I would try the girl’s address soon enough, but before that I wanted to see what Millie had left behind in her storage room. I wanted to know my sister.
I can’t lie and tell you I cried when I heard about her death. I’d been prepared for that, you know. I’d been dead before. I knew what was out there, or at least some of it, and I knew she was probably at peace. If not, I also knew there wasn’t much I could do about it without help. It’s one thing to get away from death yourself, and quite another to help somebody else escape from beyond the grave.
I thought about that a lot on my way to the storage place. I had the time, because I got lost for almost an hour. Little towns might be little, but they can have their share of secrets. In this case, I couldn’t find Everett Street to save my life.
So I thought about my death, and I hoped Millie’s was more peaceful.
And I thought about life after death and wondered if Millie would want any part of it. I didn’t know. I guessed then and still believe that a lot of that would have depended on the life she lived.
See, mine was cut short. I died badly, burning to death while some of my dearest friends screamed and burned with me. It wasn’t my time. I didn’t get to live a long, happy life. I didn’t get to settle down with the girl of my dreams and have a few kids and watch them grow up while me and the missus grew old together. I got robbed.
I didn’t want that for Millie. Not ever. I had to know if she had a good life. A good death. A happy existence before the final bow and curtain call. Then, maybe, I could accept her death.
And if not, if someone hurt her and she left evidence of that pain anywhere among her worldly possessions, well, then something could be done about the situation.
After stopping at three different service stations, I finally managed to find the right street, a little two-lane road that rolled along for almost five miles before I found the storage units.
I didn’t bother with the office manager. I just went back to unit number 712, the one that Mr. Walker said held Millie’s life within its confines. The place was snazzy as far as a storage place goes. Two stories tall and “environment controlled” according to the sign out front. Turns out that meant the building was air-conditioned. It was also locked tight, with steel doors and padlocks on every single unit.
Okay, here’s the thing: The principle for escaping from a confined space isn’t that different from the one used to gain entry. I had the lock picked inside of twenty seconds after I first held it in my hand. After that, it was just a matter of building up the nerve to see what my sister had left behind. I’d last seen a ten-year-old girl. Now, I was about to look into the other fifty odd years of her life and the idea scared me a little.
Mostly, I could overlook the things that had changed in the world since I died, but this? Might as well ask me to get over being murdered. Some things aren’t as easy to shrug off as others.
The storage room was what you’d expect: furniture covered with boxes and then buried under more boxes. Mounds of cardboard stacked to the ceiling. The only good news was that someone had taken the time to label all of them. I started with the ones labeled “bedroom”, and moved on from there. The clothes were set aside carefully, reverently, and as I sorted through them I caught the first scent of my sister’s cologne. Every person has his or her own smell, I suppose. She smelled of old woman, and that sent the butterflies moving in my stomach. She was supposed to smell of summer and youth, not of age and ointments. She was supposed to be ten, maybe as much as twelve, but no more than that.
I’d been robbed of my sister as surely as I’d been robbed of my life. I took my time, carefully examining the world my sister had made for herself, an archaeologist sifting through the sands of time to find out everything I could about Millie. I had to move carefully, not because the room was cluttered, which it was, but because if I lost control then, I’d have set the entire building ablaze and I couldn’t allow myself the luxury of rage.
After the bedroom boxes, I moved through her bathroom toiletries—neatly layered into two boxes of perfumes and powders and slightly musty towels, and from there into the remains of her living room and family room. I spent most of the afternoon and into the early evening staring at the items she’d found significant, and alternately holding them close or shoving them away.
I held them close because they were Millie’s. I shoved them away because they belonged to a woman I’d never met. Still, I kept sorting the treasures until I grew too tired and had to rest. I made a nest of her bedclothes and slept where she had slept before. And I dreamed as I slept. I dreamed of summer fields and Millie’s voice as she laughed and as she cried. I heard her challenge as she coaxed me on when I wanted nothing but to surrender from the challenges of the ropes and canvas traps she’d built around me. I’d forgotten how many times I wanted to give up on my dream of being the next Houdini, how many times she’d been the sole purpose for going on even when I felt like casting my ambitions away.
Then I woke and sorted through the rest of her life.
There were things missing. Small things, mostly. I could have convinced myself that Millie’s daughter or granddaughter had taken them. I could have made myself believe that no one in this world would violate her memories, but the things that were missing weren’t always what should have been taken by a grieving loved one.
Her jewelry boxes were there; simple wooden cases that still held sentimental treasures, items collected through the course of a lifetime, valueless to thieves, but priceless to loved ones. One piece in particular caught my attention. It was a golden medallion on a simple golden chain. I would have thought nothing of it, but I could see where someone had bent the piece, scratched at it to check if it was really gold or simply gold-plated. It was plated. I swear to you, there were tooth marks in the metal. Other pieces had been cast aside in the bottom of the box where the jewelry rested. A strand of plastic beads with Mickey Mouse’s head as a centerpiece and several other pieces of cheap sentimentality lay on the bottom, cast aside instead of placed with reverence inside the boxes. Whoever had packed everything in the boxes had been careful, I could not believe that they would have only been careless with the things my sister held as special in her world.
I felt a nervous tick in my eyelid, felt my lips peel back from my teeth. Still, I kept looking. In the farthest corner of the mountainous stacks of neglected belongings I came across a box that had been opened and tossed to the side. It only took one look at the contents to make me strip away the face I normally show the world.
The box contained photo albums. The tape had been torn off of the treasury of my sister’s life and then been discarded as rubbish. No care was taken to replace the books and memories. No slight effort taken to make sure the contents were safe.
Trash.
Garbage.
My sister’s life!
I managed one last time to calm myself. I carefully gathered the books and placed them back in the box, finding along the way a large stack of letters and three separate diaries.
I wanted to stop and look them over, but it wasn’t the right time.
First I had to pay a visit to the proprietors of the Safe and Sound Storage Facilities.
I checked on my way out of the storage room. I looked carefully at the lock I’d picked to gain entrance, and at the locks on neighboring units. They matched. They were all from the same company, and had the Safe and Sound logo on them.
I always double check. I’d have felt bad about killing the wrong people.
The office was at the front of the compound in a small house. I knew the type. The odds were good that whoever ran the place also lived in the upper floor of the building. I was a little too early for the place to be open, so I let myself in.
The stairs were creaky, but I didn’t let that bother me. I doubt the people in the rooms above would have heard me anyway, because whoever was up there snored louder than an elephant breaks wind, and that is not a sound you easily forget, believe me.
I found two people sleeping in the same room on the upper level apartment. Both of them were in their early forties at a guess and between them they must have weighed in at close to seven hundred pounds. Unfortunately, they also believed in sleeping in the buff.
Despite a desire to run screaming from that much bared flesh, I stood my ground.
I saw myself in the mirror on the front of the closet door. My clothes were still the same, but my face had changed.
When I came back from the dead, I discovered that Rufo the Clown was the one who mattered most to my benefactor. The makeup I’d worn professionally was part of me now, and very permanent. Oh, it’s easy to hide, but sometimes I don’t much feel the need. There were a few modifications. I didn’t have a big red nose, just a red dot that showed up sometimes and now and then didn’t. That was the only part that changed regularly. It wasn’t present that day. But the dark blue triangles above and below my eyes, the red dimples and the red smile were where they belonged. The white of my face, as stark as freshly fallen snow, almost glowed in the light of the rising sun that came through the window. The markings on my face were highlighted enough to see that they’d been cut into the skin. I let my fingertips dance over them, feeling the deep wells where flesh should have been.
I must have been particularly angry that day, because I wasn’t well fleshed out at all. Another odd side effect of resurrection; sometimes I look healthy and others I look like I’ve been dead for a while. I could see the angles of bone under skin that felt too tight. I could barely see my eyes past the deep shadows that still marked me.
My smile was in place.
It was show time.
“Hey, rubes….”
The two slobs in the bed in front of me didn’t move, though the man doing the snoring snorted and stopped his loud musings.
“Hey, rubes…”
The woman opened her eyes and blinked in confusion. She looked to the man she bedded down with and saw he was asleep before she looked my way.
I felt my smile spread across my face. It wasn’t a happy smile.
She sat up fast, gasping, and slapped at her man to get his attention. For a moment he fussed and tried to brush her away, but finally he woke up and then sat up on his bed amid a chorus of groaning springs.
“What the fuck? Who are you?” His voice was slurred by sleep, but alert in tone.
“I am Rufo the Clown, and at least one of you has been naughty.”
“Mister, you better get yourself out of here before I call the police!” The woman’s voice was shrill and nervous and she tried to cover her ponderous breasts with her flabby arms, as if there would ever be a way I could find her attractive. She could have been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and she would have remained vile and repugnant to me after what she had done to Millie’s possessions.
“I’ll leave as soon as you tell me what happened to my sister’s jewelry.”
“What?” One word from her, but I could see the shift in her eyes, the sudden guarded expression that fell over her face. That was all the admission I needed, but I have always liked a little amusement.
“Unit 712. Somebody broke in and took my sister’s valuables. Then they locked it up nice and tight with a lock provided by you.”
The fat man stood up, not even bothering to cover himself. “That’s it. Susie, you call the goddamn cops. I’ll take care of this.”
Susie reached for the phone. Porky reached for me.
I grabbed the fat man’s wrist as I avoided his clumsy grab, and then I twisted and pulled. Several wet reports followed, meaty popping noises that told me I’d broken a few vital connections inside his hand as easily as his scream did.
Some people react differently to pain. In Tubby’s case, he got angrier and pushed forward. I could respect that. I could understand it. That didn’t mean I was going to be any nicer about how I handled it. He was already off balance as he came my way. I merely helped him into the closet door and the mirror it held. The door collapsed inward, breaking under his weight. The mirror broke too, and lacerated his face in the process. Broken glass, wood and oversized man all fell into the closet in a heap.
Before he could rise, I was on him, my fingers grabbing his skin and drawing back the heavy flesh hard enough to tear it. The man screamed, bucking wildly, and I stepped back as he sought to stop the blood flow spilling from the back of his head.
The fat woman screamed and dropped the phone she’d been dialing as I moved closer to her. I knew the man would be up in a minute and ready for another chance to kill me. That only left me a few moments to get to the woman and I intended to make the most of them.
I jumped onto the bed and leaned down over her, smiling brightly as I reached for her face.
“Tell me where the jewelry is and I’ll go away.”
The woman blubbered, her face collapsed into a wailing mouth and eyes that were squinted almost shut with fear. For one second I thought I was wrong, that I shouldn’t have attacked these people and demanded back what had been stolen.
“We pawned them! We sold them for money!” Her voice was shrill, her breath stank and spittle from her fat lips touched my hand.
I thought of Millie.
The rest was easy.
***
“Possible Serial Killer. Eight bodies found in bizarre murder case.” Brad Lowman read the headline and tsked. “What the hell is the world coming to, anyway?”
He was supposed to be assembling the stage units for the Ice castle, but there was no hurry. The show didn’t start again until the next day and there were plenty of extras these days, including John Booker, who was working his ass off hard enough for both of them.
Booker looked down from the post he’d scrambled up and tilted his head quizzically. Brad sighed. The kid was always curious. Served him right for reading aloud.
“Okay, let’s see…`Eight bodies were discovered yesterday morning at the home of Martin and Susan Burke, the proprietors of the Safe and Sound Storage Company in Lakewood Shores, Illinois. In addition to the owners of the rental facility six additional bodies have been counted and added to the list.’”
He cleared his throat and took a sip of his flat cola before reading any more. Booker had climbed down to the ground and was listening, his long face almost expressionless.
“’Police Chief Floyd Heedner of the Lakewood PD was speechless at first, but in a candid moment told reporters that “It might take a little while to identify the bodies, they’d been mutilated. The nature of the mutilation is unknown as is the motive for why the individuals in question were killed. Sources inside the Lakewood PD have let slip that the remaining six people were believed to be from around the area and might be a group of young men who where reported missing almost two weeks ago.’”
Booker shook his head and shrugged before heading back toward the ladder.
“What kind of sick fuck kills eight people, and six of them kids?” Brad shook his head.
“World’s full of sick people, Brad. You should know that.” Booker’s voice was a little teasing, but held no accusation. Still, Lowman felt his skin go red. Booker had caught him scrawling the Internet for under-aged porn earlier in the week, but had said nothing to anyone about it. He might not have just sent Brad a verbal bitch slap, but then again, he might have.
“Whattaya’ mean by that?” Last thing he needed to do was take shit from some little asshole.
“It’s not a new thing is all. I’ve seen bigger body counts on the news. Think about it. We’re setting up the stage for a show about what happened to fifty-seven people who disappeared from the face of the earth.”
“Fifty-seven?”
“Yeah. That’s how many people were in the Halston circus.”
“How do you know that?”
“I was there.”
“Bullshit!” Brad laughed. He knew when someone was yanking his chain.
“Well, there might have been a few more, but it was fifty-seven that died in the fire.”
“When the circus was destroyed. Pay attention, Brad.”
“Are you fucking high?”
“No.” Booker climbed out on the thick cable that held the pieces of the stage set together. Brad watched him and felt his balls try to shrink away. He hated heights and could never understand how anyone who was sane would willingly walk across a piece of one-inch thick cable suspended thirty feet in the air. Okay, maybe only fifteen feet, but still, it was a terrifying notion.
“Jesus, be careful!”
“I’m fine, Brad.” He looked around from his bird’s eye position and then hunkered down on the wire like it was solid earth instead of a metal cable high enough up to cause broken limbs. “Listen, what you were doing the other day…does anyone else know about it?”
Brad thought his face would catch fire he flushed so hard.
“No, and please keep it like that, okay?”
Booker smiled. “No worries. I was just curious, have you ever…?”
“You mean with a girl that age?” Brad licked his lips and looked at the man up above him. The answer was yes. He had. He didn’t mean to, not really, but the opportunity presented itself and he took it. The girl never told anyone and he hadn’t either. But looking at Booker, he was beginning to think he’d found a kindred spirit, someone else who understood the beauty of making love to a little girl.
Booker nodded.
“Maybe yes, maybe no.”
“What was it like?”
Brad smiled softly, his skin flushed again but for a different reason. Remembering the feel of her soft skin, the sounds she’d made, was getting him aroused.
“Like magic. The most amazing feeling in the world.”
Booker moved a few more feet to his left and looked down at Brad. Lowman was almost directly under the man’s shoes and started to get up. If he fell from that height, he’d kill them both.
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