Who Wants to Marry a Sniper Target? - Trinn
Chapter 6: L337 5KILLZ

The night hours ticked by slowly. When at last the sun began to rise, Captain Guy woke himself up from his comfortable doze, yawned loudly, and stretched his arms. One of his hands reached out the window and Captain Guy shivered when he felt the cold morning wind on his skin. He blinked blearily, remembering the previous day's happenings as he looked around at the empty street and the tired looking man stuffed into the bottom of a phone booth. He looked at the rising sun and wondered how long he'd been asleep.

The coffee in the cup perched precariously on the dashboard of his car was cold, as Captain Guy discovered when he moved his leg and it spilled all over his pants and shirt. "Piddlesticks," he swore, mispronouncing the common phrase, as he tended to do when flustered.

He opened the door of his police car and jumped out, trying to wring coffee out of his clothes. Suddenly a bullet whizzed past his ear.

"Bammit!"

Stu blinked out of his tired daze at the sound of muffled screaming. He looked over and saw Captain Guy huddling in his squad car, mumbling something like "Buck spit." There was a jagged bullet hole in the windshield. Stu was alarmed, to say the least. Had the caller finally given up his long charade and started to shoot at things in an angry rage?

"What are you doing?" Stu shouted into the phone. "So now we're shooting people??"

"Hm? Oh. No. I was aiming for the air balloon, actually."

Air balloon? Stu thought. Then he saw floating in the sky high above him and several miles away by its diminished size, a brightly-colored air balloon. "That air balloon's no where NEAR that car," Stu said suspiciously.

"Well I WAS trying to do it blindfolded while in a handstand. I pull the trigger with my toes, you see." When Stu was silent for a while, the caller added, "It's an acquired talent."

Stu squashed himself a little more into the corner of the phone booth.

On the ground beside him, the chipmunk's cage began to rattle. The chipmunk itself was emitting a high-pitched squealing and rocking back and forth on its hind legs.

"What's it doing?" Stu asked nervously.

"You're asking me?" the caller replied. "It's probably hungry. You should feed it."

"...I don't have any chipmunk food."

"I can't help you there. You should have bought some off that nice scientist when you had the chance."

"Hey, he's your squirrel! YOU should feed him!"

"Sorry Stu. I'm busy."

"What? You--" Stu sighed, rubbed his hand across his eyes, and peered closely into the chipmunk's cage. It didn't look so much hungry as murderous. Its eyes were glowing red, but they weren't shooting lasers all over the place yet. It was growling faintly now as well as screaming like a teapot.

"You hungry, little fella?" Stu asked hesitantly. He dug around in his pockets but came up with nothing except his car keys, wallet, cell phone, and a coupon for something called "BeefStake." Experimentally, he held out the coupon. With the tips of his fingers gripping the thin paper, he stretched his arm as far as it would go. He didn't want to get any more of him than could be avoided near the cage that was now glowing faintly blue.

When the chipmunk saw the coupon stretched out to it, it stopped shaking immediately and its beady eyes stared as the coupon got closer and closer. By the time Stu realized what it was really looking at, it was too late.

The cage's blue glow suddenly got brighter and seemed to become fairly solid. Hundreds of tiny tendrils shot from the gathered light and gripped Stu's hand, which dropped the coupon as it was dragged, struggling, closer to the chipmunk.

"What?! What's it doing-- OWW!" Stu yelled in pain as the chipmunk, arms outstretched to receive its meal, bit into his fingertip with a squelch.

"Very good Stuart!" The caller was laughing heartily. "You've found what it likes to eat!"

Stu was trying to pull his arm out of the mad vampire-squirrel's grip but not succeeding. The cage now seemed rooted to the ground and the blue glow was wrapped handcuff-fashion around his wrist. The chipmunk's eyes were closed in pleasure as it sucked all the blood it could hold from Stu's finger, which seemed to be much more blood than was possible for such a little creature.

Finally it was done and Stu was released. He fell against the back of the phone booth, cradling his hand. "Oww!" He glared at the chipmunk, which was now lying on its back and wiggling its legs contentedly.

"Aw," said the caller from oh-so-far away in safety. "I think it likes you!"