by Cameron Jace
"The clue isn't in the heads!" I shriek.
"How so?"
"The same way the watermelons are designed to elude the police so we could find the muffin, the kids' heads are also a misleading trick to elude the police," I explain. "The real clue is in the bodies." All of the disconnected bodies are intact, with not one drop of blood visible. "The bodies are dressed neatly." I tell him what I see. "I don't suppose the kids wore those at the time of the crimes. The kids have been dressed up later. I mean the kids' bodies have been dressed up later."
"So, the heads were more of an 'x that marks the spot.' Makes sense, since the police located the bodies in their houses, a few hours after locating the heads." The Pillar is excited. "So what is the clue? Almost one minute, Alice. You better get going."
"The kids' pockets are filled with endless candy, bars, and tarts."
The Pillar is silent.
"Snicker Snackers chocolate bars, Tumtum cans, and Queen of Hearts Tarts," I say, reading the labels. "Are these known snacks sold in Britain now?" I don't remember any of those two years ago, but then again, I don't remember anything two years ago.
"They are. Everything Wonderland is trending in the food industries since the Cheshire's killing last week. Less than one minute, Alice. Hurry. Tell me about the clue."
"At first, I thought the suits were too large for the kids, and then now I find the pockets stuffed with candy."
"How large is too large?"
"Considerably large. XXL, I think," I say. "I mean, a fourteen-year-old boy or girl shouldn't be that—"
"Are the kids overweight, Alice?" the Pillar asks bluntly.
"Almost as the overweight kids I saw in Richmond Elementary School. What's up with that?"
"Are all the deceased kids fat, Alice? Are they all overweight?"
"Yes." I nod. It's unmistakable. It finally becomes evident when I roll all the kids on their backs and see huge XXLs marked on the backs. This is definitely the killer's doing. "What kind of crime is this?"
"So, the clue is that all kids the Cheshire kills are fat?" The Pillar seems amused.
"It definitely is."
"Great. Take off your duster and shoes, Alice," the Pillar says. "And jump in the bag. The mortician should arrive—"
The signal fades.
"Pillar," I pant as I take off my shoes and duster and throw them behind a desk. "Can you hear me?" I get into the bag and start zipping myself from inside, which is really complicated, but I manage to zip up to my forehead as I lie on my back.
Inside the bag, I tuck the phone in my pocket and silence it, afraid it will ring while the mortician is present.
I begin breathing as slowly as I can.
Calm down, Alice. In only a few minutes you'll be safe.
I close my eyes as I hear footsteps nearing from the outside. A metallic door opens.
I take a deep breath and try to think of something relaxing so I won't panic. I can only think of one person who makes me feel that way. The one person I think gives meaning to my life, and the one I really care for, even it makes no sense, and even if he is mad enough to call himself Jack Diamonds.
Chapter 16
The footsteps of the mortician are that of a slightly heavy woman. The marble floor squeaks underneath her cheap sport shoes. Or so I believe. It's hard to tell for sure.
Heavy steps. Very slow. Trudging.
I try to slow my breathing, as there isn't enough air inside the bag. This should be over soon. I need her just to roll my table out of the room. She's probably looking for my ID or something to identify my corpse.
The mortician stops a few tables away and waits.
Then she walks again. I hear her tap what I assume is a paper chart. Her breathing is heavy, like a shivering gas pipe about to explode.
I try to occupy my mind again with anything that will calm me down. In the beginning it is Jack. Oh, Jack, with all your absurdness, your silliness, and your cute dimples. But then Jack's image fades to the sound of music outside my bag.
The mortician woman probably uses an iPod with small speakers. A song I know well: "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Öyster Cult.
Interesting.
This might take some time. I don't think she is in a hurry. All I can do is wait for her to pick me up.
A flick of the mortician's cigarette lighter drags things into an even slower pace. I don't blame her. Time is probably worthless for a woman who spends her days living among the dead.
She inhales her cigarette shortly and then exhales, coughing. Smoke seeps through the bag and into my nostrils. I manage not to sneeze. Dead people usually don't, I imagine the Pillar saying.
But I know the woman is near.
I hear her pick up the paper chart again, and tread slowly toward me. She starts whistling with the song: "Don't fear the reaper...la la la la la la."
I want to wiggle my feet to the rhythm, but I hold back.
I wonder if she listens to the same song each day. While the Pillar's favorite subject is madness, this woman is surrounded by death. Maybe she grew too numb to it. That would explain her easiness and relaxed demeanor. I wouldn't be surprised if she orders pizza. Two slices, chopped-off heads topping, and some mayonnaise, please. I'll tip generously if you slide me a Meow Muffin from under the table.
"Alice Wonder," the woman mutters, flipping the chart. "Where art thou?" She taps her heavy feet, and then sucks on the cigarette.
I am imagining her in a white coat, a bit too tight for her size. Big-boned, almost square; red curls of thick hair with a pencil lost inside the bush. Fat cheeks, bubbly and wavy, too.
The waiting is killing me. I am about to zip up and scream at her: Here I am. Just take me out!
"So, here you are." She stands real close, reeking of cigarettes, the cheap stuff, and some other smell I can't identify. "Someone made a mistake shoving you here." She kills the boredom by uttering everything she does aloud. I know because I used to do the same in my cell. "Your sorry arse belongs somewhere else, young lady."
This blind game isn't fun anymore. I realize I will probably never know how the mortician looks like after she delivers my corpse to the chauffeur's car. Then she stops again and coughs. This time, she coughs really hard, as if puking. I hear the cigarette swoosh into something. What's going on out there?
A heavy thud causes a ripple through my metallic table. The rollers skew sideways. The woman chokes.
The tune of Don't Fear the Reaper continues in the background, but the woman stopped whistling, if not breathing.
"Help!" she barely pronounces, while her fat hand slaps like a heavy fish on the side of my bag.
What am I supposed to do? Help her, right?
And blow my cover?
What is happening to her?
Surprisingly, the woman stops choking.
"Bloody cigarettes," she mumbles. I hear her stand up. Her voice is a bit rustier, the music in the background making the whole incident sound like a joke.
There is a long moment of silence, only interrupted by her heavy breathing. She should also stop smoking. And eating—what's that smell again? Yeah, she somehow reeks of baking.
She decides to change the song on the iPod. Am I ever going to get out of here?
I am not familiar with the new tune. An American sixties song. A merry song, actually. Funny and quirky.
"'I am a Nut' by Leroy Pullins," the mortician documents. Then the lighter flicks again. "I love this song!"
What? She is smoking again?
This time she takes a long drag, as if her near-death experience rewarded her with an additional lung.
She moves toward me again, tapping her paper chart. Her feet aren't as heavy. I wonder how.
She takes another drag and whistles along with the song. The singer is a nut himself. All he says is "I'm a nut," a few fast words, then "I'm a nut" again. Then he stops to a stroke of a chord of his guitar and says, "Beedle-dee-bah, beedle-dee-bah, beedle-dee-ree-pa-dom."
I have to check this song out, if
I ever get out.
I hear the woman stop and swirl in her place like she's Elvis Presley on mushrooms. I am about to laugh. What happened to this mortician woman? Am I back in the Radcliffe Asylum already?
She approaches my bag and taps a hand on it. "Here you are, Alice Wonder," she says. I picture her with a big smile on her face, pushing against those chubby cheeks. "Time to take you were you belong."
Finally! I sigh. This took forever.
The smell of baking on her breath makes me hungry. I should have had a big meal back in the asylum. What's with all the mentioning of food today?
I don't care. I just want to get out of here.
Instead of being rolled outside, the woman's hand reaches for the bag's zipper. Maybe she wants to check out my face. I wonder if I will look dead enough to her.
Hold that breath, Alice.
The zipper slowly reveals my face to her, and the reeking of baking strengthens in my nostrils. There is a long silence, followed by the end of the nut song. The silence doubles up uncomfortably. I do my best not to open my eyes. But I don't know if I can hold my breath any longer.
"Very paradoxical, I must say," the woman says with a satirical tinge to her voice. "If you hold your breath long enough, you're dead. If you give up and start breathing, you're mad. Isn't that so, Alice from Wonderland?"
My eyes snap open.
I inhale all the air it can. I am in utter shock. A silent shiver pinches through all of my limbs, and madness almost blinds my vision.
What did she just say?
Although the mortician looks exactly like I imagined her, the smell of baking on her mouth says otherwise.
It's the smell of a Meow Muffin.
Chapter 17
I am paralyzed with horror. All my wishes to rid the world of the Cheshire evaporate in his presence. His grin, plastered on the poor mortician's face, is unmistakable. Damned are those who lay eyes upon that grin too many times, for it's unforgettable and will guarantee a lifetime of nightmares.
"What do you want from me?" I scatter the syllables on my tongue. I wish there was a way to camouflage my fear—maybe some hookah smoke like the Pillar's that I'd hide my real fears behind.
There is none.
"Love you, too." The Cheshire flashes a chubby grin and then takes a long drag from his cigarette. His view from down here makes me feel like an ant. His posture is like a towering building of nightmares.
Instinctually, I slide myself out of the bag and jump off the other side of the table.
The Cheshire doesn't move. He watches as I wound my left knee and almost twist my ankle. I run toward the faraway bulb, the one I hadn't come near before. It turns out it leads to a metallic double door leading outside. I limp a few times, fall, and pick myself up again. Part of my escape is me hopping on all fours like a rabbit.
The Cheshire still stands still. I know because of the muffin smell. He is behind me, dragging on the mortician's cigarette, enjoying the show.
I am such a coward, running away like that. I reach for the door's heavy handles. I don't think I am ready for the Cheshire yet.
"If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there," the Cheshire mocks behind me.
I stop in my tracks. I don't know why. A flash of a Lewis Carroll in Victorian England flashes before my eyes. It's like an electric shock. Painful but effective. It wakes me up and unwraps me from my spider webs of fear.
I give up on the handle and turn around to face the Cheshire. This is what I should do. I shouldn't run. I am here to catch him, not escape from him.
I don't know what Carroll's dream was about, but I know I don't want to end up regretful like him. I don't want to say, I couldn't save them, a week from now.
"Oh." The Cheshire licks his paws. Cat's habits. He stands between two rows of corpses on his sides. It's totally funny, in a very sinister way, to see the mortician gleaming with evil intentions. "So, you might be the Real Alice after all."
I stand with my back to the door, grimace, and shake my head, wondering why he says that.
"A Real Alice wouldn't run away from me," he elaborates. "The door is locked, however. But you didn't know that, did you?" He jingles a keychain in his hands. "Someone could still open it from outside, but no one knows you're here, Alice."
"How do you know that?" Frankly, I am shocked the door is locked. I don't know if he is lying to me. Maybe he is tricking me to see if I'll go back and try to open it. I stand my ground, fists clenched.
"Nobody cares for you, Alice." He grins. "You know that."
I can't argue with that. Only Jack seems to care. Where is he when I need him?
"You've always been like that," he continues. "Even in the books, you were a lonely, possibly mad, girl wandering Wonderland—which was probably all in her head." He laughs and smirks and grins and confuses the hell out of me when he says that. "You never made a real friend in that book, remember?"
"My sister was waiting for me when I woke up," I mumble, my head slightly lowered. The Cheshire hit a sensitive tumor in my soul. I am not only mad. I am lonely. I get it. It's time to get over it!
"Your sisters hate you, Alice. They hate you so much none of them bothered telling you the details of how you killed your friends. And your mother is too weak to protect you." He is enjoying this. "And your friends?" He kills the cigarette under his heavy foot and rubs his chin. "Oh, you killed them."
"You're lonely too!" I take a step forward. It actually unsettles him. He didn't expect that. "You've always been lonely, Cheshire. Humans killed your parents. You swore revenge on the world. Such a lonely lunatic who has no one to love him." The mortician woman's face knots. I press harder: "Even in Wonderland, no one cared for you. You and your silly grin, neglected in the Duchess' kitchen, then hiding on trees in the forest, appearing and disappearing, and commenting on the world only to take away attention from your miserable existence."
"Interesting." He steps forward, squinting at my face. "Tell me more. Is that really you, Alice?"
I shrug then lift my head up. "Why is it so important if I am the Real Alice?"
"Oh, it's important. You have no idea." He still glares, taking another careful step forward. "What puzzles me is that you don't remember any of it. I wonder why. What is it that the Pillar knows about you that I don't? Who are you, Alice?"
The Cheshire steps forward, the collective sum of the hate in the world glimmering in her eyes.
Chapter 18
"I don't care about either of you." I take another step forward, not knowing how this will end. Will I fist-fight a cat eventually?
"What do you care about, then?" His tone is investigative.
"To stop you from killing children and stuffing their heads in watermelons all over Britain."
He laughs. "Neatly executed crime; very artistic, you must admit."
I feel disgusted. I don't know how I look when disgusted but my face is in pain.
"Do you know how hard it is to stuff a head in a watermelon?" He is creepily sincere. Human lives don't mean anything to him. "No one appreciates art anymore." He rolls his eyes. "Is it because I am a cat?" The mortician's fingers turn into hairy claws, like Wolverine. "Do I have to change my name to Da Vinci or Picasso for you to appreciate my work?"
"You don't want anyone to appreciate you. The more you're hated, the more you love it," I say. "But since you asked, how about you just die? The world loves dead artists."
"Then I shall never be loved." The mortician slightly raises her meaty arm and waves her hands sideways. "Because I can't die." He smiles thinly at my attempt to humiliate him. "And the killing of fat kids won't stop. The real killings didn't even begin yet." She points at the dead corpses. "Humans are nothing but pawns in this Wonderland War."
"Why kill kids who are overweight?"
"Are you afraid to say 'fat' kids?" She smirks. "Is that politically incorrect? Is the blunt truth always politically incorrect?"
"Wow. You do have a grudge against 'fat' kids." I
don't like the sound of it on my tongue, but I need to speak his insane language so I can read between the lines.
"You will understand what I mean if you figure it out, Nancy Drew." She breathes into her paws. "You and your hookah-smoking Inspector Gadget." This seems to amuse him to death.
"If this is an old grudge between you and the Pillar—"
"It's not that," she cuts in.
"If it's about the grudge you hold against humanity, please remember that this happened so long ago." I don't even know what I am doing, conversing with the enemy.
"Nothing is long ago." She still scans my face, as if she wants to spot evidence of me being the Real Alice. I catch her/him staring at my neck as well. "Don't you watch the news? Humans are walky-talky apes, still stained with barbaric behaviors after so many centuries of evolution. They might dress better, talk mellower, and invent cool gadgets. They will say that they prefer love over war, but it's all nonsense. Humans are still monsters. Always will be." He stops and takes a breath, not finding what he was looking for in me. "But then, all my grudges aren't what the Wonderland War is about."
"What is it about, then?" If the Pillar refuses to tell, do I expect the Cheshire to?
"If you were the Alice, you would've known," he says. "Right now, I need to put you to continued tests, until you prove you're her."
"By killing children?" I can't digest his logic.
"Whatever it takes," he says. "Besides, you can still minimize the killings by solving the riddles." He cocks his head with another grin. "Think of it as a Catch-22. Either you don't solve the riddles and I keep allowing the murders, or you solve the riddle, I know you're the Alice, and we start the Wonderland Wars." He rubs his claws together.
"What kind of sick lunatic are you?"
"The unkind type," the mortician sneers. "Let's not waste time, Alice." She starts smoothening her fingernails with one of the metallic instruments on the tables. "You were smart enough to get the muffin message, and smarter to realize all the victims are fat kids." He cocks his head at me as I glimpse a mallet resting against the wall behind the tables. Why is there a mallet in a morgue? "I see that you and your Pillar haven't benefited wisely from the clues I left you." Although spoken in a woman's voice, it has this sinister undertone to it. Something I can't explain. Something only nightmares can produce. "So here is my final clue." He raises a hand in the air, his thumb and middle finger close enough it looks like he is about to snap them. "Are you ready for my major clue, Alice?"
