8~

An eye peered out from behind the curtain of a master bedroom, watching, and when it spotted the prey coming down the street, a soft voice, eager for the hunt, called out, "He's coming," and then the eye went back behind the shade.

It was early evening and enough people were in their homes that the streets were deserted, save for the few citizens who walked by, noticed The Extinguisher in full garb, skulking towards the home of Conrad Lander, and continued to walk, thinking a house nearby must be in need of a good exterminator.

He stepped up to the door and it soon opened. The one thing he noticed was that it was dark inside. That didn't concern him, too much. He had been here before and could maneuver in the home, and more importantly, he knew that she was here.

He started to go up the stairs, but then stopped when he heard a sound coming from upstairs. A sound that he had longed for, had worked so hard for. A hacking, breathless coughing. He continued his walk.

The work boot's footsteps boomed in the walking, and every step he took, the coughing grew worse, as if he were physically stomping the life out of her with every glorious pace.

He took his time on the ascent. The coughing gave him that kind of confidence. It definitely sounded like she didn't have long to go, and maybe, if he didn't feel too cruel tonight, he'd help her along.

At the top of the stairs, he stopped and listened in the gloom. His caution was rewarded by the upstairs ringing out with the sound of a woman slowly dying in the dark. He angled toward the guest bedroom.

Again the footfalls echoed heavily in the hallway, soles scraping when he made a turn against the wooden floor.

There. The guest bedroom. He silently reached out and turned the doorknob, not that stealth was needed with all the racket the woman was making with each labored breath. She fought for every inhalation, keeping death at bay, if just for one more moment.

He could hear that just through the door. It had to end, tonight, however. No more cards, no more home intrusions, and no more waiting. She had to die.

He turned the knob and entered.

The place was lit by the ambient light coming from the room's only window, so it made his hunt easier, as his eyes immediately zeroed in on the room's occupied bed and he steadily approached, listening to the gasping, coughing sounds of his expiring prey. There was a thrill in that, an dire electric charge in the air of the bedroom that energized him with each step towards the bed.

His attacks were subtle, yet cunning, using her own infirmity against her. Time would do the rest, and now time was up for Miss Rebecca Lander.

He arrived at one side of the bed, always looking at her, always watching. He gave himself a smile behind his gas mask, as he reached for the covers to watch her breathe her last. To know that her killer had finally come.

With a violent snatch, the blanket flew across the room and he was finally face to face...with a Miss Lander-looking mannikin and a tape recorder playing a symphony of one-person hacking.

The scene was so incredible, it shocked him frozen into place. 'Where was she?' his mind screamed. 'Where's the victory I worked so hard for?'

In the dark, a pair of silent hands had reached out from under the bed to do their swift work. He barely felt the shackle being placed around the girth of one of his bootlegs, the two hinged halves of semi-circular iron swinging closed, quietly. When he did feel the bolt quickly locking the halves together, he knew that a trap was sprung. Her trap, somehow.

He damned himself for his hesitation, for his stupid, internal tantrum. Why was he still here? He should have just run, just run! But, by then, it was too late.

Trying to flee, he lifting his foot to pull away, only to expose a short, clattering length of strong chain uncoiling from under the bed. It stopped soon after, due to the other end being bolted to one of the rear legs of the heavy bed.

He fearfully yanked again, and the bed, being so weighty, slid forward a foot or two. If the chain wouldn't break, he would have wanted to tow the bed out of the room, somehow, to make his escape, but the bed was too unyielding. Why was he restrained this way?

"Who's in here with me?" he asked, unsteadily, his voice resonant through the gas mask. "Release me and I won't finish you."

The answer came when the light switch clicked on and Marcie, Red, Jason and Sheriff Stone stood in the doorway. Daisy slipped out from under the bed, a moment later, to join them.

Upon seeing them alive, The Extinguisher lashed his blackest curse at them, wishing desperately that the chain had somehow snapped so he could gladly fight his way through the blocked portal. He would give these children pain. Lasting pain.

"How are you still breathing," he asked. "I locked you in that house. It should have finished you, and the exterminators should've found your bodies in a week."

"Don't you know?" Marcie quipped. "We're like cockroaches. We're hard to kill. But we're gonna kill your plan to kill Miss Lander...Conrad."

The Extinguisher gave a sad chuckle from behind the mask. "Who? I am The Extinguisher, girl, and when I get out of these chains, I'm going to extinguish all of you."

The three stood firm to his weak threats, especially since he would have to free himself before carrying them out.

"I very much doubt that," Marcie said. "First, when we went over to Miss Lander's house, you told her that she would never have to read The Extinguisher's calling cards again, but when we told you that she was being stalked by him, we never told you that he left calling cards behind, so how would you know?

"Second," she continued. "Miss Lander said, in the hospital, that she kept a clean home and didn't have any roaches, so why did we find some in her house? I don't think she's a liar, so I analyzed some of them, and I found out that their bodies were covered with the same insecticide your company uses for fumigation, meaning that when we first tried to catch you, you had dead roaches from those fumigated houses in your tank that day."

"Makes sense," Daisy added. "The work sheet I found said that the house where we first met you was not the one you were assigned to. The address on the paper was the same as the hostess's. Heck, according to it, you're not even a real fumigator, you're just an ordinary exterminator. So, why were you there? You were probably waiting for the other workers to leave for a day or two, so you could sneak in later on and collect all of those roaches, I'll bet."

"And didn't you say that her doctor told you to make a copy of your aunt's house key so if anything happened to her, you could get to her?" Red asked, jumping in on the deduction. "Guess you were following doctor's orders because you had to have had a key made to get in and out of her house and leave the calling cards."

"Plus, we know how you wanted to kill Miss Lander, too," Jason said. "All of the cards you left alluded to the same thing: choking. Meaning that you wanted her to choke to death, but leave no trace to you. You knew that she had a breathing problem, so you left those dead roaches in her bedroom, so it would make her condition worse. Dead roaches and their droppings leave a dander that can make people with asthma even sicker."

"Oh, and that was pretty clever putting us in a house that only you would know would be fumigated," Marcie said, smoothly. "The chain locks across the basement door was a nice touch."

"But, to tell the truth," Daisy concluded. "The biggest clue was your relationship with Miss Lander. I called her earlier and asked if she ever made out her will. Not only had she, but you were in it. But, I guess, you already knew that, just like you knew that you were her favorite nephew. You took advantage of that to get your inheritance."

"Yeah, yeah," Stone said, impatiently waving the drama away. "But he says that he's this Executioner guy, not Curtis-"

"Conrad," Marcie corrected.

"Whatever! The point is he didn't confess to anything. So, now what?"

"Red, if you would be so kind?" Marcie asked him, genteelly.

Red closed the door behind him and then held up something small, cylindrical and metal high enough so that even The Extinguisher could see it clearly. When the stalker saw the infamous universal sign for poison, the skull and crossbones, on its face, his stomach became a block of ice. He took a step back from it and Marcie knew it had the desired effect she wanted.

Red, with a cavalier motion, popped the top of the can and rolled the object to the far side of the room, where it hit the wainscoting of a wall and rolled back, stopping a few feet from The Extinguisher.

Pressurized gouts of toxin suddenly flowed from the bug bomb, filling the small room at a frightening rate, causing absolute terror to fill the man, since he couldn't move but maybe another foot.

"What are doing?" he roared. "That's poison gas, you fools! It'll wipe us out!"

"Why? You're wearing a gas mask aren't you?" Red asked with ruthless indifference. "You're safe."

The man's nerve begin to crack. "It's a prop. It's for show! It doesn't work!" He looked to the side of the room in desperation. "Look, there's a window! Throw it out, before it's too late!"

"Nah," Marcie shrugged. "We took a vote and we all decided that it would be better if we took you out, even if it meant that we'd go, too. We'd tell you to tell your Aunt Rebecca goodbye, but she's back home, now, and since you won't have long for this world, she'll be safe."

The room was thick with clouds of poison, clinging to every wall, filling every space, giving those within no chance of fresh air. In fact, The Extinguisher could see, just through the haze, Marcie, and then, Red gasp, cough, and then collapse onto the bedroom floor. With a spasm of twitches, they grew still.

"Please, Sheriff!" The Extinguisher implored. "You have to help me! Please!"

Stone shook his head slowly. "Sorry, citizen. I'm with the kids on this one. If you are as guilty as they say, then maybe you should confess..." Stone managed to say, before the vapor began literally taking his breath away. "Before it's...too late." With that, he slumped weakly against the door, his strength nearly gone.

So far, The Extinguisher had been watching the others slowly succumb to the mists, but it wasn't until the fumes found their way inside his faux gas mask, and he coughed, that he panicked and finally surrendered the truth.

"Alright! I did it! I did it! I'm Conrad!" he almost wept, throwing off the goggles and fake mask, and revealing the villainous exterminator. "I tried to kill my aunt for the money in her will! Just, please, open the window before I die in here!"

Daisy managed to find the strength to crawl foot by difficult foot to the window, stand on shaky legs, and clumsily slide the window open. Immediately, the ventilation began to draw the gas away, clearing the room and revealing the still bodies.

He didn't understand and decided that he didn't want to. Suicide? Were they so dedicated to solving this case, to prove him guilty, that were willing to consume their own lives in doing so?

"I warned you to open that window, earlier," he said to Daisy, with an accusing sneer. "Now you've lost your friends and the one man who could have done something with my confession."

While Daisy still stood by the window, he looked around the room for more casualties. However, Jason, who hadn't been seen by him when the gas was at its more obscure, stood by the bed, tape recorder in hand, giving him a friendly wave, as he rewound the tape and replayed Conrad Lander's confession.

"How? How did you..." He was starting to believe what Marcie had said earlier about being indestructible.

Jason walked over to the now spent canister and picked it up, saying, "Smoke bomb. Totally harmless, and with a little acting on our part, totally believable to you."

"Like the shackle?" Daisy asked. "I picked that up in a garage sale few years back. I love going to them. You'll never know what you'll find."

When the corpses of Marcie, Red and Sheriff Stone began to stir and rise from the floor, Daisy called over to the sheriff, "Sheriff, I think you have your confession." She then turned her attention to Conrad, with a scathing look.

"I gotta admit, you were playing Miss Lander like an old tune, putting so much fear into her. Well, now we got to turn it on you and let you feel a little of what you put that poor woman through." She produced a folded card from a jumpsuit pocket and handed it to him.

Despite his hatred for her and the others, his curiosity made him accept it. He opened it, and what was written inside, rankled him, deeply.

"The Extinguisher...extinguished, by some meddlesome pests," he read, bitterly.

He crushed the card as a final act of defiance before Stone restrained him with handcuffs and freed him from the shackle, marching him downstairs to his waiting cruiser. The gang followed them, soon after.