle of the day, especially an air-conditioned store in the middle of a heat wave. I cautiously looked around as much as I could without leaving my hiding place and saw no signs of movement. No music playing, no one speaking, no phones ringing... nothing at all. I crawled out from under the rack, stood up straight, and looked around. Still no signs of life whatsoever. I began walking towards the rear of the store and heard a click overhead. I looked up... and got a face-shower from the overhead sprinklers! And then another surprise: not only were the overhead sprinklers on, but there were previously unnoticed floor-level sprinklers as well.
All these little metal nozzles were sticking up out of the floor, spraying away. I was getting sprayed from above and from below! I ran to the door as best I could, getting soaked in the process and stumbling over the floor sprinklers on my way. When I got to the door, there was quite a bit of resistance, almost like the door didn't want to let me escape from the onslaught. I'd push it a bit and then it would push back. This went on for what seemed like ages, but was probably no more than a minute, before the door finally relented and swung open. At the time, though, I was pushing so hard against it that I went flying out onto the sidewalk right smack into a parking meter. As luck would have it, a police officer was walking by at the moment.
"You all right, sir?" he asked warily.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "It seems like water hates me today."
"Hates you?" he said, eying my wet clothes. "Looks to me like it likes you pretty good. Mind telling me what's going on?"
As I started to explain to him, I noticed that someone from the shop next door was hosing off the sidewalk for some reason or other. Before I was able to finish explaining to the officer, the guy from next door began spraying me with his hose. I looked up at him in surprise, and so did the cop.
"Hey, what do you think you're doing?!" the cop yelled.
"I don't know," the guy said, with a bewildered look on his face. "I was spraying, and then the hose turned me around and started spraying by itself. I'm not even doing it!" At that point he let go of the hose, which hung there in space, spraying me.
I took off running in the direction opposite where I had come from, but when I turned the corner I ran into what felt like a standing wall of water. I was drenched from head to toe. When I was finally able to open my eyes again, I was met with the sight of about a dozen medium-sized pails, now empty, hanging in space.
I took a step backwards, only to be grabbed and dragged backwards through the open side door of a waiting van. As soon as my feet cleared the door, it slammed shut by itself and the van took off.
I didn't see any driver or the owner of the hands that had grabbed and dragged me. I tried to speak, only for an unseen hand to clamp itself over my mouth while others held my wrists behind me. The van sped through the streets like it was being driven by an invisible madman, causing a bunch of accidents while escaping untouched (or unhit, at any rate).
Somewhere on the outskirts of town, in an area I wasn't too familiar with, the van stopped next to a large, rundown mansion. The van door slid open, and I was dragged out of the van and into the house. The door slammed shut behind me, after which a bunch of locks up and down the inside of the door locked themselves. It became obvious that this house was much sturdier than it looked from the outside. Inside, it appeared to be brand new, while outside it looked like a sneeze would blow it to bits.
The unseen hands made quick work of removing my outer clothes before dragging me into the shower, where I was held in place for a VERY COLD but very quick shower while I was still in my underwear. I was brought out onto the porch, still wet and still in my underwear, while my clothes floated out behind me. There, before my eyes, my shirt and pants were ripped to shreds.
"What's going on?!" I yelled. "Why are you doing this to me?"
No reply. Instead, the van started up and pulled off, leaving me there on the porch, in my wet underwear, with no other clothes and no way to get back home. Besides which, my cell phone was in my jeans, but the pockets were empty when they were being ripped apart. I thought maybe it had been left in the house somewhere, but I searched high and low and didn't see any trace of it. Nor any trace of food or other clothing.
Also, no furniture. I spent a rather uncomfortable night sitting on the floor in the corner of one of the rooms, dreaming about food, clothing, and a bed.
I was awakened in the morning by the scent and sounds of breakfast cooking. I got up and stumbled into the kitchen to find my breakfast cooking, though there was still no one in the house that I could see besides myself. Sausage was frying in a pan, while a spoon was stirring some kind of batter in a mixing bowl. When I saw the bread bag unwrapping itself I figured I was being treated to French toast, and I was right.
What I didn't figure was that I'd be made to wait until it was cold before I could eat it.
I watched as my plate was prepared. When it came to rest on the counter, I tried to walk over towards it, only to be stopped when unseen hands grabbed my arms and held me in place. I tugged at them, to no avail.
"Come on," I said. "You did just cook me breakfast. Aren't you gonna let me eat?"
Again, no reply, as the hands continued to hold me in place. I sighed, wondering what other kinds of torment were in store for me.
"Since you're not gonna let me eat the food you just cooked, can I at least sit down where I don't have to see it?"
No dice. I was held in place, forced to stand and watch while my food grew cold. About 30 minutes after the food was removed from the stove, I was finally released and allowed to walk over to the plate. But when I reached for the fork, my arms were grabbed again as the fork and knife picked up a bit of french toast and sausage and floated towards my mouth.
"Come on, I'm a grown man! Can't I feed myself?!" But it was not to be. The hands continued to hold me as the unseen "host" fed me. I noticed that as I ate, the unused items were gathered up and floated back outside, presumably towards the van. No reason for me to think I'd be able to eat whenever I wanted, right?
When I finished, I asked, "So do I get to wear clothes now, or what?" Well, if I was going to be allowed to wear clothes, it wasn't gonna happen right away. Instead, I was held in place in front of the sink to watch while the dishes washed and dried themselves and put themselves away.
The hands turned me around as a paper shopping bag floated into the room. Inside it was clothing pretty much like what I had been wearing the day before, when I was grabbed. I was taken to the bathroom, cleaned up, and brought back to the room where I had slept. But I wasn't allowed to put the clothes on myself; the hands kept holding me as the items removed themselves from the bag one by one and pulled themselves onto me. When I was completely dressed, I was brought out to the van and put into the driver's seat. Again, I couldn't drive, because the hands wouldn't let go; my arms were held at my sides as the van drove itself into a shopping mall a few towns over.
When the van parked, I was led into a Toys R Us. As I approached an empty shopping cart, it began rolling towards me. I grabbed it, whereupon the hands holding me squeezed my biceps and led me inside. I took the squeeze to be some kind of warning.
The hands led me into the aisle where the waterguns were. As I watched, a dozen water pistols and a half-dozen SuperSoakers floated into my cart. One watergun that was already open floated up and away from the display. I didn't know where it was going, and thought it was odd that no one saw it but me. I wanted to follow, but the hands held me in place. After a few moments it came back, and I could see it had been filled. It floated right up to my face, at point-blank range, with me powerless to shield myself while my arms were being held, and began to unload on me. I heard a sound behind me, at which the loaded watergun dropped into my cart.
"Well, isn't this cute!" said the voice of one of my neighbors. "Testing the merchandise out on yourself? I usually test it on others, but hey, to each his own!" She chuckled and moved out of the aisle, at which the gun floated back up towards my face and began spraying again.
"What's the point of this? And anyway, I don't have any money!" I growled under my breath.
"If you ain't got no money then whatcha in here for?" snapped a very fat and exasperated man as he wheezed past. An unseen hand patted the right front pocket of my jeans, where I felt a previously unnoticed bundle.
"When did that get there?" I mumbled, prompting another arm squeeze as I was led to the cash registers. I paid, enduring the cashier's sly looks and silly remarks about my wet face and clothes, and about all the "hardware" I was buying.
After I loaded everything into the van, the doors closed as the hands holding my arms led me towards Home Depot. Now what? I remember thinking, as a basket rolled over to me by itself. I took a quick look around, worried that someone would see and get spooked, but no one way paying any attention.
I pushed the basket into the store, following the lead of the unseen hands. First I was directed to the aisle where various kinds of ropes were being sold. Three bundles of nylon rope floated into my basket, again with no one but me seeming to notice. The same thing happened when I got to the duct tape display. I don't think I had ever realized just how deeply we can get into our own little worlds until then. I guess because they were convinced that rope and tape don't just float around by themselves, they must have convinced themselves that they didn't see it. Either that, or they just weren't paying enough attention to notice that there was no one holding the items.
Anyway, I went to the register, again with the hands squeezing and turning me to indicate where they wanted me to go. The unseen hands must have been emboldened by the apparent apathy of my fellow shoppers, because as the cashier rang up the first bundle of rope, a plastic bag opened by itself and the bundle floated in. The cashier scanned the second bundle and turned, noticed the first one had already been bagged, shrugged, and put down the second. She didn't turn back, though, so she actually saw the second rope bundle float into the bag by itself. I wasn't sure what to expect, but I definitely didn't expect her to just roll her eyes and sigh, "Whatever."
I was shocked. "Didn't you just see that?" I sputtered.
"See what?" she asked dismissively.
"The stuff floating into the bag," I said, not believing she could be so nonchalant about something that wasn't supposed to happen.
"Yeah, so?" she said, as she continued scanning my stuff.
"And that doesn't bother you?"
"Why should it?" she countered. "It had to be bagged anyway, right? Why should I care if I don't see who's doing it?"
Not wanting to believe her reaction, I repeated as if to a small child, "You don't see who's doing it because there's no one there!"
She sighed hard and gave me my total. I gave her the money, and she turned to key in the amount I had paid, the keys moved by themselves and the drawer opened. The cashier just stood there, hand open, as the bills floated into their assigned places in the register. My change floated up from the register tray and into my hand, and the register closed.
"Alrighty then," the cashier intoned, then turned to me and with a slight hint of a smile, said, "Thank you for shopping at Home Depot. Have a nice day." She just watched with a curious look on her face as my bags lifted themselves and floated into my shopping cart, which began rolling towards the entrance of the store by itself as the unseen hands led me out.
I glanced back, not quite sure I had seen what I had just seen. The cashier, for her part, just shook her head and said, "I'm open over here," to a customer waiting on another line.
The hands led me back to the van, alongside the self-propelled shopping cart, to the apparent surprise of no one. At least, no one seemed to react, if they noticed at all.
The bags floated into the van, after which I was lifted in.
When the van arrived back at the house, all the SuperSoaker packages tore themselves open as they floated free of the van. Each was then filled by a waiting water hose. I tried to get out while this was going on, but the hands wouldn't allow it until all the SuperSoakers and water pistols were filled. I fully expected to be attacked, but I didn't expect it quite the way it happened.
First, I had to watch while a nozzle floated up and screwed itself onto the end of the hose. It sprayed all the loose dirt off the van, after which towels busied themselves drying the van off. While the van was being dried, my unseen captors ripped off all my clothes. By "ripped" I mean just that: my collar was grabbed and pulled at until all the buttons popped off, when other hands took the collar from the back and yanked the shirt off me. My t-shirt quickly followed while other hands tugged my pants and drawers down to my feet. With all the apparent roughness and hurry to get my things off me, I expected to be knocked off my feet next, but instead I floated up a few inches off the ground. My shoes quickly untied and dropped to the ground; my pants and underwear soon did the same.
When the van was finally dry, I was positioned right in front of the steps of the house, with the SuperSoakers taking up positions all around me. I had been given enough time to dread what was coming next, and I was not disappointed. The waterguns all let me have it at the same time, not letting up until they were all empty.
Then, another surprise. The hands holding me led me over to the van, as the side door opened. I saw a floor panel open, revealing a hidden cargo space I hadn't seen before. A large duffel bag floated up out of it, out of the van and into the house. I was then led towards the house as the van door slid closed.
When I got inside, the duffel bag zipped open, and a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, both brand new, floated up out of the bag. Both items floated over and displayed their size tags; they were both exactly my size. How they pulled this off, I couldn't figure out at first, since I don't remember any measurements being taken. Then I remembered the clothes that had been destroyed the day before; maybe my captors had taken note of the sizes before ripping them up.
As the shirt and jeans pulled themselves onto me, I heard again the sounds of cooking in the kitchen. It smelled like chili, another of my favorite dishes (when it's not too hot). A clipboard floated up off a nearby table. After a few pages flipped themselves over, the pen wrote something and then the clipboard was turned towards me. It was a printed form letter with the words "Read and sign," written in the left margin.
The form letter was an apology for what I had done to the watergun at the beginning of this whole encounter. A *printed* form letter. Which means that my reaction, destroying the watergun, must have been expected from the beginning. What's more, I must not have been the only one to suffer this fate. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got.
"I was set up!" I yelled angrily. "I was pushed into this, and you all, who- or whatever you are, don't deserve an apology!"
The clipboard and pen were snatched from my hands, as the pen scribbled something else at the bottom of the paper. I could tell from the movement of the pen that I had made someone or something angry.
"Read it again, and sign it, or else!" it wrote.
I took the clipboard and read the form again. This time I saw something I hadn't noticed before, though I'm sure it was there. In exchange for admitting that I was wrong to have destroyed the watergun, and promising not to do it again, I was being offered money for the time I had spent as a prisoner of my unseen captors. No promise was being made that it would never happen again, but there was a promise that if it did, I would be paid handsomely. I didn't dare dwell on the "or else" part.
"How much money?" I asked.
The pen pulled away from my hand and scribbled "enough" on the form. Not being in a very good position to haggle, I signed. As the clipboard floated away with the form, I asked, "Don't I get a copy?"
No answer or acknowledgement, as dishes could be heard clinking around in the kitchen. Presently unseen hands directed me to the kitchen table, where a plate of chili and garlic bread awaited me.
Seeing that, I was all ready to sit and dig in, when the hands stopped me from approaching the table. Instead, they turned me so that I could see the approaching duffle bag, from which emerged a bundle of blue cloth. *Why do they want me to change clothes again?* I wondered, and was in fact about to ask aloud, when the bundle began resolving itself into a vaguely feminine shape. As it took shape, I could see that it was in fact a full-body hooded catsuit, what the Japanese call zentai (similar to the Power Rangers, but without a helmet). But unlike the Japanese zentai shows, this suit had no one visible inside. This was reinforced when the suit completed taking shape, turning its back to me so that I could see that its rear zipper was completely open. If there were anyone inside, I would have seen her exposed back, but instead what I saw was that the suit was just as empty as it had been inside the bag.
The suit began moving as if dancing to music I couldn't hear, somehow more enticing than it would have been had there been a woman inside it. In this situation, though, the enticement was mixed with both exasperation and uncertainty. Just what did my captors plan to do with me, now that I had signed this agreement, or did that even matter? Was this suit here to add to the torture, or what?
The suit danced over to the chair next to the kitchen table and motioned for me to sit. The hands let me go at that point, so I complied, wondering what would come next. The suit pulled up another chair, sat down in it, and proceeded to feed and tease me. It would feed me a forkful of food, then caress and fondle me in random places while I chewed.
While I was being fed, the pen lying on the table rose and began writing something in the notebook. The notebook stayed put until I finished eating, after which it slid across the table, stopping in front of me.
I read what the pen had written: "You were picked at random to be sprayed. You reacted as we had expected you to - as we wanted you to. What we did then was what we had intended to do even before we knew who we would do it to. But you've been here long enough; it's time for us to find ourselves another subject... for now."
"For now"? This was gonna happen again? While I tried to absorb that, invisible hands herded me out of the house and into the van, followed by the suit that had fed me. The van started up and drove me home. Before I was let out, the suit reached into a duffel bag, took out a stack of bills, and handed it to me. It was a stack of hundred-dollar bills. Before I could count them, the suit climbed out of the van ahead of me, then turned and waved for me to follow.
"And where are you going?" I asked. The suit pointed at my house, then beckoned me again, a little impatiently this time. When I got out, the suit took me by the arm and walked me into the house.
Once we got inside, the suit withdrew its arm, lightly brushing against my side as it did so. I giggled a little; the suit flinched, then reached for my side. Instinctively I pulled away, only to be held in place by invisible hands. The suit reached for my left armpit, and I actually started giggling before it had even touched me. The suit seemed somehow to consider my reaction before running its fingertips up and down my sides, drawing hooting laughter from me.
While the hands held me in place, things started stirring in the living room. A feather duster floated away from the hook it was hanging on, followed by peacock feathers from a vase full of them that someone had given me as a gift. As the duster came closer, feathers began yanking themselves free. I tried to pull away from the restraining hands but to no avail. At the same time the front door opened and the bags of rope from the van floated inside along with a roll of duct tape, coming to rest on the floor just inside the door.
My right leg was raised until it was parallel to the floor. I tried to resist, but couldn't, as my shoe and then my sock were removed. A peacock feather began sliding up the inside of my raised pants-leg. Soon my left foot was also bereft of its shoe and sock, with a peacock feather also sliding in and out of that pant-leg as an unseen hand held it in the air.
You read that right - both legs were being held out in front of me. I was floating in a sitting position, but the only support I could detect was the hands holding my legs out. While I tried to figure out how I was gonna get out of this, my captors began moving me towards the staircase. I was turned around to face the living room as I floated up the stairs to find that all the feathers were floating up the stairs behind me, along with a roll of duct tape and bags of rope.
Once I got to my bedroom, with the empty suit and all the paraphernalia following me, I found my computer up and running. There was a message on the screen: "Sorry, but this new development was just too good to pass up. You'll be released... sometime..."
reposted here 06jun2005
by kind permission of the author