by E. C. Bell
“Get away from those!” Latterson screamed, pushing me back. Which made me wonder what was in those sheets of paper that he did not want me to see. More bank accounts with even more money hidden from his wife and kids? Real honest to goodness proof that he was actually working for Mr. Carruthers, the owner of the building?
I needed to see what he was trying to hide.
“It’s okay,” I said, doing a little shoving of my own as I dove for the pile of papers. “I can get them.”
He pushed at me, still screaming at me to get the hell away from his private papers, but I managed to grab the topmost sheet. That’s when I saw that it was an insurance policy, and that my name was on it. He had taken out a life insurance policy on me.
Holy crap. His reason for hiring me, his only reason for hiring me, was so he could make money off my death.
He tried to push me away from the pile of paper, but I brushed his hand aside, tiredly.
“Is that why you want me to stay?” I asked, pointing at the policy.
“What?” Latterson asked, like he was going to try to bluff his way out of that room. Then he shook his head, and his face changed. Turned cold. “It’s common practice,” he said. “After all, I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Yeah, right. “And the rest of these?” I asked, pointing at the pile. “All insurance policies?”
“Ah, it’s one way of making a little extra cash off this deal,” Latterson said.
“You have to get out of here NOW!” Farley cried. “I think it’s gas!”
I turned to him. He was screaming pink, and as he moved an aura of hot fuchsia surrounded him. Quite pretty in a Barbie sort of way.
“You were right,” I said.
Latterson glanced over in Farley’s direction, then back at me as though I’d lost my mind.
“I know. But you have to go,” Farley said.
“Not quite yet,” I replied, and turned on Latterson. “You have got to be the stupidest man alive,” I hissed. “The cops will be all over this building in a few minutes, and I’m going to tell them everything—everything I know!”
I pushed away from him, my rage all consuming. Which made me a little bit stupid, too. You see, I should have been running, but I wasn’t. I was sitting on the floor, mouthing off to a man who’d taken a life insurance policy out on me.
“What do you know?” Latterson asked.
“I think you killed Farley,” I said. “And I think you burned my place down, and now you’re going to blow up this building. Aren’t you!”
I couldn’t shut my mouth and run, even though that was what Farley kept screaming. Latterson had to pay for what he did. The son of a bitch had to pay.
“You crazy bitch!” Latterson growled and lunged for me.
Farley yelled, “Run!”
I dodged Latterson’s outstretched hands and ran out of the office, heading for the stairwell, screaming my head off for help in an empty building,
Even though Latterson was right behind me, I honestly thought I was going to make it. I was fast, and fear made me faster. I fairly flew down the stairs. However, Don was angry as well as scared, and that seemed to tip the scales in his favour. He caught me as I reached for the big decorative doors down in the deserted foyer.
I fought him with every fiber of my being. His grasp loosened briefly when I kicked at him, but he grabbed me by the hair, and pulled me, screaming, down to the door of Carruthers’ old office.
He used me as a battering ram. My head hit the door. I tasted blood and saw stars. He backed up and ran me at the door again, and I screamed in agony when I felt my shoulder pop. Thank God, the door finally gave way, and he threw me into the deserted room.
I landed in the reception area by the little board room table, on my hands and knees, stunned and spitting up blood. My shoulder hurt so badly I thought I was going to puke. But I had to get out of that room before he killed me.
I pulled myself upright, my eyesight darkening, but I had to keep moving, so I stumbled toward the door, hoping to get there before Latterson attacked me again. I could hear him gasping for breath and knocking things off a table behind me, and then Farley starting screaming.
“Move!” he cried. “For the love of God he’s going to kill you!”
I lunged for the door, and almost made it.
Almost.
Latterson grabbed me and wrapped something—a wire, it was a wire—around my neck and pulled it tight. He tried to anyhow, but I’d managed to get a hand in the way, it was saving my life as I kicked back at him, trying to hurt him so he’d stop killing me, oh my God he was killing me, and through it all I could hear Farley screaming. And screaming. And screaming.
He was screaming about the wire. I gasped and choked and tried to pull the wire from my neck, but I couldn’t. Latterson was too strong, and it cut into my fingers, and then into my neck, cutting off the air.
Farley screamed, “I see it all! Oh God, I see it all!”
I couldn’t breathe. I kicked again, connecting with some part of Latterson and I felt him gasp, but the wire didn’t loosen and my eyes were going dark.
Farley sobbed. “It was me. I killed myself, to stop them from hurting the Palais, and no-one even noticed.”
I tried to kick again, my strength gone. I reached back and scratched his face. All he did was grunt. I scratched at his hands, but the pressure on the wire did not abate. I was going to die. He was going to kill me.
Farley cried. “I sacrificed myself to save the Palais, and Don’s going to burn it down, anyhow. I did nothing.”
He started to wail, and my eyesight dimmed even more. For the briefest of moments, I wondered if I would be able to finally touch Farley, when I died.
Then something smashed through the window of Carruthers’ office, and the pressure from the wire was gone. I grabbed the wire and threw it away from me, sucking in a greedy lungful of air. My eyesight cleared enough for me to see what was happening.
James had Latterson by the shirt front, and was pounding the absolute crap out of him.
James was saving my life.
It had become strangely quiet in the room, in spite of the gasps and grunts and slaps and sickening meaty thunks as the two men pounded on each other. I didn’t hear Farley wailing anymore.
I pushed myself up to my knees—possibly the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do—and saw Farley standing by the smashed-in window. He was glowing a bright, lethal red, and he was crying.
I reached out a hand to him—the one that had been caught under the wire and had saved my life before James—then watched as blood dripped from it to the floor.
“Marie!” James yelled. I swung my head in his direction. It felt like it weighed about a thousand pounds.
“Tell him to get you out,” Farley said. I have never heard him sound so sorrowful. “She’s gonna blow.”
I swung my head back to James, and watched as he struck Latterson one last time. I heard a snap, possibly a rib, and Latterson finally was still. He wasn’t quiet. He moaned like a spirit moving on to hell, even though he wasn’t even half-dead. At least he couldn’t hurt me anymore.
“James,” I said. At least I tried. My throat hurt so badly, all that came out was a croak, but James seemed to understand me, and leaped over Latterson’s prone body to my side.
“Just be still,” he said. “The ambulance will be here in a second.”
“You have to get out,” Farley repeated. “The building’s going to blow.”
‘There’s gas,” I whispered. “We have to get out.”
James blinked at me. “Gas?” he finally asked. Then he sniffed. “Oh my God,” he gasped. “There’s gas!”
He scooped me up, grabbed Latterson by the scruff of the neck, and ran out of the office and to the decorative front doors of the Palais. Over James’ shoulder, I watched Farley run, too.
We were through the double doors. The air smelled sweet, alive. James dropped Latterson, pointing at him and commanding someone, “Don�
��t let him go.”
Then he laid me gently on the grass. “We’re safe,” he said.
I looked past him, to Farley, who could not get through the membrane that was still holding him in the building.
His eyes locked on mine and he smiled.
Then, the Palais blew to kingdom come.
Farley:
Caught in an Explosion When You’re Dead
I’ve never been in an explosion before. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone living.
For me it was the sound more than anything else. For those of the living persuasion, it probably would have been the flying debris, or the huge plumes of flame that towered above the building for a full fifteen seconds before cascading back down to earth again, to eat was left of the building. Or it could have been the building crashing in on itself—those bits of the building that were left after the initial explosion, that is. Any of those would have been distressing to be in the middle of, if you were living. I was not.
I really didn’t know what was going to happen. I was, after all, trapped inside that building by that barrier—whatever the hell that was—so I thought maybe it would blow around me and then I’d be stuck—dead—in a ruin. It didn’t work out that way.
I’d made it to the door when the explosion occurred, and watched it bellow its rage and blow the shit out of that building, tearing my pinkness away in shreds and tatters. The explosion hit me and those beautiful front doors, and I felt myself being lifted up and away.
The doors went through me on their way to their date with a powder blue Sunfire parked on the street, and then the rest of the building started raining through me like a putrid thunderstorm of death. It was a good thing I was already dead.
I stood up and tried to brush myself off. Of course, there was nothing there. Even the membrane that had trapped me in the building was gone. I was free. So, I did what any ghost in my situation would do. I went to find Marie.
Marie:
Almost Caught in an Explosion
When You’re Alive
James tried to protect me from the explosion, but the heat and the sound slapped me half-senseless anyhow. I covered my eyes with my one good hand to protect my face as the windows blew out—boom boom boom boom—raining shards of glass everywhere. The front doors blew through a car parked on the street right in front of the building. I almost laughed when I noticed Mr. Latterson’s Selectric II slam into the car’s front windshield. It ended up balancing precariously on the front dash like one of those little Madonna figurines. For some reason, I wondered if it would still work.
Smoke spewed from the windows as the flame proceeded to eat was left of the building. I relaxed, thinking the worst was over, when the big explosion hit. Deep, deep in that building I heard noises that sounded like huge wild animals stampeding or something, and then I watched as the Palais literally lifted off its moorings.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. It was almost like the building was levitating, but when it fell back to earth, it fell back in chunks. Burning chunks.
Flying debris fell around us, and though I felt half-deaf from the initial explosion, I could faintly hear the screams of other people who weren’t as lucky as us.
James said something, and carefully picked me up, moving me farther away from the building. He gently set me down, and ran over to grab Mr. Latterson, who’d been trying to crawl away from the mess he’d made.
I saw Farley. He was free. He waved, then walked over and crouched beside me. I tried smiling, but my face was getting puffy from the beating, and it was hard to know how it appeared.
“You’re pretty,” I whispered. He was clear, like glass, with only a faint touch of aura showing. He wasn’t ready to move on. I could tell, but at that moment, I didn’t care. I was glad to see him—to see anything.
“At least I’m not pink anymore.” He leaned over me, acting like he wanted to comfort me or something. “How are you?”
“Surprisingly well.” I smiled, then when it hurt, stopped. Everything was starting to hurt like crazy. “Looks like I’ll have to find a new job.”
“Looks like.”
“You’re out of the Palais.”
He shrugged. “But I’m still here.”
“I see that.”
“I kind of thought I’d move on. You know, once I got out of there.”
“So did I.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and my throat tightened dangerously. Here Farley was, still trapped, if not in the Palais, on this plane of existence, and he was apologizing to me. I didn’t know if I could stand it.
“It’s not your fault, Farley. It’s not your fault.”
Now I probably would have ended up crying like an idiot if the first of the fire trucks hadn’t arrived.
It slewed up to the building, right behind the mangled little car, its siren still whooping and wailing. A few moments later, a Mercedes Benz careened to a halt in the middle of the street. A middle aged woman threw open the door and levered herself out of the driver’s seat before stopping, one leg still in the idling vehicle. She stared at the burning building, with that old familiar blank stare of utter shock on her face.
“Who’s that?” I asked.
Farley glanced at the woman and shrugged. “No clue.”
I think I would have stopped paying any attention to her at all, if she hadn’t slapped the fireman who came up to talk to her. Slapped him right across the face and screamed, “Do you know who I am?”
That caught my attention, I must say. I struggled to sit upright. “Find out who she is,” I said. “I bet she’s involved. Somehow.”
I think he was going to say no, but at that moment the driver’s door of the little blue car that had been hit by the front doors of the Palais—and Mr. Latterson’s stupid typewriter—creaked open, and a thin blonde figure fell out, flailing around on the debris covered pavement.
“Holy shit!” Farley cried. “That’s Andrea!”
The middle aged woman pulled free from the fireman—who didn’t try very hard to stop her, I noticed—and threw herself at Andrea.
“You!” the older woman cried. “You owe me 60,000 dollars, you bitch!”
Oh.
Andrea didn’t respond. She was still on her hands and knees and didn’t look like she could even hear the woman screaming at her. But I could. In spite of the ringing in my ears, I could hear her just fine.
So, that’s who had given Andrea all that money.
The older woman screamed some more, incoherently. Then the fireman finally caught her again, and she kicked out with her oh so practical flat shoes, and then spit at Andrea, who’d finally managed to get to her feet.
“It’s not my fault,” Andrea said. At least, I think that’s what she said. She wasn’t yelling, so it was hard for me to hear.
Whatever her words, though, they enraged the middle aged woman still being held by the fireman. She managed, somehow, to break away again, and threw herself at Andrea. Then they both started fighting in earnest.
“Find out who that is,” I said. Farley nodded once, and flew to Andrea’s side.
They only had a moment before the police showed up and the older woman was finally subdued and bundled, not too ceremoniously, into the back of a cop car.
Farley came back, shaking his head. “That was June Henderson,” he said. “Asshole Ian Henderson’s wife. Looks like she paid Andrea to screw around with him, and get it all on tape. Guess she wanted to divorce him, but there was a pre-nup she had to break, first. Apparently that didn’t happen, which is why June wants her money back.” He sniffed. “This is why I never amassed a fortune,” he said. “You should marry for love.”
“Sorry, Farley,” I whispered. “Looks like Andrea wasn’t as nice as you thought.”
“No-one is,” he replied.
For some reason, his forlorn words struck me as funny. I laughed until it hurt too much, and then stopped and lay back down. I was getting so tired . . .
James appeared, gently pulling me into h
is arms. “Ready to go to the hospital?” he asked. “The ambulance will be here right away.”
“What about Mr. Latterson?” James’ arms felt so warm, so good, around me, I didn’t even mind, much, that I hurt absolutely everywhere.
“The police have him,” James said, and I relaxed, finally feeling safe for the first time in that very long day.
As an ambulance howled its way to us, Farley turned toward the gutted building. “Look,” he said, and pointed at the old iron fire escape, the one I’d used to flee Henderson’s office, just the day before. It bowed tiredly in on itself and settled at the base of the hole that had been the Palais.
Farley was now as homeless as I was.
“I don’t know what to do,” Farley said. At least, I thought that’s what he said.
“Come with me,” I whispered. “We can talk at the hospital.”
“Okay,” James said, and he smiled that great big goofy grin of his as the EMs put me on the gurney and wheeled me to the ambulance.
“Okay,” Farley said, and I could see he was grinning, too.
Marie:
Explosion Aftermath
I hurt everywhere. My face, and my arms, and legs, and everything else that was still attached to my body, which was, luckily, pretty much everything. Even my hair hurt. James was staring down at me, with that befuddled look he wore sometimes that drove me crazy. His mouth moved. He was talking to me, but I couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“What?” I asked, then stopped talking when I felt how much my throat hurt.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” he whispered.
“What?” I was sure I’d heard him, but the explosion had caused a ringing in my ears, and he could have said, “I want to bring you a piece of cake,” or something.
“I’m glad you’re awake,” he said again, louder, concern creasing his brow. “You are awake, aren’t you?”