Whiffle-Ball: A Cape Escape Story

Toaster wrote a short story about Sandals that takes place after the events of Cape Escape, but before whatever comes next.

[Sandals fan art by BearLemon]

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Thwack. Blunt-force trauma caving in a skull.

Thwack. A crossbow bolt piercing jawbone as it pins its quarry to the ground.

Thwack. A whiffle-ball smacking a paddle.

Judy and Jeanie Rosen were unstoppable on the court. For months, they’d been the front-runners for states. Having gotten into the game in their fifties, the retired Kangaroo sisters had an early start at the country club before the game had taken off in earnest during the pandemic. Jeanie’s second husband wasn’t into it at all, which eventually became enough of a problem that Jeanie found a third husband who played. No matter what, though, nothing was able to unseat Judy as her most valuable companion on the court. They were the jewel of Osakea’s retirement community, veritable sports icons for the sleepy seaside haven. Their success came easily.

Well-liked, well-connected, and naturally talented.

Sandals found this all very irritating.

The weather wasn’t bad. It was a nice day to be on the court, a breezy 83 degrees. The sharp,  chill of the wind wicking the sweat from his furrowed brow gave Sandals a feeling of calm intensity as he watched the ball miss his paddle by centimeters.

He needed to be faster. He needed more precision. He could hear the sound, the whistling of air through the ball as it slipped past his range. He could hear his blood boiling in his ears.

“Good game, Sandy!” Said Jeanie as Sandals stood by the chain-link fence on the edge of the court drinking from his nalgene bottle. Sandals turned to her and smiled, his posture straight and warm.

“You always give me a run for my money, Jeanie! Watch that arm of yours, it’s a national treasure.” He said brightly. “Can’t have anything stopping you ahead of States! Gotta bring in a win for Osakea.”

“You’re always such a good sport.” She said, opening the gate. Judy walked through ahead of her, waving as she went. Jeanie followed behind her. Sandals watched her intensely as she went. Turning on her heels, she looked back at him one last time.

“I’ll make sure to give your mom a tupperware with my bean dip at the next book club! I know you love the stuff! Tell her I said hi!” She said, waving one last time. Sandals waved back and simmered.

“Can’t win them all,” said Conrad, the large, 55 year old Bull that Sandals partnered with on Tuesdays.

“No, you can’t.” Sandals said, though it didn’t seem like Conrad caught the emphasis.

“See you next week?” Conrad asked.

“Yeah, we’ll see. I might have a scheduling conflict.” Sandals said, removing the hair tie from his hair to reform the messy bun that had shaken long strands of hair loose over his face. He scratched his neck idly, the collar of his polo lightly chafing in the heat. No matter how many days he spent out here in the sun, he could never quite get used to the heat.

“Something come up with work?” Conrad asked. Conrad was always curious about Sandals’s work. Sandals figured it was some kind of strange adult male bonding thing. The men in his life always wanted to know what he was working on, how much money he made, what he had in his pipeline. Sandals knew better than to share.

“Something like that.” He said.

“Launching something new?” Conrad probed further.

“No, just, meetings. I might have a trip coming up. Standard CEO stuff.” he said, leaning down to grab his duffle bag. “It’s all very tedious.” He said, exiting the court.

For the past 7 years, Sandals had worked hard to turn multiple reliable, if meager, revenue streams into an empire. His shift to behind-camera work had been a massive success, jockeying away from trying to be the front-man to more of a directorial role. Eventually, he spun that success into a consulting gig, managing brands and operations for other content creators. Soon enough, he became something of a media mogul. He had made Forbes’ 30-under-30 at 29, and with a decent amount of networking and a lot of studying, he transitioned again towards venture capital and investing, growing his portfolio significantly.

The events of Escape Con taught Sandals that he had been looking at the wrong things. That he had been chasing the wrong goals. He had knowledge gaps, and skill gaps, and focused on the wrong qualities in himself. And so he bridged those gaps. It started with simple things – No more soda, just water. Cutting out sugar. Doing Yoga. It evolved into bigger things. Learning how to manage staff, getting in the weeds with programming and engineering, taking ideas from conception to fruition. He’d switched to Linux full time a few years back.

Sandals was not naturally talented. Everything he built took effort, determination, and hard work. He needed to stop chasing ghosts, stop trying to make things happen that weren’t in the cards, and focus on how he could win. How he could ensure success.

And so he did.

Popping the gull-wing door and tossing his duffle bag onto his passenger seat, he sat in the seat with one foot still on the pavement. The inside of the car was sweltering and humid. Sandals pulled out his phone. Multiple missed calls from Maven. A text message, too.

“SANDALS. PICK UP. THIS IS SERIOUS. I CAN’T GET IN CONTACT WITH JAVI.”

Sandals sighed, grabbing his sunglasses from the console. He leaned back in his chair, browsing Facebook idly. He navigated to Jeanie’s profile, which was relatively sparse, then to Judy’s, which was much more active. Minions memes interspersed with those falsified cooking videos, the occasional post about a grandchild. Looks like one of them was graduating highschool in a month. Sandals idly clicked his page. A young Kangaroo who seemed pretty active. He posted a lot of gaming clips, looked like a big fan of Counterstrike.

“...Don’t let them get to the hostages!” a young voice barked, followed by the sound of gunfire.

“What are you doing? You fucking idiot!” came another voice.

Sandals smirked. He leaned over to his glove box and popped it open. Reaching inside, he pulled out a small, budget prepaid smartphone in a clamshell package. Popping it open, Sandals turned on the phone and quickly went to the dialer, then put the phone up to his ear.

“911 emergency.”

“I don’t have much time...” he whispered. “They… They don’t know I found this phone”

Sandals unpaused the video on his phone quickly, just long enough for some gunshots to go off.

“I’m, uhm, I’m in a vehicle. I got out the window and I’m in their car, but I don’t have the keys.”

“Where are you?” said the dispatcher. Sandals scrolled up to the boy’s about me section.

“It’s… 423 Benjamin Lane. It’s a blue house. It’s my friend’s house.”

“Okay. What’s happening?”

“They… they’re keeping us hostage. I don’t know who they are. I was with my friends and they came in. They have a gun.”

“Are they still there? Has anyone been hurt?”

“I keep hearing shots. I think they’re looking for me.”

Sandals rewound the clip slightly. He pressed play and lightly smacked his free hand against the windshield, which made a loud THWACK.

“What are you doing? You fucking idiot!” came the voice on the speaker, lightly muffled by his hand.

“Oh god!” he said, and deliberately dropped the burner phone, burying it underneath his shirt. For a second he jostled himself around, pantomiming being pulled out of the car as best he could. He unpaused the video again, turning the volume up to amplify the sound of gunshots.

Carefully, Sandals stood up, plucked the phone from the seat in the car. He could hear the voice on the other side urging for more information. He tossed the phone behind his car, the screen shattering on the pavement. Returning to his seat and pulling the door shut behind him, he started the car and quickly reversed, crushing the prepaid phone completely.

“Let’s see how you perform at States after your grandson stares down the barrel of a SWAT team, you wrinkly old hags.” Sandals hissed as he pulled out from the Rec Park’s parking lot. Maven could wait a while longer for that phone call. It was nice to hear from her, but she always seemed to be upset with him for one reason or another. Sandals needed to cool off and recenter himself before willingly subjecting himself to her scolding.

“One problem at a time, Sandy,” He told himself, and then turned up the improvisational jazz coming from the radio. “One problem at a time.”

[Timeskip Sandals concept by Demonskunk]