Fool Me Once…
With less than two minutes to go until show time, Steven Fletcher checked that his arctic explorer gear was in place and that the boxes of fake snow were full. At one minute, he turned on the fans, setting the snow blowing around the room, and quickly rubbed his cheeks to turn them red. With a last check that he was close enough to the tent to hide the apartment, Steven turned on the web camera. "Hey kids!" he greeted his invisible audience. He paused for a moment, both to enter the tent and to give the kids time to greet him.
"I don't know if you can tell," he said as he sat down, "but a blizzard just blew in about an hour ago, and let me tell you it wasn't easy setting up camp in 50 mile an hour winds! Good thing I was able to buy such a strong tent with all the-" a door slammed in the apartment, breaking into his flow. He looked behind him, but of course all he could see was the tent. "—uh, money you raised." Quickly, he looked back at the camera; with any luck, he could play this off and the kids would never know anything was wrong. "Must be a polar bear out there looking for a little bit of trouble, huh? Anyway, I want to tell you about this herd of caribou I saw yesterday while I was out skiing. There were twelve of them, including four calves, who had just started to grow the velvet on their horns. Oh, talk about cute! So, there I am, I'm trying to pull out my camera when," a movement behind the camera caught his eye. He looked up, right into the business end of Sue's pistol. "Wait, what are you…" He saw her finger tighten on the trigger. "No, no, no, don't, don't!" He was standing as he spoke, knocking over the camera's tripod in the process. Unfortunately, Sue didn't seem inclined to listen. He hadn't even reached his feet when she pulled the trigger
The bang of the gun barely preceded the immense pain in his face. Steven Fletcher was dead before he hit the ground.