Local Man Convicted Of Suicide

[Malloon]

(Benjamin Lichter continues from The show starts at five. Bring snacks.)

Ben left the asylum running. It was only after rounding the right wing did he slow, then stop, panting and hands resting on his knees. His bag slid off his shoulder and fell to the ground. Swaying dizzily, he checked over his shoulder to see if he had been followed, but he hadn't. Still panting, he pulled a grin of relief, then giggled. Then he giggled again, slowly laughing more and more as he got his breath back. He'd done it! He'd faced a violent "player" and survived. And he only had a lost boot to show for it!

Panting no more, he straightened and looked back at where he came from. The adrenaline fading, he put his hands behind his neck in glee. He remembered how the boot had left his hand to find its target in the dark, and the pleasing "thud" when it hit the girl. Serves her right, he thought. She'd thrown something herself the moment before, and had gotten a boot to the face or the stomach or wherever for her trouble. Ben hoped she was nursing an... wait, no he didn't. He frowned, and his hands went back down to his sides. It was o.k. to defend himself, but he shouldn't hurt people for no good reason. Or hope they'd been hurt.

We did good, but that wasn't for no good reason. The worse off she is, the less danger she is.

Yeah, but still...

She shouldn't have been violent. It was her own fault. Plus, she knew we were there. We couldn't take chances.

Maybe...

Well, enough time to dwell on that later. The sun was getting low in the sky, and he needed to keep going. He'd checked the asylum pretty thoroughly - as much as he could, at any rate, while avoiding the people who thought it was funny to shoot guns indoors. There had been a fare share of corpses, but none of them, thank God, had been Maxim's. Where should he go? The bell tower,  perhaps? It was a place to sleep, but not much else, he guessed. Where else?

He turned around and leaned down to get his map out of his bag - he'd decided to use what the terrorists had given him after all, since it seemed accurate enough to be useful - and looked at where he could go. He was thinking he should probably go and check the chapel south of the asylum first, when he spotted a person over the top of his map, lying in the grass. Ben's heart skipped a beat and he took a step back, but the person didn't move. It was just a corpse.

Ben walked over to the body, then squatted down two meters from it; he'd learned just how badly corpses smelled the past couple of days. "You gave me quite a fright there." Ben whispered at it. "What happened?" The corpse didn't answer, but its shoulder was deformed in such an odd way that Ben guessed they must have fallen from the roof. It had been a guy, tall, with a mop of black hair. His eyes were closed. He was wearing sneakers.

Take his shoes.

"No!" Ben protested loudly.

We need them, he doesn't.

"I don't care! Stealing things from dead people is still stealing!"

He won't mind, and we will. Remember those rocks? And thorns?

The voice had a point.

Yes, I do.

"Shut up", Ben muttered.

Ben waited a moment, then went to the guy's feet. He untied the laces while feeling nauseous, but when he took off one shoe the smell increased intensely. Gagging, Ben put it beside him, then removed the other one. Moving back to where he started, he gingerly put his hand inside each, in case there were maggots inside or something. Luckily, there weren't, but they still smelled. He took his remaining boot off his right foot, pulled the shoes on and tied the laces. They were too large for his feet, but they would do.

...

When he arrived at the chapel, or rather its garden, the sun was even lower in the sky. Navigating the path carefully, he spotted two corpses: They were both girls. One of them was naked: Only her bra was left. Ben quickly looked away when he saw that, cheeks burning, so he didn't see who it was. He felt enraged that someone would strip a corpse like that and leave in the open, exposed and indecent. He looked at the other girl instead, who was closer, but didn't recognise her.

Carefully, he looked back at where the first girl lay. Then the recognition hit him like a gut punch: There was no mistaking her, even though he knew her so little - it was Jane Madison. He remembered that she had been shot on the second day.

Ben suddenly wanted to leave this place. He could sleep somewhere else; he didn't want to sleep so close to the corpse of somebody he knew. He was just glad it hadn't been Irene. He didn't think he could have handled that.

He hurried over to the chapel, and, after confirming it was empty, went on his way.

(Benjamin Lichter continues in "Nope, it's not a dream. We're stuck with it.")