It’s impolite to throw things at strangers

Rose was walking down Main St. on her way to work. It was so hot she could literally see her sweat sizzling as she hurried to get out of the sun hanging in a bright purple sky. The towering buildings that lined the streets swayed gently, but their subtle movements provided almost no breeze at all for pedestrians.

She walked past Sam’s as she did every day and paused to gaze dreamily at the delicious desserts in the window case. She heard a slight swoosh sound above her and looked up. As if it was a heat-seeking missile, a little black book fell from the sky and deliberately smacked her on the head. Confused, she looked up and saw a girl looking out of a third floor window right above her. She stared at Rose with an anxious look on her face and darted back inside.

Rose picked the book up off the ground and stood there trying to figure out what the hell happened. As she collected her thoughts, the third-floor stranger came running out of the building toward her. She approached Rose wild-eyed and shoved a business card and a key into Rose’s hand. She leaned in and whispered, “This is yours now. I’m so sorry.” She turned abruptly, faster than Rose could process, and ran into the street where she was rundown immediately by a city bus.

Momentarily frozen in shock, Rose looked at the horrid items in her hand. The key was marked 3B. She opened the strange book and watched as a cryptic message appeared out of nowhere on the first page. It read, “Find it first and it’s yours. But be quick.”

Rose looked up and realized she’d been standing in the same spot for minutes, oblivious to the sirens, terrified onlookers and screams. People swarmed around the woman’s body, lifeless and deformed in the street. In the crowd, Rose noticed two men eyeing her intently. They were moving toward her. She turned around and darted into the dead stranger’s building.

Panicky and a little sweaty, she ran up the stairs. Third floor. Gotta make it. She sprinted up and made it to the second-floor platform as she heard the two men run in behind her.

She reached the third floor and snuck inside as quietly as possible. The hallway was ugly, with stained carpet and thick animated swirls of paint rolling along the walls. The movement was dizzying but she had to focus. She ran past several dead potted plants that swayed gently from an unidentified breeze and ran toward 3B.

Rose approached the door and tried the key. Click. She snuck in quietly and doubled over, catching her breath. She looked around the tiny, yellow kingdom. All yellow everything: appliances, walls, linoleum. The bedspread stood out starkly against the yellow, it’s dingy beige floral print just begging to be burned alive. Fast food wrappers covered the small kitchen table and there were dirty clothes on just about every surface. It smelled like BO and strangely, bleach.

There was one area of the room that wasn’t easily visible from the door. She crept in further. Among the trash piles on the floor around a twin-sized bed was a dead man. Just right there in the open. It looked like he’d been pecked apart by birds or something. Really gross. Someone had hurriedly tried to clean up the crime scene.

At once, she heard what sounded like footsteps approaching from the hallway. Shit. She looked around quickly for a weapon or a hiding place. Nothing. Suddenly she noticed a set of keys sitting on the kitchen table. Unsure why, she grabbed them and bolted to the open window — the impetus to this madness — and flew up the fire escape.

As Rose flew up the rickety staircase two steps at a time, she heard the voices of two men burst into the yellow apartment. By the time she reached the top staircase, the men below were on to her. She heard them begin to make their way up the ladder too.

Rose got to the roof and did a quick scan of her surroundings: to her left and right she could see other rooftops, a few apartment windows in buildings taller than this one, a padlocked rooftop access door and some of those spinny a/c fan things. It occurred to her that she was going to have to get on another rooftop. She lamented at the thought of her next action.

She ran up to the ledge and unceremoniously discovered that there was only a 6-ish” gap between the buildings. So much for action hero moves. She stepped onto the next rooftop and ducked down as the two men reached the top of the fire escape behind her. She scroonched along the inside of the rooftop ledge, breathing hard. They jumped across the next rooftop and ran past her. She got up and scurried back to the fire escape and down to safety.

She didn’t make it far. As she hurried down an alleyway, a woman stepped out and stopped her. “You’ve got the book. It’s yours now, and there’s no way to stop it. But if you can get to the end, you’ll be free. No one has ever made it.”

Rose whipped the book and keys out of her pocket and tried to shove them in the woman’s hands. The woman refused and said it was too late. Rose panicked. She looked up again at the purple sky and saw two birds circling ominously.

Roughly the size of pelicans, with lethal orange claws, sharp blue beaks, and haunting eyes, the birds slowed and set their eyes in her direction. Suddenly, they dove at her, forcing her to run. She sprinted home, not daring to look back. She heard the birds gaining on her, circling and crisscrossing above her. She felt one of them nip her shoulder with its sharp beak, breaking the skin. She ran harder, now in tears and bleeding.

Rose made it home and the birds were forced to retire for the moment. What now? She remembered the keys and the devilish little book. Opening it, she saw a new item being scrawled on the first page as if by magic. “Go to the cleaner’s.” She thought about that for a second and then became aware of a horrible sound — someone was coming down her apartment’s hallway fast. She realized the two men had caught up to her... she sighed and knew what she had to do. Again. Rose raced to the window overlooking the alley and jumped out the window onto the fire escape.

She made it down as she heard the men burst into her apartment. What did they want from her? She didn’t want to stay and find out.

She got to the end of the alley and moved quickly to the nearest shop — Lars’ Carpet Cleaner. “If you can spill it, we can clean it.” She pulled the business card from this morning’s first dead stranger out of her pocket and looked at the name. Low and behold, one and the same.

Hearing some ominous cawing above her, she looked up to see the murder birds perched on the adjacent rooftop. They spotted her and began to flutter. She reached for the key ring and tried the lock. She grabbed the door handle to Lars’ and yanked on the handle. It swung open and she ran inside as one of the birds dive-bombed the glass door with a terrifying crash.

She instinctively locked the door and spun around. No one in sight. She stole quietly to the back of the counter to hide and decide what to do next. The book. Page one was already rewriting itself when she opened it. “Time to shine.” Rose looked around for clues. There was a clock on the wall with a gold halo shimmering around it. Behind the clock she found a small note that read, “You’re halfway there. Don’t rest until you see the ocean.”

The harbor was three blocks away. How would she know where to go, and how would she escape the birds and her mysterious pursuers? Her brain indexed ideas quickly. She looked around and saw an umbrella and thick raincoat on a hook. Maybe they’d provide just enough armor to keep the birds at bay for three blocks. She heard them cawing excitedly. Time to go.

Rose made it to the water’s edge with no plan. She wasn’t sure where to go or what to look for — but she knew she couldn’t turn back now. She spun around to see a bayside motel. “Don’t rest,” Rose thought.

Rose pulled the key ring out again. The other key had 1123 written on it. She ran inside and found the corresponding motel room. She was so tired — could she sleep for a few minutes? No, someone would be here soon. She spotted a small safe. One last key on the ring. Inside the safe was nothing but a notecard. It read, “If you’ve made it this far, you’re almost there. Don’t quit now, or you’re in for a scare. Rest In Peace, Rose. — #77.” An absurdly dark thing to make rhyme.

She gasped — this demon treasure hunt was evolving around her. She looked at the black book once more for a final clue. It said, “Go back to the beginning.”

She assumed this meant the dead woman’s apartment. How in the hell would she make it back without actually “resting in peace?” She still had the umbrella and the extremely hot raincoat. Thunder cracked outside. She looked out the window at the big purple sky and saw storm clouds overhead, but they looked full of more than rain.

The sky opened up and started to pour neon-colored grub worms on every surface in sight. She ran to the outside door and stuck her umbrella out under the slimy fish food. The strangest thing, the umbrella seemed to repel the worms as they slimed the ground, nearby cars and a parking lot attendant.

She timidly stepped out from under the overhang and found she and her umbrella were protected from the bizarre downpour. She also looked up at the rooftop to see her murder birds having the time of their life catching worms, thus completely uninterested in her.

She made it back to 3B and ran upstairs as the worm rain stopped. She sat down at the table and noticed a large box next to the decaying dead body. Rose hurried to the mystery package and opened the lid to find $20,000... she gasped. This was it! She won! The woman told her if she finished, she’d be free. Overjoyed, she pulled the heavy box from the floor.

She noticed a note below it, solemnly looking up from its hiding place. It read, “You win. And you lose. But you’ll be free soon.” Below the note was a list of 77 names. Horrified, she could see her name being written next to #78.

Rose ripped the treacherous black book, the little card and key ring from her pocket and launched them out the window without thinking. She ran over and watched in horror as the book fell, and of its own volition, seemed to change course a couple of times before deciding its victim. Then smack. Another passerby — a young man this time — right on the head.

Rose looked down at the street and saw the two men making their way toward the new victim with worms hanging out of their mouths. This was it. She ran down the stairs and grabbed the man who’d been struck. She repeated the ominous message she received that morning. Rose turned to run but the birds chased her into a nearby alley and pecked her to death.