DISCONTINUED

Chapter 45

Luna woke to the sound of her phone ringing, the ringtone telling her that it was Olivia. She glanced at the clock. Ugh. It was WAY too early to be waking up on a Saturday, even if it was to gloat with her friend. She managed to mumble something at her phone that sounded close enough to "ignore" that it stopped ringing.

She barely had time to roll over before it started ringing again. Jeepers girl! Seriously? Can't this wait? Yes, yes it can wait and yes it will. Again, she lobbed a guttural, sleepy "ignore" at her phone and laid face down on her bed, covering her head with her pillow.

The ringing had barely stopped before it started up once again. She closed her eyes and shook her still buried under her pillow head. Clearly Bob had already been found and Olivia was not going to be denied the opportunity to bask in the glow of their – her – successful prank.

Luna grinned slightly to herself. Yes, it was earlier than she wanted to be waking up for sure, but she had to admit that the "reveal" really was the most satisfying part of these pranks. As Olivia had rightly said, what fun would a prank be if no one noticed? She reached for her phone.

"So, safe to assume that Bob has made his way onto the news already?"

Olivia's face appeared on the screen, her nose and eyes all red and puffy. Luna was just about to make fun of her for looking so rough in the morning when she realized that she was crying and obviously had been for some time.

"What is it Liv? What's wrong??"

"Turn on the news Lu" Olivia said weakly, between sobs, struggling to get the words out.

"What? The news? Ok. Ok. Just a minute." Luna switched on the viewer and changed the channel to the local news station, tuning into the middle of what appeared to be a rather somber conversation between the host and some sort of special guest.

"...these run-of-river type dams, although often benign in appearance, under certain circumstances can create very dangerous flow patterns on the downstream side of the dam, so much so that we've come to refer to them as 'drowning machines'..."

As the man droned on, Luna looked to Olivia, hoping for some clarity.

Olivia's eyes were wide as she sat, arms wrapped around herself, gently rocking back and forth. She opened her mouth to speak but it took several attempts before any words came out. She alternately swallowed hard and exhaled a couple of times, steadying herself. When she did speak it was quietly - almost too quiet for Luna to hear - through ragged, shallow breaths.

"Go back..."

"What?"

"Re... rewind it."

"Oh, ok. How far?"

"I... I, uh... I dunno. A couple of minutes I guess. To the start."

Luna motioned to the viewer and rewound the show until she saw what she recognized as the beginning of the segment. She sat and listened as the host spoke.

"Breaking news. A young man currently lies in Mercy Hospital in a medically induced coma after attempting a daring rescue early this morning in the turbulent waters below the Main Street dam. But when search and rescue personnel arrived on scene, they made the disturbing and bizarre discovery that the 'victim' the young would-be rescuer was trying to save was, in fact, just a mannequin..."

"Oh shit..." whispered Luna under her breath.

"... the mannequin was fully dressed so as to appear from a distance as if it were a real person. Once retrieved a note was found pinned to its back containing seditious, anti-establishment statements - statements that we won't repeat here - similar to those that have appeared in several other such protest-motivated public incidents over the past few months."