He stopped again as he saw a red dress that looked like the one Sara had worn to the prom. It captivated his attention momentarily, until he forced himself to look away.
The only question now is: what am I going to do about it?
Don Smith got up from his desk and hurried over to the city room photocopier. He put a sheet on it and pressed on. Several sheets spat out of the already failing machine before it made a loud, grinding noise. Don looked at the old control panel. It said toner low. But then, it always said that. He re-opened the top and took his sheet out. He’d just take it down to his editor manually. The sheet read ‘WHO IS THE CORAL BEACH MURDERER?’ and was followed by a long article showing police suspects from the original massacre that were still alive today, quotes from various psychiatrists around the city that specialized in the criminal mind, and other tidbits of information. Don thought this was it. His provocative analysis of the criminal psyche and their motives would win him the editor’s attention.
If not a Pulitzer.
He marched across the office and approached Tom Drake’s desk. He always dreaded this. Drake always looked at him, his smile wide and fake. He’d ask, “How’s everything buddy? About to uncover that big story?” - as if he was a little kid on his mother’s old typewriter. He slowly turned his head to look in the office, preparing himself for Drake’s grossly sarcastic attitude. He turned to face him, preparing a fake smile to rival even his. The cubical was empty. If Don knew Drake (and he wished that he didn’t), at this time of day he was always either in his cubical... or in the editor’s office giving a pitch.
Don ran through the rest of his cubical, waving his paper high above his head like a flag as he went. He got to the editor’s office at the end of the hall. He opened the door only a crack when he heard it.
“...and then he threw me out of her hospital room! I’m sure I’m close, John! We’ve got a solid lead here.”
Don’s head hung. Drake had beaten him to the punch once again. He opened the door regardless. “Sir!” he said, trying his best to inspire enthusiasm in his employer. “I’ve got a list of possible suspects and professionally credited motives to the murders!”
John Tyler looked up from his desk, snatching the paper from Don’s hands and read through it. “This is great, Don!”
“Really, sir?” Don repeated, astonished.
“Yeah. This’ll make a great add-on to Drake’s story. It even supports his theory. Good work, Smith!”
“Yeah, good work,” Drake mimicked, closing the door in Don’s stunned face. When the door was closed, he turned to John and rolled his eyes. “You may have broken this story wide open,” he laughed, grabbing the paper and tossing it to one side.
CHAPTER FOUR:
HOSPITAL FOOD
Mike Harris had always hated hospital food.
It came in lumps or squares and it never tasted exactly like it was supposed to. The food had a texture and a taste like styrofoam, as though it had been partially dehydrated. The worst part was, most of the time he didn’t even get what he wanted. If he circled meal ‘A’, they’d give him meal ‘B’. Once or twice he’d tried to cheat this jinx by ordering meal B... It had been the one and only time they had actually given him what had been circled. As revolting as the meal in front of him was, at the moment it didn’t matter.
Cathy Kennessy lifted the grey plastic cover off of her desert dish, revealing a lime green substance. “You know what’s really interesting about hospital Jell-O?” she asked as she chewed on her chicken, which was probably the only thing on her dinner plate that didn’t taste like chicken, including the Jell-O itself.
“This is Jell-O?” Mike replied, poking at the green jiggling food. “Dear God.”
“Yes, it is. The weird thing is, you’re never really sure which fruit is inside it. Unless its banana, which I think is quite universal.” She lifted her dish and brought the green cubes up to eye-level, poking them to make them jiggle about like blubber. The more she stared at it, the more convinced she became that these were not bananas. It looked more like a malformed cross between pineapple and peaches. It may have been kiwi.
“Yeah, I think maybe it’s peach. But that isn’t the point,” he said, finishing off the last of his mashed potatoes.
“What is it then?” she asked in response, tilting her head back and dropping a cube past her ruby lips.
“How is that Jell-O? I thought for sure frozen applesauce, but Jell-O? ...”
“Hush,” she said, picking up a cube of Jell-O between her thumb and forefinger. “Taste.”
He opened his mouth and she carefully placed it onto his tongue. He swished it around in his mouth for a moment before finally swallowing with a gulp. “Uh-huh,” he said, nodding his head once.
“What?” she asked, grinning. “It’s definitely peach.”
They both laughed and she pinched at his sides playfully. He winced, laughing through the slight nipping pain.
She leaned in quickly and kissed him.
He kissed her back, laughing.
The Factory was dead that night, vacant of the usual chaotic and constant spin of teenagers coming and going. There were still sights
