by John L. Monk
Being the center of everyone’s attention was a heady experience, and I liked it. Even if it was in the body of someone I might have to kill in the next few weeks.
Chapter Four
I’d almost forgotten I was supposed to switch rooms today. If the hotel made me wait until the afternoon, it’d mess up the exciting day I had planned.
A quick call to Guest Services set my mind at ease.
“They had you staying on five,” the man said. “But if you don’t mind going down a floor, you can move now.”
“Wonderful,” I said, and looked around at Ernest’s luggage and books, his flowers and champagne. “I have a lot of stuff. The guy yesterday said I could get some help.”
“Certainly, Mr. Prescott,” the man said. “Anything for you. I’ll send somebody up right away.”
The way he said it, I was sure he knew what a big deal I was.
“Why thank you, my good man,” I said.
“No problem at all, sir.”
“Indubitably,” I added before hanging up.
The move was quick and painless, and I tipped my bellhop a twenty. I had a rep to protect. I said indubitably to him, too.
After he left, I got out Ernest’s laptop. Just my luck, the thing was password protected and wouldn’t let me in no matter how many gross things I entered.
Undaunted, I went to the hotel Business Center, accessible with my room key, and sat down at one of the public computers. I searched online for any information about my ride, and it didn’t take long to find something.
Prescott’s admirers had whole websites devoted to his grisly horror novels. Numerous sites had fan fiction forums dedicated to his work. I clicked around and learned his latest movie, Sliced, was the impetus for a wildly popular fan fiction game called “What if she lived?” These were stories written about the characters in his books, particularly Sliced, where the reader got to imagine what life would be like if the main character had somehow lived past the ending. I skimmed some of the stories—lots of fantasizing from the victim’s armless/legless/faceless/fleshless perspective, begging people to kill her (always female), hating humanity, turning into a monster herself, and a lot of hopelessness and sorrow and shame.
The forums covered every conceivable piece of trivia or Prescott-related news. It was there I figured out why that old woman at the book signing had wanted that macabre dedication, “We only slice the ones we love.” It was a catchphrase from Sliced, the movie. Fans in the forum raged back and forth about its appropriateness because the line hadn’t been in the book.
I abandoned the fan sites and searched for Ernest on Wikipedia, where I learned he’d gotten a B.A. in psychology and a minor in English literature. He’d then leveraged that into a marketing position at a non-profit association. In the evenings and on weekends, he wrote his first book, Clench, which he published through a vanity press that, in his words, “Made me pay for dinner and then dry humped me behind some dumpsters.”
Things turned around for Ernest after he met Lana Sandway—fashion model turned soft-core porn star turned reality TV dominatrix. When her husband, an aging millionaire businessman, died amidst a flurry of tabloid speculation about his heart attack, she fed the frenzy by hooking up with Ernest, an unknown writer at the time. Claiming to love his work on an “intensely personal level,” she purchased the rights to Clench and spent a fortune running full-page advertisements in newspapers around the world.
After a while, I browsed news sites and ran searches for other things I wanted to know, like who’d won the last World Series, random celebrity news, and searches on various people I’d ridden over the years. Not a lot of news there, mostly stuff I’d already read.
I hadn’t checked my free email account in over six months. A lot of spam had accumulated in my time away. There was also a reply to the email I’d sent the minister, the ex-priest who knew about my strange afterlife:
Hello Dan. Your story was fascinating, if a bit tedious in places. What’s this fixation of yours with food?
I’m disappointed in your treatment of Peter—and most of the things you’ve done, if I’m being honest. The more I consider your tale, the more I think you should stop coming into the world until you’re ready to be responsible. Make no mistake: this tendency of yours to murder your “rides” is an evil. There’s always another way.
I snorted quietly and typed a reply:
Easy for you to say, padre. I could recite your Bible back to you in reverse, so please don’t lecture me about evil. Anyway, how’s Nate doing?
Then I sent it.
There were three more emails from the minister, spaced months apart. The first one asked where I was. The second one also asked where I was, but he’d added more question marks on the end like he was shouting at me. The third one included a phone number and instructions to call him on my next ride.
Still smarting from being called evil and tedious in the first email, I decided I didn’t want to talk to him. Also, I had a big day ahead of me: the Air & Space Museum, the Natural History Museum, probably not the Holocaust Museum, and oh yeah, walking up and down the National Mall staring at people. Because one can never get enough of that.
* * *
Though my feet were killing me, it had been a great day. I’d gone through the gem room at the Smithsonian twice. They had the Hope Diamond. Sort of interesting, seeing something cursed that didn’t look like me. I’d half expected it to pulse with a ghostly light only I could see, but all it did was sit there. Big for a diamond, yet small for something so famous.
Later, while I was sitting on a bench wondering what those big plops of metal were out in front of the Modern Art Building, Ernest’s cell phone kicked in with Chopin’s funeral march.
Smiling, I hit the green button and said, “Hello?”
“You didn’t get on your plane.”
It was Mrs. Sandway—Lana Sandway.
“Hi, Lana,” I said, trying it on for size and thinking I liked Mrs. Sandway better.
“This is a very important time for us. You need to stay reclusive, out of the public eye—except for book signings, of course, and anything else we come up with.”
“Because of the movie?”
Talking over me, she said, “Jacob and the boys really did good by you this time. Just the thing to jumpstart your next book. You don’t want them to think you’re ungrateful, do you?”
This was the second time she’d brought up the mysterious Jacob. I hadn’t found anything about him on either Ernest’s or Lana’s Wikipedia page.
“What’s the surprise?” I said.
Lana chuckled quietly. “Now, Ernest: we do not talk shop over the phone. Be a dear and catch the next plane out. If you do as you’re told, I might allow you to … do what you want with me again … and again…” Her voice lowered to a breathy purr. “And again.”
“I was thinking of driving.”
“You can’t be serious?”
“Can too,” I said.
“Are you feeling all right?”
I opened my mouth to answer but she cut me off.
“What’s wrong with taking a plane?” she said. “Your driving record is atrocious, frankly. I’ll be damned if I let you kill yourself out there. Do you want to be a bum again? We can arrange it. We—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “You pulled me out of that hole and can put me back, totally got it. I’ll go home when I’m ready. Say hi to Jacob for me—maybe let him beat you up or something?”
I hung up without saying goodbye and wondered if she’d call me back. She didn’t. Probably be too submissive for a pro-dominatrix.
In retrospect, I knew I’d gone too far with that last crack. But for once, I really did feel in charge of this thing. The ride. I had the power here, not her. Whatever she had over the real Ernest didn’t apply to me.
And yet, I knew I needed to check out Ernest’s house, and maybe meet this Jacob character—if for no reason other than Mrs. Sandway held him in high enough regard to mentio
n him again.
* * *
The next day, body aching from walking through all those museums, I slept late. When I got up, rather than going out, I forced myself to finish Ernest’s book—hideous and predictable, pompoms and blood all over the place.
I wouldn’t have minded more museums, but my feet hurt too much. Instead, I asked the lady at the front desk to call me a cab.
“Where’s a good movie theater?” I said to the man who picked me up.
“What kind of theater?” he said in an accent I could have sworn was Nigerian.
“A big one,” I said. “You know—lots of screens, stadium seats that recline, cup holders, clean carpets, ushers that tell people to shut up. Nothing but the best.”
He smiled knowingly. “Ah yes, the Hoffman Center. But there is a small problem.”
“What’s the problem?”
“It is in Alexandria!” he said, laughing like he’d told a funny joke. “Old Town. I can take you there, but it will be thirty dollars. You want to go? You should! I love that place.”
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, smiling despite myself. He was sort of upbeat.
The ride out of the city was a blast. Most of the memorials had been too far to walk to on yesterday’s hike, but my cabbie drove by the Lincoln and the Jefferson, and of course the Washington was visible the closer we got to the river.
I paid by credit card and tipped him my last twenty.
“When you want to come home,” he said, “give me a call. I’ll pick you up—no problem.”
He wrote his phone number on the receipt and handed it to me.
“Thanks a lot … Sam,” I said, reading it.
He smiled cheerfully. “Don’t forget.”
The theater Sam had taken me to was enormous, with twenty-two screens spanning two levels. The polished granite floor was inlaid with famous quotes from movies like The Godfather and Casablanca. A pair of glass-walled escalators ascended to cinematic heaven, providing visitors a close-up look at the huge movie panels of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, and other iconic stars from movie history. Easily the coolest theater I’d ever seen.
If Sam kept his promise and picked me up, I’d write him a bigger tip.
Despite having read one of Ernest’s books and finding it appalling, I was curious about his movie. Maybe it wasn’t as sick as Electro-Cute. Maybe the producers had tamed it some. After all, hadn’t that woman at the restaurant let her son see it? And weren’t some of my favorite movies pretty violent?
Giddy like a kid staying up to watch Creature Feature, I bought my ticket to Sliced and sat five rows from the front with a big bag of popcorn—butter in the middle and on top—chocolate-covered raisins, and an enormous Coke.
No napkins.
The previews were for more horror movies. None of them seemed particularly scary, though the crowd gasped in all the right places. The audience was a little noisy at first, lots of talking and inappropriate laughter, but when the movie began they quieted down.
The basic plot was: an interrogation specialist for the US government, working overseas, returns home after the War on Terror has been retired as a foreign policy. But something’s happened to him—he can’t quite let go of the things he’s seen and done. Sort of like Rambo, but with a government torturer instead of a Green Beret with amazing pecs.
The interrogation guy returns home to his surprisingly large family, and he’s happy to be there—at first. Over the course of a few days, he begins snapping at his wife and kids, accusing them of things. Deep down, he suspects they’re all involved in a terror conspiracy. He abducts them, one by one, secreting them to an abandoned government warehousing facility.
Then came scene after scene of cutting, agony, and cruel depravity, carefully orchestrated to wring the maximum emotional effect from the audience. No slice was too deep, no rip too excruciating, no desecration too degrading.
Other than that little bit near the front about the government guy coming home and going crazy, there was no movie. Just torture scenes, back to back, endlessly. And the daughter we sort of liked in the beginning because she was sweet and pretty and kind to animals—she has her jaw surgically removed. Then she’s given a razor blade and a mirror and told she can live if she wants to.
Spoiler alert: she doesn’t want to.
I sat through the whole thing, waiting for a plot that never happened. When the credits stopped rolling, I noticed my popcorn and candy remained untouched. I flinched a little at the sound of clapping—from the audience. I wanted to stand up and yell at them or something, but held off. It wouldn’t do any good, and when it got out that the Ernest Prescott had gone to his own movie and made a scene, all I would have done was bring the film more publicity.
As I made my way to the aisle to dump all my uneaten junk food, I saw a curious sight: the audience was still sitting down. Mystified, I watched them watching the credits. Perhaps four minutes later, after the world’s most boring credits ever, the screen changed.
The killer’s son from the beginning—the one who’d been too busy in the big city to see his dad—called and left a message: he’d finished his project early and was coming home on the next flight. Family was too important, he said.
Cut to the goose bumps and rueful laughter from the breathless audience, and ready the sequel for more of the same. Even the red glowing eyes from the Terminator’s robot skull had been a better sequel teaser, and nobody had to wait four minutes to see it.
Somewhat surprised at how awful the experience had been, I left the theater. For the life of me I didn’t know what the Great Whomever wanted. So far, there wasn’t anyone for me to kill. He couldn’t want me to kill the guy for being a depraved writer, could he?
I wouldn’t kill someone for that. Shun him, maybe. Talk bad about him. Point him out in public and hurl insults and boycott his movie merchandise, sure. But kill him? I saved stuff like that for rapists and murderers and the monsters who hurt children.
Ernest’s movie and books were dumb and sad and they weren’t real. Maybe a copycat would get inspired and try to hurt someone, like that idiot at the book signing with the face tattoos and the knife. But if such meanness could inspire a person to violent acts, they’d find a way to hurt people anyway.
Until I learned more, Ernest Prescott was safe from the likes of me.
Chapter Five
All right, fine, I wasn’t completely dense, or new to the game. I fully expected to show up at Ernest’s house in a few days and find lampshades made from human skin, severed heads in the freezer, piles of corpses buried in the back yard, and basic cable television. But my adventures as Nate Cantrell had taught me the wisdom of not jumping to conclusions. Maybe the Great Whomever was getting creative again and Ernest was innocent, just like Nate had been.
For now, I’d keep my conclusions under control and my eyes sharp for clues.
It was almost dark when I left the theater.
Sam the cabbie answered on the first ring. “I’m at my friend’s house. I will be there in ten minutes, not to worry.”
Though I loved how sincere and willing he seemed, I hated interrupting the poor guy on his time off. True to his word, he was outside the theater in almost exactly ten minutes. The mark of a professional.
When I sat down in the back seat, he looked in the rearview mirror and said, “You going back to your hotel?”
I pursed my lips in thought. “Well…”
Sam turned around and smiled at me from between the headrests. “You want to see the monuments? Go to Georgetown? All the clubs?”
“Nothing so strenuous,” I said. “Tell me something—are you allowed to drive around Virginia? You know, anywhere?”
Sam laughed. “That’s all I do on the weekend, back and forth to the city, with so many people drinking.”
I gave him an address in Centreville I couldn’t forget even if I wanted to.
“No problem,” he said.
Along the way, we talked about the years he’d spent in France
, his coming to the United States, and about his son, who was in the Marines. I’d been right—Sam was from Nigeria. It had me wondering what would happen if I ever left the country in a ride. So far, every ride had been within one of the fifty states. There was still so much about my condition I didn’t understand. Maybe I’d cross over international waters and get kicked out?
When we got to Sandra’s house the sky was dark. I asked Sam to wait over in the roundabout beneath some trees and keep the meter running.
“Take your time,” he said pleasantly. “I have my music.”
I thanked him and strolled to the front door like a good little stalker, wondering what the hell I was doing there—the last place I should be. Why not ring the doorbell? I rang the doorbell. A minute later, when nobody turned on the light and opened the door, I rang the bell again. An insistent stalker.
If Sandra answered, I’d say I was lost, hope I hadn’t disturbed anyone, do you know where such-and-such street is? Is this even Centreville, or did I mess that up too? Whatever it took to keep the conversation going. If Peter answered, I wouldn’t hit him. I wouldn’t yell stuff about haunting him and burning little holes in his brain like I’d done before. I’d be polite, sophisticated, a credit to my upbringing.
But nobody answered.
I tiptoed to see through the glass over the door, but it was too dark inside. Leaning back, I saw the curtains were closed. They were the same ones from last time. If Sandra and Peter had sold the house, the new owners would change the curtains, wouldn’t they?
The street was mostly dark but for the lampposts in front of the houses, only half of which had working bulbs. The one in front of Sandra’s house had been lit last time, but now it was out. Almost like a sign.
A car drove past and parked over near Sam’s cab. It wasn’t facing my way, and no more cars came behind it.
