#15
Dead Aim
By Bryan Steven Follins
Jesse Green had begun
his nightly check of e-mail. There were 26 new messages
"One Hundred Different
Ways to Cheat On Your Spouse."
A mile-wide grin spread
across Green's face, as he rapidly scrolled down to the e-mail. Cynthia,
his wife, would not be in for another hour, so he was going to enjoy reading
THIS MESSAGE.
Green opened the e-mail.
It read: "Here
are some foolproof methods to help you establish an airtight plan on how
to cheat on your spouse. This demo is free, so you do not have to
worry about pulling out your credit card. Feel free to click on the
attachment."
A wider grin crossed
Jesse's face.
He clicked on the attachment.
The screen turned black.
Next, a pulsating white
circle appeared in the middle of the monitor. The circle became larger
and larger.
Then a voice said:
"The first step to cheating on your spouse is to blind them."
At this point the light
pulse flashed ten times brighter than the sun, and Green was blinded.
Then the voice said:
"The second step is to make them deaf."
Now, a high pitched
whistling sound erupted from the file. Green grabbed his ears.
The whistling became louder and louder, and then, silence.
Jesse realized he could
no longer see or hear. He panicked and tried to stand up, and he
tripped on his chair. He fell to the floor, and lay there in a state
of total shock.
Then the voice said:
"Now that they can neither see nor hear, there is nothing they can do to
stop you."
Now there was a grinding
noise on the computer. A message flashed across
The screen went blank,
and Jesse was blank.
While all of this was
going on, Cynthia had entered the room. She was feeling proud.
Her newly developed e-mail virus had worked.
She had to get changed,
for she had a date an hour later.
in the mailbox.
One message had an attachment. The title of the message read:
the screen saying:
"System hardware failure."
The End.
Story dedicated to Ray Bradbury.