Short N Sweet
When Lester Gettys returned home after yet another disappointing blind date with a woman he would just as soon forget, he looked around his living room with a critical eye at the chrome and glass furniture and at the geometric shapes hung on his wall that were meant to be art, and he realized the place was far too modern, too neat and too sterile in appearance to pass for a bachelor pad. A young woman walking through the front door would be able to sum up the owner as a geek without even laying eyes on him. The presence of the state-of-the-art computer system and the absence of a kick-ass stereo said it all. It was a nerd's paradise, right down to the Star Trek mouse pad on his desk. All that was missing was a coffee cup with the Microsoft logo on it.
At five feet five inches tall and one hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, Lester found it hard to compete with the tall, well-built men that women usually swooned over. In the past five years, he had gone on about three dozen first dates, only one of which resulted in a second. That particular romance lasted roughly one month and was his longest relationship to date.
Lester looked at his watch; it was only half past nine. The girl his cousin's wife had tried to fix him up with, a nursing student at a nearby community college, had developed a migraine right after dessert, so they cut the evening short at her request.
"The old headache excuse," he said with a sigh. "What a dull cliché. She gets a zero for originality."
Since it was early for a Friday night, Lester turned on his computer and checked to see if anyone he knew was online. His friend from college, who also had nothing better to do with his time on a Friday night, messaged him.
Red SoxR: How was the date?
TreK FaN: Don't ask.
Red SoxR: That bad?
TreK FaN: Worse.
Red SoxR: You should try online dating.
TreK FaN: No, thanks.
Red SoxR: Why not? I met a nice girl online, and we're going on our third date tomorrow night.
TreK FaN: You're kidding, right?
Red SoxR: No. I'm serious. You should try it. What have you got to lose?
TreK FaN: Maybe I will.
Yeah, and maybe pigs will fly, Lester thought as he logged off his AIM account.
* * *
Apparently, it was time for hogs to take to the air, for Lester Gettys—after a week of telling himself that online dating was a waste of his time—went to the website his buddy had recommended. After answering several personal questions, Lester was required to choose a screen name. Like so many other cyberspace travelers, he chose one in contrast to his true nature, one that expressed a deep-rooted desire to be like the tall, handsome, muscle-bound Neanderthals that got all the beautiful women.
With a smile, he typed in his new screen name: 2Hot2Handle. When he selected and confirmed a password, Lester saw a list of about two dozen women from Northeast Massachusetts who were currently online. He started at the top and went down the list. LONELY LADY was a forty-ish divorcee with two teenage children who was looking for someone older than Lester. RACY REDHEAD liked men who rode Harleys, drank Jack Daniels and listened to George Thorogood. BLACK LACE, on the other hand, was interested in heavy metal and body art.
"Now I feel a headache coming on," Lester joked as he wondered why he had even considered trying an online dating service.
Against his better judgment, he gave it one more shot. He sent a message to a young woman with a screen name of Short N Sweet.
2Hot2Handle: Hello.
Short N Sweet: Hello. I've never seen your screen name here before. Who are you?
Lester was immediately impressed that, unlike the previous ladies he messaged, this one did not reply with annoying AIM acronyms, that she took the time to communicate in complete sentences, spell out words and use proper grammar and punctuation.
Short N Sweet: I repeat: who are you?
When asked this question in the past, Lester usually responded truthfully that he was a twenty-seven-year-old computer programmer from Puritan Falls, interested in Star Trek, video games and Sudoku number puzzles. Yet this time he unleashed his imagination and let it run free.
2Hot2Handle: I'm a thirty-year-old graphic artist. I like extreme sports, working out in the gym and racing my Jaguar.
Short N Sweet: You sound like my kind of guy. What do you look like?
Lester mulled his answer over a moment and decided if he was going to embellish the truth why not go all the way? Especially since he had no intentions of actually dating a woman he met online.
2Hot2Handle: I'm six foot two and weigh two hundred pounds—all muscle. Black hair, blue eyes.
Short N Sweet: You sound hot! Why don't you have a wife or at least a steady girl?
2Hot2Handle: I travel a lot. I'm in London one week, Paris the next, Tokyo the week after.
Short N Sweet: Why does a graphic artist have to travel so much?
2Hot2Handle: I'm a consultant. Just last week, I was in Hollywood working at Pixar.
Short N Sweet: Meet anyone famous while you were there?
2Hot2Handle: I had lunch with George Lucas. I met him when I worked on Revenge of the Sith.
If Short N Sweet had a bullshit meter, the needle would no doubt have gone off the scale.
Short N Sweet: Awesome! When can we meet?
Lester was surprised that a young woman would want to move so quickly from having an online conversation to setting up a face-to-face meeting. What did she know about him, after all? The Internet was supposedly rampant with sexual predators. For all she knew, he might be a serial killer looking for his next victim.
He decided to ignore her last question and ask a few of his own.
2Hot2Handle: Enough about me. Who are you?
Short N Sweet: I'm a twenty-seven-year-old photographer. I like jazz music, independent films, yoga, candlelit dinners, dancing in the rain and walking along the beach.
Lester suddenly felt like he was on a Love Connection rerun.
2Hot2Handle: And what do you look like?
He waited several moments for her reply. Then her screen name abruptly disappeared from the list on the right side of the page, indicating that Short N Sweet was no longer online.
* * *
Three days later Lester's college friend messaged him again.
Red SoxR: Did you have any luck with that online dating service I recommended?
TreK FaN: No. I talked to a few women, but there was no one very interesting.
Red SoxR: That's a shame. Karen and I have had two more dates, and things are going great.
TreK FaN: Lucky you.
Red SoxR: Why don't you keep trying? You might get lucky and find someone, too.
TreK FaN: I'll think about it.
While Lester was conversing with his college friend, he received a communication from AOL asking if he would like to accept a message from Short N Sweet. Lester felt a quiver in his stomach, not quite butterflies, but almost.
How does she know my AOL screen name? he wondered. I never gave it to her or to the dating service.
Lester moved his mouse, clicked on YES and watched his screen.
Short N Sweet: Like I said before, you sound hot. When can we meet?
She is nothing, if not persistent, he thought.
TreK FaN: Where do you live?
Short N Sweet: The Mission Hill section of Boston. And you?
So far, Lester had lied about nearly everything he had told her, so why stop now? Besides, he found it amusing to take on a new persona—just as long as it remained an innocent game.
TreK FaN: Salem, in the McIntire District.
Short N Sweet: You must have some bucks. That's a ritzy area.
TreK FaN: My job pays well.
Short N Sweet: So, for the third time, when can we meet?
TreK FaN: I'm not sure. I don't get down to Boston that often.
Short N Sweet: Why don't I drive up to Salem? Say, next Saturday night?
Talk about pushy!
TreK FaN: Okay. Meet me at Finz on Pickering Wharf around 7:30.
Short N Sweet: I'll be there.
* * *
On Friday evening, the night before the planned date—which Lester had absolutely no intention of keeping—Short N Sweet contacted him again.
Short N Sweet: Tomorrow's the big day. I can't wait!
TreK FaN: Me either.
Short N Sweet: What are you doing now?
TreK FaN: Resting. I just got back from rock climbing.
Short N Sweet: Isn't that dangerous?
TreK FaN: It's thrilling. I like to live life on the edge. I'm not your average, nine-to-five, three-piece-suit kind of guy.
All of which was pure fiction since Lester was afraid to even ride a roller coaster at the amusement park.
Short N Sweet: You sound like so much fun. I can't wait to meet you.
TreK FaN: You know, you never did tell me what you look like.
Short N Sweet: I want to surprise you. See you tomorrow, 2Hot2Handle. Pleasant dreams.
* * *
Saturday night came and went, but Lester did not venture forth from his Puritan Falls home. He certainly did not go to Finz in Salem to meet the Internet mystery woman. He hoped the young lady in question—who hadn't given him her name—would lose interest in him after being stood up.
Such was not the case, however. Sunday morning Lester received an instant message from her.
Short N Sweet: I didn't see you at Finz last night.
TreK FaN: I was there. We must have missed each other.
Short N Sweet: You're lying. I got there early and left quite late. You never showed up.
TreK FaN: You don't even know what I look like, so how do you know I wasn't there?
Short N Sweet: I know exactly what you look like, you worm. That's how I know you weren't there.
Lester couldn't think of a gracious way to end the awkward conversation, so he simply signed off. He didn't blame her for being angry, though. She had driven from Boston to Salem, only to discover he hadn't shown up.
Apparently, the young woman took the slight to heart, for over the next few days she IM'd him repeatedly, calling him all sorts of unpleasant names.
"This girl must use a thesaurus," Lester laughed. "I never knew there were so many synonyms for S.O.B. That's the last time I'll ever try Internet dating. You never know what nutcase you're going to wind up with."
Just as Lester was not sure how the woman had gotten his AOL screen name, he was also perplexed when he opened his Outlook inbox and found several emails from Short N Sweet, none of which was civil.
Having blocked her from both his instant messaging and his email, Lester assumed he had heard the last from her. But the young lady must have known more about computers than he did, for she was able to get control of his web browser and thus send him insulting, hate-filled and often threatening messages over his Internet Explorer.
It was only when he removed the wireless adapter from his computer and was still receiving messages from his tormentor that he realized his nemesis was no ordinary computer hacker.
"There's no way she could send me messages over the Internet when my computer isn't even online."
* * *
During the next two weeks, the harassment that began with instant messages and emails progressed to text messages, phone calls and voice mail. Short N Sweet had moved from his computer to his phone, and she did not stop there. Somehow, she even managed to send him death threats via the closed captioning feature of his television.
Desperate to rid himself of the inhuman entity that was bent on making his life a living hell, Lester consulted an expert on the occult, a long-time resident of Salem who taught American History at the college in Essex Green and conducted paranormal investigations in his spare time.
"I don't think that this is a person that's been hounding me," Lester confessed, hoping the professor would not think he was one of those lunatics who claimed to have seen Big Foot at Fenway Park.
On the contrary, Professor Hawley found nothing out of the ordinary in the situation.
"From what you've told me, I'm inclined to agree with you. Of course, I'd have to gather some data before I can come to any valid conclusions."
The following Friday evening Hawley and his three assistants set up their equipment in Lester's living room.
"If you find something, will you perform an exorcism, or whatever is needed to get rid of the thing?"
"Exorcism is a religious practice of the Catholic Church, one of dubious effectiveness. I'm a man of science."
"How will you get rid of this thing then?"
"Let's begin by first determining what this thing really is."
For the next thirty hours, the team of paranormal investigators measured temperatures, electromagnetic fields and sound transmissions throughout the house.
"You've definitely got something here," Professor Hawley announced after having a chance to study the results.
"I know I do, but can you get rid of it?"
"We can try. The entity seems to consist entirely of electrical energy. That's why it could communicate with you through the computer, the telephone and the television. Knowing this, perhaps we can starve it of power or even destroy it altogether."
"How?"
"I want you to leave your house for a few days, maybe even a week or two—the longer the better. Before you go, shut off all your power and disconnect all the batteries throughout the house. And I mean everything: the battery that backs up your alarm clock and those in your flashlight, wristwatch, remote controls and smoke detector."
Lester complied with the professor's instructions. He not only pulled every plug and battery in his house, but he also cut off the power from the main power line and disconnected the cable television and Internet service going into his house. When everything was dead, from his iPod to his battery-operated toothbrush, Lester took his suitcase out to the car and drove to the Copperwell Holiday Inn.
* * *
"The place is clean," Professor Hawley declared after the final sweep of Lester's house six weeks later.
That evening Lester was able to talk with his friends online without any interference from the entity that had plagued him. His relief enabled him to sleep peacefully throughout the night, and his good spirits continued the following morning on his drive to work. He even hummed a cheerful tune as he merged into traffic on the interstate. The speedometer crept from fifty to fifty-five, to sixty, leveling out when it reached sixty-five miles per hour.
Lester was considering where he would go to eat after work that evening when his GPS system suddenly came on.
"You lying bastard," the mechanical voice cried, "did you think you could get rid of me so easily?"
Lester's stomach lurched with fear. Short N Sweet had gotten into his car's navigational system.
"Look, you claim to be mad at me because I stood you up for our dinner date," the frightened driver said, trying to reason with the entity. "But how could you have gone to Salem? You don't have a body."
"I don't give a damn about the so-called date. I was just playing with your head. Like a cat, I enjoy toying with my victims before I close in for the kill."
Lester's hands shook on the steering wheel. He put his signal on and pulled to the right, intending to get off the high-speed roadway at the next exit. Short N Sweet, however, was in the driver's seat—figuratively speaking.
The speedometer climbed to seventy ... seventy-five ... eighty ... eighty-five ... ninety. Lester put his foot on the brake, but the car did not lose speed. The speedometer went to ninety-five ... a hundred.
"Please stop. Hasn't this gone on long enough?"
"I'll make it short and sweet then, Lester: you're going to die, and I'm going to kill you."
The speedometer shot up to one ten ... one twenty. The last thing Lester heard before the entity steered his Subaru into the concrete wall of an overpass was Short N Sweet's eerie laughter emanating from his car's stereo speakers: "Goodbye, 2Hot2Handle."
* * *
Bruce Kohler was a fifty-two-year-old widower from Wyckoff, New Jersey, who had spent seven long, lonely years mourning his dead wife. After several months of soul searching, he had finally decided to take his friends' advice and begin dating again. He found the name of an online dating service that catered to middle-aged widows and widowers like him.
Bruce logged on and typed in the search criteria: female, age forty-five to fifty-five, New York-New Jersey metropolitan area.
"Today is my lucky day," he concluded, when he saw that there was someone online that matched his profile.
Yankees Fan: Hi. I'm not sure what to say. I'm new to computer dating.
Short N Sweet: No need to worry. I've done this before. I'll take good care of you.
If anyone should get an instant message from GODIVA LUV-R, it won't be difficult to figure out who sent it.
