Searching for My Killer

Chapter 1-2

Why the hell am I here at this hour? My first thought when I discovered I was in the theater very late at night. The only light came from the Exit signs over the doors on the far sides of the wings, and the trouble light which stood in the center of the stage.

I looked down and—I’m floating? No. f*****g. Way. The stage floor was two feet below me. It was my first clue I wasn’t mortal anymore. The second clue came when I drifted down and almost went through the floor, until I told myself I’d better move up a couple of inches.

Then—I remembered. I had been on the bridge, leaning over the railing to focus the light I was working on, when I heard a slight sound from behind me. Then someone said, “Step two.” Hands pushed against my shoulders, and over the railing I went. Whoever had said that was obviously talking to themselves, under their breath, so I didn’t recognize their voice. I couldn’t even tell if they were male or female.

“Hell of a ‘step’,” I muttered as I looked around the stage, and then down at my feet. Right below them was a stain and I knew instantly it had to be my blood—or what was left of it after someone had tried to clean it up.

Who wanted me dead, and why? I never did anything to anyone that would make them hate me. At least as far as I know.

I began to wander the stage, wondering if I would be stuck here forever. Sure, I loved the shows and watched every production, evenings and matinees. But that was from the lighting booth. I didn’t want to be an invisible part of them on stage for the rest of my life—or death, I suppose. At least I was invisible, I figured, so the audience wouldn’t know I was there. Ghosts usually are, from what little I knew about them.

“Maybe someone will hold a séance to try to talk to me and I’ll become visible to them?” I said aloud, wondering if anyone would hear me, if they were around. Probably not. Who hears ghosts?

Wanting to test the theory I might have to spend the rest of my time on earth in the middle of the stage, I eased down until my feet barely touched the floor, since apparently I’d levitated again. Tentatively, I started walking toward the wings. It worked, in that I didn’t go through the floor. When I got to the door leading backstage, I tried to open it. “f**k and double f**k,” I grumbled when I couldn’t. Then it occurred to me, maybe I could go right through it, the way I almost had with the stage floor. “It worked!” I cheered, when I did. I was in the backstage area.

Everything looked the same, but why wouldn’t it? How long have I been dead? A few minutes? No. There would have been a body, my body, with people looking at it, trying to revive me, maybe. Cops for sure—I figured—and David. The thought he might have seen me dead saddened me.

So what day is it? I knew one way to find out. I hurried, sort of, to the scene shop. Tommy, the head of the shop, kept a daily calendar on the desk in his office. It showed today was the thirteenth. I’d been working on the lights on the eleventh. That, I remembered, because David had commented on the fact as we drove to the theater.

“Two days until Friday the thirteenth,” he’d said. When I’d woo-wooed, he’d replied, “I know you don’t believe in stuff like that, but I do, sort of.”

“Like avoiding black cats, and no walking under ladders,” I’d said, patting his leg.

“Yeah. Think what might have happened if someone had been under the ladder when the step broke and Pat fell.”

“He’d have landed on them and wouldn’t have sprained his wrist.”

“Or they’d both have been hurt more than he was.”

“True, I guess.” I’d kept my hand on his thigh, wishing it was the end of the day and we were heading home.

Now, it’s not an option. I’m probably stuck here forever. Or at least until I find out who helped me get off the bridge the fast way. The idea of never being with David again did nothing at all to boost my morale.

I was about to leave Tommy’s office when I saw a newspaper clipping tacked to the wall above his desk. It was about my death, which is how I learned the police had deemed it an accident—or suicide. And it confirmed my death had happened on the afternoon of the eleventh.

“Suicide, my fine Italian ass,” I growled angrily.

Apparently, according to the story, David agreed with me. He told the reporter, since we lived together he would have known if something had been depressing me badly enough I wanted to end my life. Score one for the man I loved. Unfortunately, he couldn’t refute the idea it had been an accident.

I knew differently, but how could I prove it? And what would I do if I did? It’s not as if I could communicate with anyone. Or could I? There was a pad of paper and a pencil on the desk. I tried to pick up the pencil, with no better results than I’d had trying to open the door a few minutes ago. “This sucks the big one,” I muttered.

The next step was to see if I could leave the building. I half walked, half floated to the roll-up door to the loading dock at the back of the shop. Of course I couldn’t lift it, so instead I went through it. It was as dark outside as it was in the theater, not that I cared. At least I wasn’t going to be trapped inside forever.

Could I move off the grounds? Apparently not. I got to the edge of the parking lot behind the theater, took one step past it, and found myself back on the stage where I’d started. Sucky, yeah, but at least I wasn’t pinned to the spot where I’d died.

How can I find out who killed me? Eavesdrop on everyone? I sincerely doubted whoever it was would be bragging about it.

“It has to be someone who works here, though,” I said aloud, needing to hear the sound of a human voice. Well, once human, but still a voice, in my own ears. “I don’t see some visitor to the theater knowing how to get up to the lighting bridge, or knowing I was up there if they did. Someone would have noticed them if they were wandering around, and sent them on their way.”

I wondered who knew I was working on the lights. Practically everyone who was at the theater two days ago, as far as I could figure. After all, I was hanging them and then checking to make certain each light hit where it was supposed to. The cast for the upcoming show had been rehearsing all morning, so I had taken advantage of the time when they went on their lunch break. Hindsight being what it is, I should have taken Ken up on his offer to help me. He was one of the other guys on the lighting crew. But no-o-o. I had to tell him I was fine doing it on my own.

David had stopped me on my way up to the bridge to tell me, as he always did, to be careful. “I don’t want to find you in pieces on the stage floor. It would mess up our afternoon rehearsal,” he’d kidded.

I’d laughed. “Yeah. You need all you can get.” He smacked my ass, we hugged, then he took off. It was the last time I would ever touch him, hold him. “God damn it to hell, why me?” I paced back and forth across the stage.

Because I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I suppose. Was my killer waiting for one of us to go up there, or did he, or she, take advantage of the situation? Would they have killed someone else, some other way, if things had been different?

At that point in my musings, I remembered the almost fire in the costume shop, and Lydia and the trapdoor, and Pat and the ladder. What had seemed like nothing more than presumed carelessness on the part of various crew members, now took on a whole new meaning as far as I was concerned.

Did the same person who pushed me off the bridge set up those accidents as well? Any of the accidents had the potential to kill someone—even if they hadn’t. But why?

That was what I had to find out, one way or another, or I might not be the last victim.