by Cameron Jace
"Stop!" I demand.
He looks confused.
"Seriously?" I sneer at him, tilting my head.
He blinks twice, wondering about my annoyance.
"You don't contact me for a week, leave me behind with so many unanswered questions, and then when we meet, you act as if I'm working for you or something?"
"Oh?" he says. "I suppose I should've written you a letter of fluffy words on pinkish watermarked paper that smells of summer roses."
"Of course not. It's just that unanswered questions keep piling up."
"I suppose I could answer a couple of questions." He checks his pocket watch. "If the Cheshire doesn't go chopping a few other heads and stuffing them in watermelons while we do."
"Don't do this to me." I raise a finger. He is triggering my desire for justice and saving people.
"After Yeskelitch's watermelon, eleven more heads were found in watermelons across the country. In a span of two days."
"So fast?" I am perplexed.
"Also, the news hostess lied and kept vital information from the public," he says. "The head Yeskelitch found was one of his own kids."
"I didn't—"
"Yes, Alice. It's true." The Pillar purses his lips. "Each and every head is a kid's head."
The shocking revelation urges me to watch the kids playing in class. Although I don't approve of them putting hookahs together, they seem so happy about their lives. They are looking forward to each coming day. How can someone take that from them?
"Thirteen heads so far, all kids between age seven and fourteen," the Pillar says. "It's a Jub Jub mess." He turns on the news on his mobile phone.
"This is insane..." My jaw is left hanging open, my eyes begging me to drop down my eyelids so I won't have nightmares from what I am looking at. Families are crying their hearts out, mothers vomiting upon seeing their children's chopped-off heads, and fathers cry hysterically and swear they'd chop the killer into a million pieces when they catch him. "This is insane," I repeat to myself because I don't know what else to say.
"Well, no more watermelons sold in Britain," the Pillar muses. Now he has my attention, he starts playing sarcastic and cruel again. "People should stick to cantaloupe. Ah, not big enough to stuff a head inside."
"So, why is the Cheshire killing again?" I have to ignore his weird sarcasm. It's only meant to provoke me.
"I have no idea."
"You don't?" I frown. "I thought you knew how the Cheshire thinks."
"Usually I do, but this"—he points at the screen—"is some messy massacre. I don't understand its purpose."
"But the message on the kid's foreheads speaks for itself," I offer. "'Off with their heads.'"
"So does the idea of chopping off heads." The Pillar stares absently at the screen. I can tell he is genuinely confused. "It's definitely a Wonderland crime, committed by a Wonderland Monster like the Cheshire. I just don't understand why."
"The Cheshire said there would be a Wonderland War—whatever that is. Could that be a part of it? Just some carnage, messy massacre to ensure terror on humans?"
"Nah." The Pillar tongues his cheek from the inside. "Despite his unquenchable grudge against humanity, the Cheshire's main concern is to locate and free the Wonderland Monsters to help him in the Wonderland War." He eyes me briefly, letting me know I am not supposed to ask what the war is about, not now. "So, inducing chaotic madness upon the world isn't his thing. These murders are about something else. This is tailored work, a careful design of crimes. Whoever killed thirteen children all over Britain in two days had committed the crimes much earlier. We were only meant to know about them now. There is a message we're supposed to get."
"We?"
The Pillar nods. "Humans, although he detests them, are of no interest to him. They are merely puppets he uses. If he represents the black tiles on the chessboard of life, we represent the white ones. Well, at least you. I'm only helping you for now." He takes a moment to consider. "Last time, the Cheshire wanted his grin back, so he could retain his unstoppable power that would assist him in finding the Wonderland Monsters."
I am not following, not really. All I care about is stopping the crimes, so I am thinking. "Why don't we start with learning more about the victims' heads? It's clear that this is what the killer wants us to look at."
The Pillar shoots me an admiring look as if I am his clever apprentice. "Good thinking." He points at the news showing the victims being transferred to the morgue for autopsy.
I take a moment to comprehend what he is trying to imply. "Wait." I take a step back. "You don't mean I am..."
"Going to the morgue?" His smile broadens.
"I thought I'd leave the asylum to see the world outside, go see Oxford University, the Vatican, and Belgium, like last time."
"If you want to know about the dead man's fate, the morgue is always a good start."
"Which morgue?" I sigh.
"The Westminster Public Mortuary, formally known as the Rue Morgue to the likes of Edgar Allan Poe."
"Poe?" I know he was a prolific writer who wrote a short story called "Murders in Rue Morgue," which took place in London centuries ago. Was he actually writing about this morgue?
I shake my thoughts away and do my best not to succumb to the Pillar's distracting comments.
"There is a slight problem, though," the Pillar mentions.
"And that would be?"
"The Westminster Public Morgue has a most secretive section inside. They call the Iain West Forensic Suite," the Pillar elaborates. "A state-of-the-art mortuary that the government uses in such complicated cases. Security is almost impenetrable. You will need to find a way to fool the living to get in, and then fool the dead to get out." He admires his quote for a second then looks at his pocket watch. "My chauffeur will help you in." He utters his words in one sharp breath, as a non-negotiable matter of fact. He does it so on point that I feel dizzy. My lips are dry and zipped. I have never been to a morgue before. "What are you waiting for? Too late, too late, for an important date." He clicks his fingers for urgency.
I nod and shrug at the same time. Going to a morgue still seems very unsettling to me.
"Oh," the Pillar says, "I almost forgot." He pulls out a small box and opens it. There is a small mushroom inside. "You will need to eat this."
"What is that?" I stare suspiciously at the mushroom.
"A sedative. It will make you look dead for an hour or so." He pulls my hand and gently places this spongy thing on my palm.
"Why would I want to look dead?"
"Oh, Alice. How do you think you will get into a maximum-security mortuary? Just take a small bite." He nudges my hand toward my mouth.
I open the balcony and say goodbye to the children in the class. They wave back enthusiastically, welcoming me with their Lego hookahs. I gaze back at the Pillar, wondering if I should trust him. It's hard to tell from the way he looks at me. It's hard to tell who he really is or what he wants with me.
"Don't worry, you won't grow taller," he says, as he wants me to slip the mushroom into my mouth.
Suddenly, I am more than uncomfortable with the Pillar's suggestion. I still don't trust him.
The Pillar gets the message but says nothing. He lights up his mini hookah and takes an unusually long and tense drag, puffing it out. "I understand," he says. "If you don't trust me, I understand. Sincerely."
"Really?" I squint. Something is wrong. "You will give up, just like that?"
"Who said I gave up?" he asks as I feel suddenly dizzy. My knees wobble under me, and imaginary birds begin tweeting in my ears. I fall to my knees, realizing too late that I've been sedated by the smoke from his hookah.
The world fades to black. The Pillar fooled me. I don't think I am ready for the morgue trip yet.
10
SOMEWHERE IN THIS MAD WORLD
I open my eyes to an endless darkness. A blinding kind of darkness I haven't experienced before. Many times have I slept in pitch black in my cell in the as
ylum. This present darkness is different. It seems as if it has a soul, a substance. It feels too close and invasive to my privacy. It's as if I am wrapped between its octopus arms. A claustrophobic kind of darkness.
No explanation comes to my semi-numb mind right now.
Where am I?
My body is numb enough to chain me in temporary paralysis. Each of my limbs is heavy enough that I don't bother lifting any.
Somehow, I am sure this will subside.
A slow train of memories arrives. It's slow but noisy and heavy, like a locomotive breath.
The Pillar sedated me, and all the kicks and screams in the world are of no use—for now. I will have to face wherever I am.
Shouldn't I wake up in the morgue and inspect the heads of the deceased kids?
As the heaviness in my body subsides, I reach for anything I can get hold of in the dark. The tips of my fingers collide with some kind of plastic. It's wavy. I can't see it. My mind finally registers a fact: I am stretched on my back.
A surge of panic alerts my weakened body. It's so threatening that my numbness subsides. I start to kick my hands and feet in the dark as unreasonable claustrophobia overrules me. The plastic darkness opposes me in every direction as if I am imprisoned in an elastic balloon.
I keep kicking and scraping against the surface of this darkness. I need to get out of it before I choke or die from the lack of breathing, but I can't cut through without a sharp tool.
Panic captures me. Until my fingers come across a metallic thing attached to the plastic.
A zipper.
The thought that hits my brain almost puts me back in paralysis. I think I know where I am.
Thin rays of yellow light seep through the plastic bag I am trapped in as I pull the zipper down. I reach out with my hands like the dead out of their graves. Finally, I wriggle myself out of the black plastic bag. I feel like a dying cocoon evolving into a butterfly—it reminds momentarily of the deceptive Pillar.
I straighten up on the table I am on—it feels like a table more than a bed—and I realize for certain where I am.
I'm actually in the morgue. I was tucked in one of those plastic bags the deceased end up in. A body bag. This is what the Pillar meant by a maximum-security morgue that's hard to sneak into. The madman tucked me in a death bag and slipped me in among the dead.
Paralyzed on the table, I can't even comprehend my surroundings yet. I do notice the chilling temperature of the room, though.
"Breathe, Alice. Breathe," I whisper as I hug myself since I am all I have on this side of life. And I thought my cell was the worst place in the world.
The cold creeps up my spine, fluttering like a winter breeze through my blue shirt and jeans. The cold almost bites at the back of my neck. Goosebumps prickle like devil's grass on my skin.
When I am about to move my legs to get off the roller bed I am on, my bare feet give in to numbness. I have no idea where my shoes are. I fight the stiffness in my back and bend over to rub my feet. As I do, I glimpse a rectangular piece of cardboard attached to a string wrapped around my right toe. I think it's called a toe tag. It's how a coroner or mortician identifies a dead person in the morgue. My heart almost stops. Why am I wearing this? I reach out to flip the toe tag, so I can read it:
Name: Alice Pleasant Wonder.
Numbness invades my very soul.
Case: 141898
Then it mentions my hair, skin, and eye color. And finally it says:
Condition: Deceased in a bus accident.
The world around me freezes. It's like someone has a remote control for my beating heart and just clicked the off button. My mouth is dry, my skin is cold and numb, and I can't breathe. Why not? I am dead, after all.
And I thought I was mad.
I snatch the toe tag from its string and pull it close to my moist eyes. My mind advises me to blink and read it all over again. Nothing changes. I am still in the mortuary, reading my own obituary.
How can I be dead? The Pillar wouldn't go so far to scare me. Why would he do that, unless I was imagining all of this? How did I die?
The answer hits me like a freight train when I flip the card. Someone has written something on the back:
P.S. She was driving the bus.
My hands cup my mouth, suppressing a painful scream. It's only for a few seconds before I realize how much I need to free the scream inside me. When I finally do, in my loudest screeching voice, no sound comes out. I think I have lost my ability to speak. Why not? I am dead anyways.
11
IAIN WEST FORENSIC SUITE, AN EXTENSION TO THE WESTMINSTER PUBLIC MORTUARY, LONDON
Speechlessly, I slide out of the death bag and carefully get off the steel table.
The morgue's floor is cold as ice. I am barefoot, and I still don't know why. Whoever toe-tagged me decided I don't need shoes anymore, that I should suffer against the cold floor.
I hop like a panicked kangaroo for a few seconds before I realize that I will eventually need some kind of shoes.
Rummaging through the plastic bag I came in, I find nothing. It feels awkward and unsettling searching through my own coffin-like bag of death.
Before my mind scrambles for solutions, my lungs screech from the cold. I cough so hard I am sure something will burst out of my lungs into the air. My back bends forward. My hand clamps to the steel table, preventing me from falling.
Why is my body in such pain? Is this what death feels like?
I cough again, my mouth agape it hurts so badly. The clothes I am wearing aren't helping against this freezing cold. It takes a hard effort to lift up my other hand as if it's tied down to a weight.
My hand is faintly bluish. I shriek—then cough again.
I manage to straighten my back and then rub my hands together for warmth. I rub them on my body as well.
Then I hop like a kangaroo again. Amazing how much unexpected energy your body can exude when you're in danger.
Relax, Alice. None of this is happening. You're probably not dying. It's just part of the insanity you're enduring.
It occurs to me that if I am not dead yet, it's only a few minutes before I freeze to death in here.
See? How could you freeze to death if you are dead already? Let it go. Confess your madness, and it will all subside. Just do what you came here to do. Examine the dead kids' heads.
My inner thoughts freeze to the cold of the floor underneath me. I rub my body even harder and do more of my kangaroo dance.
I really need to find shoes now. I haven't looked hard. I need shoes—and a coat.
I try to rip apart a piece of the plastic bag so I can wrap it around my feet and body. But the bag isn't elastic enough. Of course not. It's durable enough to hold a dead person inside. Why would it cut easily?
I tilt my head. The cold room doesn't offer any visible solutions. It's a huge, rectangular room, reminding me of the corridor in the underground ward in the asylum. I take a long, cold breath to get some oxygen into my head. It hurts, but I need it to think clearer.
The floor is marble all around. The walls are buried behind the endless metallic drawers with corpses inside. There are only three bulbs in the entire place. One is hanging over my head, another a few meters away, and the third is a bit too far. I can't see it—I am too numb to walk that far.
The three bulbs are slightly shaking as if huffed and puffed by an invisible wind.
Closing my eyes and clenching my teeth, I try not to think about the dead all around me. Thanks to the dim light, I can pretend they don't exist, like all the scary things in the night we dismiss.
The cold attacks my feet again, chilling through my spine. It's getting harder to force my eyelids open.
Seriously, I am not dead. Am I? The tag is some kind of a morbid joke. Right?
I miss the madness of my Tiger Lily. She would have spat some quirky words at me. She would have accused me of being mad and useless, but she would have also hinted at some solution.
I keep walking as fast a
s I can in the room to get warmth into my body. I am actually limping now. It reminds me of the Pillar's Caucus Race, walking fast inside the morgue, knowing it will get me nowhere.
Where the heck is the door?
I can't find it.
Please tell me I am not mad.
Mad or dead, which is which, and does it really make a difference?
Panting, I stare at the few tables next to me. They are lined with plastic bags of the corpses. Those I stopped by are different. The bags are all labeled with chalk on the surface: Watermelon Murders.
This is what I am here for. Cold or no cold, I have to examine the corpses.
Still tapping my feet to the cold ground, it finally occurs to me to check my jeans pocket for my mobile phone. I guess I was too panicked to look earlier—isolated living in the asylum does this too you; calling someone for help isn't the usual reaction for a person with a Certificate of Insanity.
I find the mobile and pull it out. I am surprised there is a signal inside the morgue. Thank God. With numb fingers, I dial the only number on my contacts.
Beep. Beep.
No one picks up.
I hate those beeps.
My face reddens when the call ends. Some programmed woman's voice tells me that no one is picking up, that I should try later.
"He has to pick up!" I scream at her.
"Well, sweetie. Let's try again," the woman chirps.
I almost throw away the phone, shocked by the woman's response. Isn't this supposed to be prerecorded?
But then I succumb to the madness, which means basically ignoring it and not giving it much thought. I push the button again, almost hurting my forefinger.
The Pillar has to pick up, or is he a figment of my imagination, too?
Finally, someone picks up and says, "Carroll's Cause for the Criminally Cuckoo. How can I help you today?
12
It takes me a moment to realize this is the Pillar's cool, nonchalant, and all-mocking voice.
Once I am about to fire all anger at him, he interrupts me, munching on food. It's not that nom nom nom sound. It's brauch brauch brauch, deliberately provoking me. "Hello," he says. "Who's this?"