A Crowbar and some Dare
© Andre Michael Pietroschek, all rights beyond display on the #ThrillerTeller website reserved

An aging wreck, only held by a charity and the democratic graces of the social fee. Yes, indeed, that is what I have become. Or, at least it truly is a part of me and an aspect I gladly present, as it happens to camouflage another one. Not only, so I can at least attempt to avoid rotting in prison, but also, so that police does not feel compelled to burden themselves with increasing the degree of our acquaintance. I am shy about, never liked forcing people, who were money bound to work in uniforms, to invest extra effort. Solitude was more within my rights to handle, and to me that was fine.

While it is true that poverty wrecks our health and the loss of perspective, that weird misnomer for capitalism blocking millions of people from a life worth living for, the same poverty also teaches lessons, which the fakes and the frauds find much harder to copycat. Once down the goal is to recover and quickly rebuild a life, as faking and cheating fails to make immune to the diseases and problems of being dumped among other people, who have their criminal ambition and their exploding ton full of problems on their proverbial backs.

I had become a self-taught burglar three years ago, and I am neither a full cat acrobat, nor the best in surveillance technology, nor the most silent and stealthy. I am convinced that my observations about what made my downfall come true and what lurks in the dark have to do with my way working out at all. But, such are professional secrets, which I will only babble about if I ever secure myself a better money mill than cheating on the social fee!

It worked, as from the start I only went into low-income targets, which did not have much technological surveillance. Like the lesser company buildings, suburbia supermarkets, or the hideouts of lesser drug dealing totally innocents kinda people. The bonus were Neo-Nazi, as money-milking them was draining the money from the one cause, which we all learned to find most improper. But, I give a fuck about being born German, and the only thing I know about politics is that I often wished I would also be paid for being a lying and cheating misanthrope in designer clothing.

The practice did not make me perfect, but I surely became a notch more sneaky and handy about carrying a hidden crowbar, or prybar, hidden in my jacket, usually up my sleeve, as I prefer a medium-sized one to the large version most workers know. And that is mostly it. I never became nosy, and I kept my greed on a proverbial leash. Remembering the first burglary I committed yielded only five notebooks I got sold for barely three hundred Euro, I sure did not feel like a master thief ever. But, the moment the building on the other side of the street was patrolled by security guards, where my target of choice lacked the funding for similar precautions, I still had the notorious roguish grin on my face.

Then they began to build a new motel in our part of the city. A motel, which would turn out to become the most lucrative source of information and opportunity to the skilled observers and the sex workers of our area. But, aging and certain medical conditions made me shun the risk of infections and rashes, so I am no expert on the sexwork way of life. The motel, in a nearly dead and decaying city part it even became the attraction and event platform for young adults and tourists alike. Sadly so, it was of course only the poorer tourists, who found the city center prices far too high.

But, as I mentioned before, it also meant much less security to worry about and much less competition, as most went for the more lucrative targets elsewhere.

`So Slenderman had finally decided to become the husband of Bloody Mary?´, was the only remark I ever uttered, when paranormal investigators decided to start their fraud scheme in our hood.

On the good side, it made my target more lucrative. Those junkie fuck-ups in cheap suits had worked themselves up a bit, and they played their charade quite well. Makeup on faces and hands, so the telltale signs of substance abuse were harder to see. Newspaper reports paid for, so several local info databases mentioned the same BS, which they lured their customers with. Call it clients, call it customers, or call it victims, who cares? Seems, those media reports made to seem evidence to the gullible folks, who fell for such crap.

When the esoteric, the superstitious, and the curious were drunk and drugged enough to indulge the charade, it was splendid, as it meant a lot of distracted folks were out of my way, and only an overworked, tired, and disinterested night-clerk worked the motel. Police had to guard the haunted house the bunch went for instead. Criminals, like muggers, were in the subway tunnels or disguised themselves as part of the paranormal fandom around, and hence were distracted just as well.

I worked myself through car trunks and motel rooms, going for collectibles in form of anything technological and anything I could recognize as valuable. Avoiding the modern cars I triggered no alarm and managed to stay in my serene calm, my all is well kinda feeling on the job.

It stayed so until I went for room number five. The fifth of eight little apartments were built into one complex to form this motel. With room one closest to the night-clerk I already knew that his one nose of amphetamine and several joints smoked made that dopehead moron nothing to worry about. Two smartphones and one notebook with a docking station were already in my slim backpack, so the minimum gain was OK.

But it wasn’t Slenderman and Bloody Mary, which spoiled my little tour. It was my one mistake.

After four doors I was used to working the crowbar on the lock’s slider of each door, and I was swift. Bad mistake. Stress can cause such.

`N-word rhymes on the trigger!´ erratic thought.

I was fast on the door, and about to step in, deluded by whatever had bewitched my mind and had undone my own alertness. I knew the brown-skinned sex worker kneeling on the ground, even though his face was bloody and beaten, as was his decently trained body. He was mostly a silent and cautious fellow about his way of life, but occasionally pestered the entire neighborhood with the skin-color sermon, which is a decade-old telltale sign for another criminal afro-brother losing it.

`N-word rhymes on the trigger!´ erratic thought.

Then I saw the fun-boys. The three Neo-Nazi, totally not paranormal at all, had played the prank of ordering a sex worker to their motel room, so their fists and feet could help him learn their favorite striptease, or so. I have never been good with wordgames on violence.

And they also saw me, as the well-lit room made it impossible not to.

`Look at that! Now we have a Nigger and a Vagrant!´

I felt my grip on the crowbar getting sweaty, as adrenaline rushed through my body. But it was too late. The Neo-Nazi, in the middle of their own crime, made what stupid and aggressive are often about. They went for their handguns and shot me, with zero care about the consequences, witnesses, or police.

THE END

NOTE: All similarities between my fictional Telltale Thrill and real-world Thriller Teller are coincidental and for entertainment purposes only. All positive mentions of Telltale Thrill resembling real-world Thriller Teller are understatements, as I am still just another fan, after all. 😉 The ONLY website with a legal submission of this story is: w w w dot thrillerteller dot com!

Author: Andre Michael Pietroschek