SugarFree

You bring the fire axe down on the padlock of the rolling door as hard as you can. You strike the body of the lock more than the shank, and the door makes a loud, booming rattle. You look around guiltily but the area is mostly dark warehouses and empty buildings...

Alone now in the wilds of suburban Connecticut, you ditch your weapons and vest in a nearby dumpster and run. You only make it a few blocks before a police car nails you with a searchlight. “STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!” the police car PA screeches. You freeze in place....

As you walk down the left tunnel, the voice comes one more time, faint and fading, “Kyle…” You break out into a jog, the lights in the tunnel passing over your head in a blur. You look back, to see if anything is following you, it feels like something is following...

You use the fire axe to pry off the boards across the door and set them aside. The squeaking of the nails as you pull them out seems loud in the quiet night. You try the door and the knob turns. A quick look with the flashlight shows you that the lock on the inside...

The door to the Presidential Emergency Shelter is plastered with stickers: FALLOUT SHELTER BIOHAZARD SHELTER TORNADO SHELTER ALIEN INVASION SHELTER COMMIE PROOF NEGRO PROOF (with a scribbled note in Sharpie “I got in! -OB”) HIPPIE PROOF DISCO PROOF COBAIN-RESISTANT TO...

You stand and say, as loudly as you can, “HILLARY CLINTON! WHERE ARE YOUR EMAILS?!” She turns and hisses like a teakettle. “WHO DARES?” she screams. You nail her in her pendulous breast with a piece of snapped off stalagmite and start down the narrow stairs carved...

You stare down the hallway until you see the first person step off the elevator, then you try the office door and it opens. You step in and shut it softly behind you. “Fancy dress,” you hear a slurred voice say. You turn and see her, nightmare of a thousand Fox...

You back away from the door and continue down the hallway. You stop at the next doorway on the right and press your ear against. While straining to hear, the elevator pings at the far end of the hallway and begins to open.   DO YOU try the office door? TURN TO...

“Kyle,” the President says, “Here is my own personal map to the White House, all the ins and outs, the secret passages, the bottomless pits where damned souls howl in agony for all eternity, stuff like that. And a flashlight. Great flashlight. Kim Jong-Un gave me that...

You return to jail to await trial. Your failure to find the ballots results in a Biden/Harris win. After Joe Biden is finally allowed to die, Kamala Harris seizes control of the country. Her Black Lives Matter minions sweep coast to coast, burning and looting and...

“This is where I live,” Barron says, ushering you into an opulent apartment. The walk down the tunnel, Barron’s arm around your shoulders, had been strange, the giant boy guiding the two of you unerringly in the pitch-black tunnel, not talking, your footsteps quiet on...

“I’m Hope,” she tells you, grabbing your collar and lifting you from your chair. “Are you a virgin?” “I-I-I…” you say. She slaps you. “Don’t answer, don’t speak again, just do what I tell you,” she says, close to your face. Her breath smells like strawberries and...

The smell of rot hits you in a rushing wave before your eyes can even adjust to the darkness. Decay and something else, something just as vile that you cannot identify. You fight back the urge to vomit and turn back to the elevator. There is only featureless stone and...

You keep your cellphone up above your head, trying to both illuminate the tunnel and keep it from blowing out your night vision completely. “Kyle…” the voice says. “This is really stupid,” you mutter to yourself. “You don’t follow the spooky voice. That’s, like, rule...

“Kyle,” President Trump says, laying a heavy hand on your shoulder, “Your country needs your help once more.” “Yes, sir,” you say, feeling a weight settle on you that is soon borne up by welling pride. “I will do anything for America.” “Please have a seat,” he says,...