Jeff Strand - Graverobbers Wanted - No Experience Necessary

I wanted to stick to the truth as much as possible, unappealing as it was, so I confessed about thegraverobbing bit. However, in the censored version, we'd been caught by a couple of hunters before we could unearth the coffin. Things got seriously out of hand, things were said, arrows were fired, and we ended up getting the crap beat out of us.

The story sounded credible as I told it, but to be honest my thought patterns were so shaky by this time that I could have been telling my wife that a magical turnip had inflicted our injuries and it would have sounded logical. To Helen's credit, she allowed me to finish my story before freaking out.

"What in God's name wereyouthinking? " she demanded. "What kind of sick, twisted, demented, deviant thoughts were running through your minds to make you agree to do that? I absolutely cannot believe that the man I married, the father of my children, would do something so appalling!"

"I had no idea it was going to turn out this way," I said. "I thought we'd dig a hole, grab a key, and go home twenty thousand dollars richer. Nice simple evening."

"This is just...I mean...it's just...I mean...holy shit, Andrew!"

"I agree."

Helen took several deep breaths. "Okay, look, I am so mad at you right now that I can't possibly verbalize it without an aneurysm, but we're not going to get into that right now. You've had an incredibly traumatic experience and I don't want to make things worse for you. But once you're healed, things are going to be very bad for you."

THE HOSPITAL visit revealed that I did not have a concussion and that if I wanted my face to continue to look nice I was going to have to quit letting people punch me. It also confirmed that Roger's leg and back were going to heal fine, and that he was totally incompetent at walking on crutches. Fortunately, Helen agreed not to call the police to investigate the abusive hunters, since we'd have to explain why Roger and I were in the woods.

Instead of dropping Roger off at home, we decided to have him sleep at our place. While Helen took a shower, I opened the foldout bed on the couch and spoke quietly with him.

"We obviously can't go the police," I said, "but we've got to investigate, see what we can find out."

"Why?"

"Because the killer's still out there!"

"Yeah, but he got what he wanted, there's no reason for him to come after us," Roger insisted.

"You're right, but, Idunno , there's some weird instinct inside me saying that somebody who buries a man alive and stabs a woman to death shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. What do you think?"

"My leg hurts."

"Look, you don't have to help if you don't want to, but I'm going to try and find out what the whole deal is. So what do we know? Our suspect is acquainted with either Jennifer or Michael Ashcraft or both.Probably both.Vicious right hook.Decent archer. What am I missing?"

Roger had nothing to add.

"Okay, so it's not much, but it's a start." I took the business card out of my pocket. "First thing tomorrow, I'll find out what this Ghoulish Delights thing is. Maybe we'll get lucky and the killer will be hanging around in bloodstained clothes."

Roger shrugged. "Could I have an extra pillow?"

Helen's shower ended. As I heard the hair dryer turn on, I quickly looked through the phone book and found Michael Ashcraft's name. I dialed the number and got his answering machine. It was a man's voice, presumably Michael's. He sounded a little different when he wasn't shrieking.

"Hi, you've reached the residence of Michael and Jennifer Ashcraft. We're going to be on vacation until the first of September, but if you leave your name and number at the tone we'll get back to you when we return. By the way, we have a state of the art security system and a couple of really vicious Dobermans named Rabid Assassin I and Rabid Assassin II, so any potential thieves may want to find a safer target, such as Fort Knox. Ready yourself, here comes the beep."

So nobody was likely to be looking for them. I hung up.

I sat on my bed and stared at the wall for a few minutes until Helen came out of the bathroom. "Honey, you aren't even undressed. You really should get some sleep."

"Well, I got a little bit of sleep after I was knocked unconscious."

Helen sighed. "Don't make jokes."

I took off my clothes and got into bed, even though in my spooked condition I figured there was no way I'd be able to fall asleep without an elephant tranquilizer.

As it turns out, I was wrong. I managed about three hours of sleep, though with the worst nightmares I'd had in my entire life. And I'm counting the recurring dream of Mr.Boogedy -Bones from pre-school.

AFTER I GOT out of bed and showered the nightmare sweat from my body, I dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. I called the number on the Ghoulish Delights card and got another answering machine.

"Thank you for calling Ghoulish Delights, where we make your worst fears a reality," said Michael's voice. "Our office hours are by appointment only, but if you leave your name and number at the tone we'll get back to you as soon as possible."

I hung up, figuring I'd try back later.

So, what next? I had Michael's street address from the phone book, so I'd pay a visit to his house to see if there was anything of interest. After that, I supposed that I could find out the names of Jennifer and Michael's friends and family and just start going down the list, but what would I say? "Hi, I'm doing a survey on premature burial habits in the Chamber area. Have you or anyone you know buried a person alive within the past week?" I couldn't ask "Where were you on the night of August fourth, between midnight and 4 a.m.?" because anyone could say "I was in bed sleeping, you brain-dead moron!" and it would be almost impossible to prove them wrong.

I left Roger asleep on the couch and set a note on the nightstand for Helen that read "Went out." At least that kept me entirely truthful.

As I was on my way toHallowayStreet , where Michael lived, I came up on the Chamber Eastside Mall. Remembering that they had a game store inside, I decided to make a quick detour and see if the piece of card I'd found last night could be identified.

I pulled into the parking lot, went inside, turned down a free sample of nasty-looking Bourbon chicken from a vendor in the food court, and proceeded toGamer's Castle.

"Hi," said the gawky teenager behind the counter. I nodded and briefly looked through the racks of role-playing game merchandise. There was Dungeons and Dragons stuff out thewazoo , and even kits for hosting your own murder mystery parties, should I ever grow weary of having my murder mystery needs satisfied by real life.

"Are you looking for anything in particular?" the teenager asked.

"Actually, yes," I said, approaching the counter and taking out the piece of card. "Could you tell me which game this belongs to?"

He took the card from me, glanced at it for a split second, the handed it back. "Oh, sure, it's a level one imp. It's one of the weakest characters in Prophecies of the Night. They're very common, not collectible at all."

"Prophecies of the Night?I've never heard of it."

"That's not surprising. It's really not very popular. It has a very weak character generation system, not anywhere near as realistic as the designer's last of couple games. But he was having personal problems and a tight deadline on this one, so it's understandable."

"Of course," I agreed.

"We returned a bunch of stuff to the distributor, but we have a few enemy decks left if you're interested. That's where the piece you've got came from."

"Well, if it has an unrealistic character generation system I'll probably have to pass. You wouldn't happen to know of any groups that play regularly, would you?"

The teenager shook his head."Nah. Like I said, it's not very popular. Actually, you could check the bulletin board against the far wall in case somebody posted one and I didn't notice, but I'm pretty sure there's not."