have started out personal, but it became more personal than underwear the moment Alliston’s most notorious criminals rolled into the west side of town looking for a fight. If that’s what they wanted, that’s what they’d get. At least, in theory. Maybe not a fight fight, but some harsh words or an intimidating scowl. Yeah, that’d do the trick.
“We need something sticky!” Morrie whispered.
“I’m on it.” Justin darted down the dark alley between the doctor’s office and the daycare. A moment later, he handed Morrie a branch. “Here, I got one.”
Morrie stared at Justin with narrowed eyebrows, feeling the length of the branch for sap, or something that would help him adhere the new tracking device to the vehicle they wanted to follow. The built-in magnet was not doing its job. “Why did you bring this?”
“You said you needed something sticky.”
“This isn’t sticky.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” He winked. “That there is the perfect stick.”
Morrie felt like he’d bitten off more than he could chew with his motley crew of neighbours. They quickly evolved from a group of dads watching sports and movies in Joshua Miller’s basement into a vigilante gang seeking justice for their town’s recent spike in crime and trying to keep their families safe. With burglaries on the rise and police unable to prevent them, the four fathers took matters into their own hands.
Armed with bear mace and Canadian Tire’s best walkie-talkies, the group of blue-collar suburbanites looked for restitution for the trouble the assailants had caused. After weeks of surveillance and close calls, they tracked the criminals down to a local doctor’s office.
“No movement at the rear,” Garcia relayed through the handheld radio.
“Ten-four,” Justin responded. “Let’s wait at the front. We’ll have them surrounded.”
“Hold on a second. I’ve got something in my shoe.” Morrie crouched down, but not before scanning his surroundings for potential dangers.
“I’m pretty sure it’s your foot.”
Morrie suppressed a groan as he pulled a pebble from his sneaker. “Maybe we should call the police now.”
“No way, man. This is our takedown. We’ve worked for months to stop these guys.”
The two men crouched beside the stairs leading out of the building, concealing themselves behind spruce hedge.
“I don’t know. What if they have guns or something? I will not die over some random after-hours burglary when no one else is in danger.” The pool of nerves in Morrie’s stomach was making decisions on his behalf; he sensed something was going to go terribly wrong.
“Don’t be a pansy. We’ve got bear mace, so we’ll be fine. We could literally take down a bear.” Justin’s intense expression seemed to convey more than his words did, so Morrie didn’t argue.
What could go wrong? As the brains of the operation, and at times, the only one with any brains, Wesley Morris felt obligated to stay and look after his group of friends. He also knew that the responsible thing to do would be to call the police. He pulled his phone from his back pocket to dial 911.
Before Morrie could press send, an alarm started wailing, and without having time to comprehend what was happening, the front door of the doctor’s office flew open. Three men came running out, each carrying a duffel bag of whatever goods they had been seeking.
Without thinking through the potential consequences, as per usual, Justin took the branch he had earlier retrieved and thrusted it through the railing toward the tall man in the front of the group, causing him to trip. The two men trailing behind were too close to avoid a collision, so within a split second, the three of them lay in a tangled mess on the concrete stairs outside of the doctor’s office.
Justin winked at Morrie again. “See, that was the perfect stick.”
Morrie rolled his eyes, but when they landed back on the group of men in front of them, all three were standing, pointing guns at the interfering fathers.
“Who the hell are you?” the gruff voice of the tall man asked, staring down at them from behind the grip of his handgun.
“We’re nobody,” Morrie replied. His nerves were back with a vengeance, causing his voice to shake.
“We’re not nobody. We’re the Suburban Watchdogs, and we want you to stop terrorizing our town.”
“Suburban Watchdogs?” the tall man replied as he huffed a mocking laugh.
“That’s right.” Justin puffed out his chest to make his five-foot-five, one-hundred-thirty-pound frame more intimidating. “And we don’t like what y’all have been doing. So why don’t you just pack up and leave town?”
“It doesn’t appear you have the upper hand here, Watchdog. I reckon we’ll keep doing whatever it is we want because dead men don’t have opinions.”
Justin still failed to grasp the severity of the situation. “You don’t know who you’re up against, Beanstalk.”
“They have guns. Shut up,” Morrie begged.
“Stop being a wuss.” Justin turned to the obscenely tall man. “What are you? A stay-at-home astronaut?”
The greying ginger man-mountain scowled as his face turned a deeper shade of red. Obviously, he had a hot temper and Justin’s moronic banter was throwing gasoline into the inferno. “What are you? A jockey? I could keep you in my pocket.”
“Do you drive around with your head out of the sunroof?” Justin inched closer to the man, but they still remained ten feet apart.
Morrie tucked himself in behind his friend. He was not about to die a hero for a friend who wanted to engage in a battle of wits with no ammunition.
“What do you drive? A minivan?” The tall man stepped closer to Justin and Morrie, looking angrier by the second.
“Yeah, actually I do!” Justin reduced the distance between them again, undeterred by the confrontation. “A blue one!”
Morrie thought, at least they’re evenly matched.
“Are you always this stupid or is today a special occasion?” the chubby burglar with unkempt hair asked, leaning his head around his taller cohort.
“How did you get here? Did someone leave your cage open?” Justin replied.
Morrie felt more nervous each time his friend opened his mouth. Justin offered as much protection from a bullet as a sheet of drywall, and Morrie didn’t feel right about using the small man as a shield, anyway. He’d never been a coward before, but he was clueless as to how they’d get out of the mess they were in.
Just when Morrie was convinced they were going to die, and he’d never see his beautiful wife, Nicole, or his two children again, Justin uttered something even more surprising.
“Chock-a-block!”
The next thing Morrie heard was a gunshot.