The Order of the Crimson Collar

I never bought into the old adage that everything happens for a reason or that things are meant to be or not meant to be.

I’ve always thought that was conciliatory verbiage peddled to those who needed some form of validation or comfort to atone for their mistakes or misfortunes.

But when you know you have less than two hours to live, it tends to put you in an existential mindset.

Did the life I led warrant the impending doom that loomed over me?

Were there acts in my life that deemed me worthy of redemption?

Thinking back on the events that transpired in the last 72 hours engendered the mental image of a weighted scale of good and evil, right and wrong, tipping from one extreme to the other, back and forth, I mused.

Had I done the right thing from the start, maybe I wouldn’t be in the precarious situation in which I now find myself, or maybe it wouldn’t have made any difference at all.

It doesn’t matter much now anyway, there’s nothing more I can do but wait.

I’ll spend my last hours penning this extraordinary account of events. I don’t imagine anyone will take much stock in it or believe it, but at least there will be a record; something to show for my effort. Maybe it will clear my name.

I will leave you to draw your own conclusions.

I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Tuesday, March 9th, 2021

It was six thirty p.m. when I made my way down the street to Dan’s high-rise apartment building. I was exhausted from working all day at the office.

Corporate America is an equal opportunity employer, it doesn’t care if you’re Christian, Muslim, agnostic or atheist, but it crushes your proverbial soul from nine to five, five days a week and on some Saturdays.

I was on my way to Dan’s to pick up my week’s supply of Huxley’s Soma when I found my tired nerves tangled in a most frustrating situation.

Climbing the narrow stairwell to the entrance of Dan’s apartment building, I found myself behind a slow walker who impeded my path.

He was an old man dressed in a black suit and his ascent up the staircase was painstakingly slow at best.

In one hand the man clutched a briefcase and with the other he dabbed sweat from his forehead with a silken cloth.

There was no getting around him.

When the old man reached the door, I waited both exasperated and astonished as he procured a small black notebook from his coat and perused the pages idiotically, I presumed looking for where he had written the access code.

Here I interjected myself into the situation.

“I got you, Pops,” I said brashly, quickly punching in a six-digit access code which was met with the electronic buzzing of the door unlocking.

I held the door for the old man – I’m not a complete asshole.

Unfortunately, there is only one elevator in Dan’s lobby so I painfully waited for the old man to meander into the confined space before I hit the number six and pushed the elevator door-close button – several times for good measure.

The elevator jolted into motion and the old man grabbed the rail to steady himself.

Here I first noticed a peculiar detail.

The old man wore a priest’s clerical collar, except it was crimson red as opposed to the traditional white collar.

The old man dabbed at his head furiously with his cloth and I began to become curiously concerned as the man pulled at his collar and grasped at his heart before slumping down into a pile in the corner of the elevator.

“Pops!” I exclaimed. “You okay, Pops?”

I bent down over the man who was mumbling indistinctly.

I was taken off guard when the old man’s arm shot up and hit the emergency button on the elevator keypad screeching the cubicle to a halt and eliciting a terrible alarm.

“Must pay the piper.” The old man mumbled.

“Room 806.”

“Seven o’clock”

“Or people will die.”

The old man was slurring his speech and continued babbling what I perceived as nonsense.

“Stay with me, Pops. We’ll get you some help,” I assured, admittedly a tad concerned for the poor old bastard. I knew he was having a heart attack or a stroke.

The old man’s fingers writhed wildly at the combination lock on his briefcase, and before I could assuage him, the case burst open spilling forth stacks of one hundred-dollar bills.

“Holy shit, Pops,” I exclaimed.

The old man repeated his cryptic instructions, “Must pay the piper.”

“Seven o’clock”

“Or people will die.”

The old man fingered through the pages of the small black notebook.

“Eight people will die.”

The old man went still and silent and I knew he was dead.

“Oh fuck,” I breathed.

The elevator alarm rang sonorously.

I looked down at the dead man and at the stacks of money covering his neatly clad body and spilling from the briefcase and onto the dirty elevator floor.

I had never seen so much money in one place before.

“What were you doing with all this money, Pops?” I asked the dead man.

I can’t feign ignorance. I had heard him distinctly, pay the piper at seven o’clock or people would die.

But my rational mind told me the old man was insane.

It was probably drug money or blood money or a gambling debt but what did it matter now?

He was dead.

So, I did what any opportunist would do. I took the money and ran.

This is how I came into the amount of twenty thousand dollars in crisp one hundred-dollar bills. But what is of more import, is that this is how I came into the possession of the little black notebook, and if I only could have known the gravity of the situation, people who are now dead may still be living.

I spent the night and ten grand at the Arkam Hotel and Casino, with top shelf liquor and top shelf company.

It wasn’t until I awoke late into the afternoon on Tuesday and called Dan that I found that things were awry.

I called with the intention of treating him and his girlfriend to lunch at the Arkam.

Upon reaching him, my exuberant invitation was met with solemnity. I received the news that at eight o’clock last night, his apartment building had caught fire and burned to the ground.

But what was most terrifying about this tragic news, more than the loss of his entire stash of drugs, was that exactly eight people had died when the building collapsed.

It is important for me to note that the fire was caused by some fault in the electrical wiring of the building and was deemed an unfortunate accident.

This revelation sent my mind reeling back to the words of the dying old man.

“Must pay the piper.”

“Seven o’clock”

“Or people will die”

“Eight people will die.”

I fetched the little black notebook from the bedside table where I had tossed it indifferently the night prior.

It seemed to be an appointment book. It had dates and times and places. It was chronologically ordered.

I found the page titled Tuesday March 9th, 2021.

Under the date was written the address of Dan’s apartment building,

room 806

7:00 p.m.

$20,000

8 lives.

Foot note; door access code: 465778

“What the actual fuck?”

Then something dawned on me, and I turned the page to the current date.

Wednesday March 10th, 2021

369 Bayline Road

3:00 p.m.

$15,000

12 lives

Footnote: Board Room C

My eyes raced to the clock. The time read 4:40 p.m.

A quick search on my phone informed me 369 Bayline Road, was the location of the local Amco Power Plant and I was filled with dread.

I flipped on the flat screen to see a breaking news headline.

There had been an explosion at the Amco Power Plant at approximately four o’clock, and twelve plant workers were still unaccounted for.

At this point the validity of the little black notebook was unquestionable.

I thumbed through the pages of the notebook to Thursday March 11th, 2021. It read as follows:

The pier off Stargate Bridge

5:00 p.m.

$25,000

36 lives

Footnote: Third bench from the piers end.

March 11th, 2021:

I sat on the third bench from the pier’s end looking across the water at the structure that was the Stargate Bridge. I watched as rush hour traffic filled its lanes.

I thought about how I’d desperately returned to the casino floor and tried to capitalize on what little money I had left, hoping to accrue the sum of $25,000 – and how I had failed.

I was alone on the pier, that is until exactly 5:00 p.m., when a beautiful woman appeared – I mean literally appeared from thin air – her lissome form clad in a sundress, she wore a large hat and sunglasses.

“You’re not Father O’Malley,” she stated, more amused than perturbed but with a hint of irritation.

“You are going to cause that bridge to collapse if I don’t pay you?” I accused.

“Honey,” she said melodically, “A bunch of scientific nonsense and physics are going to cause that bridge to collapse, if you don’t pay me.”

“Who are you people?” I asked incredulously.

“People?” she smirked, lowering the rims of her glasses to reveal eyes of obsidian black. “We are freak accidents, natural disasters, unfortunate circumstance, we have been called plague and pandemic. But right now, you can call me running out of patience. Do you have the money?”

“Are you a–” I stuttered.

“Demon?” she completed my question for me. “That is such an archaic term, I’m just a girl trying to make some money in this rat race. So, do you have it?”

“Yes,” I stammered, “Well, not all of it. But I will get it.”

“So, you are wasting my time. I should melt your skin down to the bones.”

“I have nine grand,” I offered her the briefcase, “Please, take it.”

“Sorry honey, $25,000 for 36 lives. I don’t make the rules, I don’t crunch the numbers. ‘So it is written and so it shall be done.’”

I was flustered and terrified and desperate, “Can’t I trade my soul or something?”

The beautiful monstrosity laughed at me, “Your soul won’t buy me a pack of cigarettes. This is the twenty-first century, what good is a soul?”

“What can you give me for nine grand?” I pleaded.

“Nine grand darling, will get you a simple confirmation of what you already know.

“In exactly one hour from the time of the appointment, the failure of payment results in a disaster costing, in this case, 36 lives.

“And yes, in one hour the Stargate Bridge will be under water.”

She lit a cigarette between her red supple lips, took the briefcase into her hands and disappeared, leaving me alone on the pier in a cloud of cigarette smoke.

The rest of this story you can read in the papers. A crazed man called in a bomb threat on the Stargate Bridge, hijacked a bus, blocked the onramp and ran wildly down the bridge firing a gun into the air demanding people evacuate their vehicles and get off the bridge, until his tirade was stopped by the bullet of a sniper from a police helicopter.

Shortly after which, for reasons unrelated, the structural integrity of the bridge gave out and collapsed into the bay, taking the lives of six people.

Now I am handcuffed to a hospital bed penning this account.

I don’t think I’m the good guy in this story, but at least I know I saved thirty lives.

I don’t have long now.

I’ve read the entry in the small black notebook for Friday March 12th, 2021 and it reads as follows:

Stargate Hospital

Room 201

3:00 p.m.

$20,000

1 life

The time is 2:59 p.m.