It was Greta who scraped up the ash, blood, and lung paste out of the fireplace and onto a china plate.
We set Graham up in the parlor, at a small table and chair. William disappeared, then came back with a silver fork and a cloth napkin.
We watched, solemnly, as Graham prepared for his grim feast. He looked down at the rancid mixture before him. “Are we sure this is what the note meant?” he asked shakily, his face tinged green. “It seems extreme.”
“This freak embalmed my father,” Ander said with frustration. “If anyone as an affinity for the extreme, it’s them.”
Graham picked up his fork with a trembling hand. Very carefully, he stabbed the prongs into a spongy cube of lung, and stringy bits hung down as he lifted it towards his face. His eyes scanned around at the small crowd witnessing his suffering. “You’re wasting time, you know. We only have until dawn to find all these damn jars.”
“He’s right,” William said, nodding gravely. “We’ve found one, which means there are six left. Our best bet is to split up and search each room of the house.”
Immediately, pairs began to form. Of course, Fawn and Forrest stepped even closer to one another than they had been previously. Wendy, oddly, immediately placed herself beside William. Ander, shooting me another suspicious glare, awkwardly stepped next to Greta, who looked less than pleased.
I stood there, alone, feeling even more out of place than I already was. The others and I stared at one another for a moment, until William took pity on me.
“Sam,” he said, “Why don’t you examine the master bedroom with Fawn and Forrest?” The twins shot William identically reproachful looks, and honestly, I wasn’t much of a fan of this set up either.
“That’s okay,” I said quickly. “I can look on my own.”
William shook his head. “I think it would be best if you didn’t.” There was something mildly threatening in his air—like even though Ander was the only one who had put words to his suspicion of me, he hadn’t been the only one thinking it.
William Pettigrew turned back towards the man still seated and shaking at the table. “Graham,” he said quietly. Graham, hand still frozen around his fork, tore his eyes up from the monstrosity on his plate to look at William. “You’ll find me when you’re done?” Graham nodded, a haunted, hollow nod.
And so, as the other groups drifted off to various corners of the large home, Fawn, Forrest and I were upstairs, searching one of the fanciest bedrooms I’d ever seen. A dead man’s bedroom. There was complete and utter silence. Until, Fawn spoke.
“Forrest, I already checked there.”
The male twin closed the drawer of the tall mahogany dresser he was peeking into. He looked at his sister, who was standing on her toes, searching the top of the closet. “Well, I already looked there,” he said with exasperation. Fawn stepped out of the closet with a huff.
“Must be that psychological twin link people are always talking about,” I said nervously, trying to lighten the tension. They didn’t even glance in my direction.
“This is ridiculous,” Fawn muttered, moving on to the wardrobe. “This is why you have at least one kid. So you don’t need an elaborate will-reading that gets hijacked by an insane person. Just one, direct blood relative that you leave all of your stuff to.”
“So the people who are here are the only family Regis had?” I asked tentatively.
Forrest gave a heavy sigh. “He wasn’t really much of a people person. Our parents only made him our godfather because they wanted a bigger donation to their foundation,” he said with a humorless laugh. “The majority of his family is dead. So yes, his only family’s here.” Then, his eyes narrowed in my direction. “Plus a few extras, apparently.”
I gave him a weak smile. “Graham, Greta, and William aren’t really family, either.”
“Yes, but they at least knew the man.”
The hostility in the room was rising, and I didn’t like it. Not because I don’t enjoy conflict, although I don’t—but for one very simple fact: either one of these people could be a deranged murderer. It might be a stretch, given their young ages—but teenagers can be killers too. And something told me that if one twin was behind it, the other wasn’t going to be innocent.
“Well, Wendy didn’t know him. She was born after he died,” I wagered.
“Blood is blood,” Fawn said forcefully. “It’s the most important bond there is.” She and Forrest exchanged a brief look.
At this point, I was getting annoyed, my irritation fueled by the fact that time was ticking away faster than I would have liked, and the distrust and suspicion that was being thrust upon me. “You know, we’re all in the same boat here,” I said. “I didn’t want to get that creepy video, and I definitely didn’t want to be a part of this—this bizarre murder mystery party.” I bent down to the floor to search under the bed, but there was nothing there. When I brought my head back up, the twins had both stopped rifling about the room. Instead, they were staring at me, confusion on their faces.
“What?” I asked, my face flushed.
“We didn’t get any video.”
My heart started beating faster, and I got up from the floor. “The video, the one where Regis kind of rambles on about Egyptomania and how he’s going to be embalmed?” I looked anxiously into each of their faces, but there was no hint of recognition. “It was basically the invitation to this party. Twenty-five years after his death, he wanted to have us all watch his unwrapping.” Still, nothing. “You didn’t get a copy?”
The twins both shook their heads. They seemed less frustrated than they had before—now, they just looked scared. “We got a paper invitation, through the mail. It was totally normal, calligraphy and stationary,” Fawn said.
“And when was the video from?” Forrest asked with hesitation.
The footage was grainy and the tape skipped about once every seven seconds. But, I could still see the old man on the screen, the timestamp that read August 5, 1998, and I could hear it very clearly when he spoke:
“Congratulations. You’ve been cordially invited to the Last Unwrapping Party on Earth.”
Something didn’t make sense. The video was from 1998. William Pettigrew, when he first addressed the crowd, before we found out how big of a mess we were all a part of, had said:
"It is a great honor to be able to fulfill his greatest wish, twenty-two years after his death."
“It was... from 1998...” I said quietly. “Twenty-two years ago.” How had I not noticed? That it was impossible for the party to be taking place twenty-five years after Regis died, since I had seen him in a twenty-two-year-old video.
Something else: Regis Hannigan had to have died soon after making that tape.
The twins and I stood I shocked, pensive silence. I stared at the floor beneath my feet, trying to make sense of what I’d learned. The air hung around us, quiet and empty. And then, I lifted my head, expecting their gazes of accusation to be even more potent than they had been before these new discoveries.
But they weren’t looking at me.
Instead, their eyes were aimed at something behind me. I followed their stares, and turned to see the object of their attention.
At first, I didn’t see anything.
Then, there it suddenly was. The lamp on the bedside table, which was off, glinted a familiar gold in the overhead light. I soon realized, it wasn’t a lamp at all.
I quickly lifted off the shade, which had merely been propped on the jar’s lid. Though the smooth side had been facing out, I turned it over quickly to reveal what lie on the other side:
As soon as we saw who was in the photograph, the jar was snatched from my hands. Fawn had grabbed it quickly, and she and Forrest were now staring at it in despair. And, I understood why.
Again, there were two images on the second canopic jar.
One, the engraving of a human head, in Egyptian style.
Another, a photograph of Fawn, smiling brightly, with her arm wrapped around Forrest’s shoulder.
Fawn had the lid off of the jar in record time. The unfortunately familiar smell drifted immediately up and out of the jar, and I thought of poor Graham downstairs. I wondered if he’d managed to take that first bite yet.
Before anyone could speak, Fawn’s arm was elbow deep in a scarlet mixture of blood and organ. She felt around for a moment, then pulled it back out. The jar fell easily from her grasp and onto the floor.
The sludge stood out stark against her skin, like one long, velvet glove. Held in her grip was another blood-smeared plastic bag, labeled "Jar #4".
She opened it, and with her clean hand, pulled out the contents. First, the photograph.
When Fawn and Forrest saw it, there was a change in their expressions, from apprehension to horror.
Slowly, I crept behind the two, in order to see what they had uncovered.
It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, though I’m not sure what I had expected. It was a car, a bright, shiny classic one, with the rounded hubcaps and light blue paint. It was parked in a driveway, on a sunny day. I didn’t see anything nefarious about it.
But, if Graham’s jar had been any indication, the story behind it was going to be a grim one.
Fawn reached out a bloodstained finger, gently stroking the edge of the photograph, dying it red.
“Ferris,” she murmured softly.
“Who’s Ferris?” I asked carefully.
Forrest’s mouth hardened into a set-jaw straight line. “We’re triplets,” he said tersely. “Ferris was our brother.”
I tried to hide my surprise and spoke slowly. “Was?”
Neither of the siblings said anything. Forrest wordlessly took the folded paper from Fawn and unfurled it. Inside, just like before, was a scarlet envelope. He removed it, and read from the paper first:
“Fawn and Forrest Jakobe,
Confess your sins.
After your confession, open the envelope.
Accept your punishment.”
“It’s for both you?” I ask quickly, a bleak realization gradually dawning on me.
“Both our pictures are on the front,” Fawn answered, still gazing deeply into the photograph of the car. She didn’t even glance up as Forrest opened the red envelope.
“When difficult to choose a direction
create a space within the center of yourself.”
A remarkably similar expression suddenly crossed the faces of each of the strangers before me: a look of anxiety, of worry, of sadness, and of fear—if I had to give it a name, it would be guilt.
Then, they snapped their heads to the side, one to the right, the other to left, as they looked at one another in absolute fury. In perfect unison, they growled:
“What did you do?”
Neither had the opportunity to answer, because suddenly, there came a great crashing from downstairs.
We ran down the steps, Forrest with the notes from the jar, Fawn with the photograph of the strange car still clutched in her bloodied fist.
Back in the parlor, much was the same as when we had left it. There the sarcophagus lay, open, and Ander’s father still remained shriveled and musty within it. The plate, the one with the mix of ash and lung that had been set before Graham Willoughby, still sat on the small table, appearing mostly untouched.
But the man himself, Graham, was gone.
“Graham?” Forrest called out.
“In here,” a voice responded, and we ran to it.
In the foyer, beside the great wooden door I had walked through when I first arrived at the Hannigan house, was a lifeless body lying still on a rug. Standing over it were two people: William Pettigrew and Greta McIntyre, looking shocked and appalled.
“What happened?” I asked with panic.
William answered, his voice low and grave. “He must have tried to leave.”
I walked, slowly, feet squeaking against the floorboards, over to the spot on the floor where the body lay.
Immediately, I felt the burning sensation of bile rising up in my throat.
The body had no head.
It wasn’t a clean cut, either. The edges of the neck were ragged, like fabric frayed at a ripped seam. From up close, I could see that the body wasn’t on a rug at all—the blood seeping from its newly formed stump of a neck had merely formed a circle around him.
I wanted so badly to avert my eyes—but something had caught my attention. Something glimmering brass on the body’s torso. The silence was so hushed in the foyer, interrupted by one less heartbeat, that I could hear something else, instead—
The ticking of a pocket watch, sitting cold on Graham Willoughby’s still chest.
The message was clear, but someone had gone to the trouble of leaving a note anyway. It was written not on paper, like those in the jars, but instead was scrawled on a piece of embroidered fabric. A handkerchief, with three initials stitched in: R.W.H.
And, a brief message, written in something red and flecked with ash:
You’re running out of time.
---
Credits
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