3~

Marcie gave a knock on Conrad Lander's door, after following his aunt's directions in getting to his modest home.

The door opened, revealing the man in a sleeping robe. "Hey, how are you guys?"

"We just came from your aunt's place," Jason answered.

"How is she?" asked Conrad.

"Not good," Daisy said, hesitantly, not wanting the bearer of bad news.

Conrad's face paled and fell immediately. "Is she okay? Is she getting enough oxygen?" he asked, his voice raised an octave in worry. "She should've call me! Her doctor said that I should get myself a copy of her house key made so if anything happened to her, I can get to her fast."

"No. Nothing like that," Marcie said, raising her hands to placate. "She said that someone's been harassing her in her home. Someone called The Extinguisher."

"The Extinguisher?" Conrad echoed, leaning against the doorway in nervous exhaustion. "Why hasn't she told me about any of this?"

"She said that she hadn't told anyone about it. Something to do with scandal or something," Red replied with a shrug..

"It's just weird," Conrad muttered to himself. "The Extinguisher isn't real."

"What do you mean?" the gang asked in unison.

The man sighed and explained. "The story was that an exterminator who worked for my company, a long time ago, got this sweet gig at a rich woman's house getting rid of a nasty case of termites. Anyway, after he was done, and this was done without fumigating, by the way, that's how good he was, the woman signed the check and he went on his merry way. Turns out the check bounced so high, it probably reached Saturn. Now, the reputation he had around the company was that he never did work that wasn't paid in full, so, he didn't take it well."

"What happened?" asked an intrigued Jason.

"Well, he made this get-up, called himself The Extinguisher, and started harassing the women of the wealthy neighborhoods, starting with the one who stiffed him. No one could catch him, but like I said, he doesn't exist."

"Well, someone calling himself that believes he exists and he seems to be targeting your aunt." said Marcie.

Conrad gave a nod at this. "I'll call Aunt Rebecca about this and then I'll call the police." He was about to excuse himself to do this, when a troubling notion came to him. Why were these kids asking about this weirdo or involving themselves in his aunt's problems? "Wait. You guys aren't going after him, are you?"

"Well, we did say that we would look into it," Marcie told him, before thinking that she should have kept that to herself.

"You said you would," Red pouted.

Conrad gave the gang a stern look in their eyes and said, "Look, guys. I don't what wacko is calling himself The Extinguisher, but stay away from him. Let the police handle him. No telling what he'll probably do to you if you mess with his fantasy."

"Well, we can't investigate from the side lines." Marcie said as the gang sat in the Clue Cruiser for a powwow after their meeting and warning from Conrad. "If this Extinguisher is only after Miss Lander, then we just need to stay close to her."

"Why don't we try asking her neighbors if they've seen anybody strange come near the house," Jason suggested. "If he comes in during the day, someone's bound to see him."

Marcie brightened at that suggestion. "Good idea! We'll split up and take a house to cover more ground. Let's go."

"Hello, sir," Jason asked the man when he opened the thick, oak front door to his palatial townhouse. Red, bored, stood away from the door, arms crossed, looking more like Jason's silent bodyguard than his partner. "We were wondering, have you seen anybody unusual coming near Miss Lander's home?"

"Nah, not really," said the home owner. "But she must have a bad case of bugs in her house."

"Why?"

He shrugged while he thought. "Because every so often, I see this exterminator come inside her house. He must work fast, because he doesn't stay there long."

"Do you know what he looks like?" Jason questioned.

"From across the street, I can't make out a face or anything, but he does wear these red goggles and a gas mask. Probably to protect himself from all the bug spray he uses." He then looked anxiously back into his house. "If that's all, I've gotta go. I have to check up on my stock portfolio."

"Oh, you're an investor, huh?" Jason asked him.

"Oh, no. It's just my favorite soap opera. My Stock Portfolio. It's about this greedy family of investors. I've gotta go."

"Thank you, sir." Jason said to the soon closed door. Red turned from the house to catch up with the girls and report on their progress, when he saw the front door of Miss Lander's house open. Out stepped a man, an exterminator, by the look of him, wearing a tank on his back, a nozzle gun in his gloved hand, and red-tinted goggles that obscured his eyes from that distance.

"Holy crap," Red breathed in shocked luck. "It's him!"

"Hey! He's here!" he called out to the others from the house they were engaged in, then bolted across the street to capture the stranger. "He's here! I see him!

"Red, where are you going?" Jason asked, loosing his cool, altogether. "Don't go after him! You heard what Conrad said!"

"Conrad's not the boss of me!" Red countered as he closed in on the man, who now saw Red charging down on him. He closed the door, bounded down the tiled walkway and ran hard down the quiet street, Red still in pursuit.

The two girls cut their questioning short and flew from the porch of the house they were standing in front of, joining Red by taking an intercepting angle across the street to meet him in the chase.

The Extinguisher dared to spare a glance behind him to see not just one burly teen gaining on him, but two girls bringing up the rear. Who were they and what did they know about him?

Tightening his grip on the tank's nozzle gun, he quickly thought of an avenue of escape without engaging with them physically. They were close enough.

Not stopping his flight, he swung the nozzle to point behind him and pulled the trigger. A dusty cloud of dark particles blasted from the barrel, straight into the faces and torsos of his would-be capturers.

Red, Daisy and Marcie halted in their tracks, coughing, gagging and trying to wipe their faces clean of the tank's contents, while The Extinguisher accelerated away and was soon not to be seen.

"What is this...crap?" Daisy hacked.

"I...don't know," Marcie gasped. "But it doesn't...smell like it was insecticide." For that, she was grateful. Hydrogen cyanide, to bugs and to humans, was lethal to a horrific degree.

"I had...him," Red coughed. "If he hadn't pulled that...smoke screen trick on us, I would've been...all over him like Jason on a T-bone."

"More fat jokes?" Jason asked, smoothly, walking up to meet them. "I'm surprised you still have the breath for it. What happened?"

"He got away, obviously," Red groused. "After shooting some dust in our faces. What a cheap trick." He began to brush off the solid particulates from his clothes and upon looking down to check on his progress, saw the carcasses of dead roaches on his jacket, shirt and possibly hair.

And then a sound issued from Red that none of his compatriots ever heard from him before. A high-pitched scream.

"Ahh! Yuck!" he shrieked, more anxious than ever to pound this troublesome Extinguisher into the dirt. "Roaches!"

Red slipped out of his jacket as if it were on fire, beating it against the ground to knock the already deceased vermin from it. Once he was satisfied that the jacket was free of them, he used it to self-flagellate himself to clean the front of his shirt off.

The girls looked down upon their own clothes and could see the same thing. Dead roaches and the dust from their dried droppings.

After the initial looks of mild disgust and confusion faded from their expressions, they brushed themselves off, preferring not to screech like a red-headed banshee, with Marcie quickly puzzled as to why this ex-exterminator would have something like that in his tank.

"C'mon, guys," she told them. "Let's go check Miss Lander's house for clues."

The rest heartily agreed and followed her back to where the air was clean and clear of exanimate insects.

The one thing they noticed upon walking some length the house interior was that Miss Lander wasn't in it. However, they were only prowling through its downstairs and even though the gang made some noise in their search, they were also cognizant on how deathly quiet the place was.

"Well," Daisy said, standing at the foot of the stairs. "We check everywhere down here. All that's left is...the upstairs."

Jason noticed the pause before 'the upstairs.' Daisy's little joke to scare him. Well, it was succeeding. He had no qualms about staying downstairs while the rest of the group ran into whatever evil was left behind by the tank-carrying criminal.

Marcie walked passed Daisy and set about trekking up the stairs. It was daylight and The Extinguisher was gone. That gave her the confidence to go it alone up there, if need be. She just hoped that when she reached the master bedroom, Miss Lander, or rather, her corpse, wasn't found there.

After calling Jason a jellyfish, Red went next, flexing the muscles in his right arm, for good measure, followed by Daisy.

Marcie reached the top and looked around. No traps or anything she could see that could impede them.

"Spread out," she told them. "Check all of the guest rooms and bathrooms. We'll check her bedroom last."

They did as told, each one moving silently into a guest bedroom with a slow swing of their doors. Although each was immaculate, they were also empty.

The group, minus Jason, rendezvoused in the hallway that led to the master bedroom at the end of it.

"No one in there," Daisy reported.

"Yeah, there's nobody here," Red concurred.

"Okay, then," Marcie sighed with inner dread. "The master bedroom, we go."

The three teens crept up to the bedroom, which was barred from them by a closed door. With a quiet gulp, Marcie slowly twisted the doorknob and the door opened.

The room was wide, neat, gloriously lit by the sunlight coming from its ornate windows, and, to Marcie, if everyone's relief, corpse-free.

"Hey, check it out," Red said, pointing at the made up, queen-sized bed. Daisy went to it and picked up the folded card that sat upon it.

"The Extinguisher will smother your dreams..." she read.

Marcie held her chin in thought. "I think I'm seeing a pattern, here, guys. Both of the cards that we've seen so far have him talking about taking your breath away and now smothering. I think he wants to choke her to death."

Daisy, and even Red, looked at Marcie in quiet shock, suggesting that something so dark...so foul...could be committed. Marcie happened to have noticed the looks.

She held up a hand to placate her friends, saying, "But, of course, that's just a theory."

"I'm afraid it's no theory, young lady," came the voice of Miss Lander entering the room with Jason following closely. "He means me no good and..." Her breath gave out suddenly and she was too slow to reach for her mask, causing her to cough violently.

Daisy took a heaving Miss Lander over to the bed, where she sat while Daisy gave her the mask, once her hacking fit subsided.

"I told you," Miss Lander said to the gang when she recovered enough. "He's slippery and always strikes at me alone. Always when I leave the house. Maybe I should get a home security system just for my peace of mind."

Another voice was heard from downstairs. A male voice.

"Aunt Rebecca? Are you home? It's me, Conrad!"

"Up here, dear!" Miss Lander responded, nursing her breath mask, nervously.

He ran upstairs and reached her room quickly. What he didn't expect to see were four teenagers.

"What are you guys doing here?" he asked.

Red jumped in. "Dude, that Extinguisher guy was real! He really is targeting your aunt, man. We had the jump on him, but got away." He made sure to omit anything that had to do with those disgusting roaches.

Conrad turned to his aunt to confirm all of this. "Is this true, Aunt Rebecca? He's after you?"

"I'm afraid so, dear," his aunt answered slowly.

"I called here earlier, but you didn't pick up the phone, so I came here.

"I was at the hair dresser's" she explained, meekly, feeling like a girl getting scolded by her father.

"In any case, this settles it. You're moving in with me until this whole thing blows over," Conrad decided. "He can drop all of the cards he wants, but you won't be here to read them."

Marcie's hand went to her chin again in thought, but this time, she said nothing.