Suicide Sally

As soon as she read the note and opened the package, Andrea's world went panoramic with fear.  Her eyes darted left and right along the rows of mailboxes, up and down the street where children played summer games, across the neighbor’s lawn where Harriet fiddled with plastic sunflowers.

“Long sleeves today?  Girl, you’re cold-blooded,” Harriet said with a wave.  Andrea weakly smiled.  Walking back to her house, she rubbed her suddenly aching wrist, the one she always kept covered.

She found Ron laying on the couch breaking from his perpetual novel-writing.  A baseball game played on TV. 

“Ron, there’s something I should’ve told you long ago,” she said nervously, sitting at his feet.  She handed him the note.

I’m going to destroy the world, and only you can stop me. 

  Today it begins.

Ronald sardonically smiled.  “And what’s this?”

“It's a...Ron, I was a Suicide Sally.”

Ron sat up and his smile disappeared.  He glanced at her wrist.  “No way.  You’re messin' with me.”

She pulled up her sleeve, exposing the rows of scars.  “After I tried to kill myself when I was fifteen, I was recruited by Good Deeds.  They gave me a drug that cured my depression and gave me superpowers.  This drug.”  She pulled out a vial of blue glowing liquid.  “Whoever sent the note sent it too.”

“No way.”

“Whoever this is knows who I was.  He wants me to play his game.”  She bit her lip.  “Ron, you don’t understand the addiction.  You do good deeds and the drug triggers a euphoria you wouldn’t believe.  But you can never stop doing good.  Never.  It drives you insane!”

“Oh my God.  Andrea, what are you going to do?”

Suddenly the baseball game was interrupted by breaking news: Milwaukee and Phoenix were now smoldering craters.

Without hesitation, Andrea swallowed the contents of the vial.