Dubious Mystery Tour

First Death

For Christmas season of 2011 only:  The edited version of this book is available for free on Smashwords until Jan. 2012 GMT-08:00. use the code EV58W at check out. The code is not case sensitive.

This guy is just like other adults. They will not accomplish their own darn tasks themselves and assign the tasks to others. What I do not get though is why this guy started this already. I thought we had three days.

After the briefing, the butler showed us all off to our rooms.

Most of the members got a room on the second floor. I know because I saw them go in through doors with a golden, curved handle, but my thoughts were trying to calculate what was really going. Most mystery tours started on time, but not early like this very tour did. Those thoughts distracted me from seeing what the layout of each room was like, even the very corridor I was walking through.

Eventually, I was the only person remaining and the butler opened the door to my room.

My room had red, stone flooring and bed that could easily fit two people draped with blue sheets and blue pillows. To my right, there was a bathroom, which I could utilize to get ready for the days activities. To my left, there was a window that had a view of the front courtyard, which I had been in only a few moments ago.

Something seems weird. The promoter is up to something. Otherwise, this whole thing would not have started today.

Instead of dwelling on the details, I took off my shoes and socks, which revealed my pink feet, which were as pink as human skin.

The next day, I woke up to blurry vision. I thought that sleeping would help ease the feelings of suspicion, but that was not the case.

In the bathroom, the red, stone flooring persisted. To the right of the door, there was a light brown countertop with two sinks resting on top that appeared to be made of gold. The faucets appeared to be in the shape and appearance of bald eagle heads, which were also made out of gold. Behind the sinks, there was a giant mirror that stretched from one end of the counter to the other that had to be at least ten feet. The mirror’s frame was made of platinum, but like many other things made in platinum, it could easily be mistaken as a silver border. To the left of the door, which was now directly behind me, there was a toilet that seemed to be the same measurements of the average toilets found in middle class homes, as well as looked the part. However, the handle to flush it looked like the tail end of a stingray that had been painted white. Directly in front of the door, when walking in, there was a shower with a curtain that was made of silk colored blue. The showerhead looked like the average showerhead found in middle class homes, just like the toilet. As for the door itself, it had the same appearance of the front door to the place, but it was a single door variant.

There are thirteen people here, which is too many people for this to be exactly like Agatha Christie’s work. The events of that one took no more than ten full days for everyone to have been killed, due to the fact that at least one person died each day. The other difference is that the promoter spoke to us live through an intercom, whereas it was a recording in Christie’s work. Is this really a copycat case? It is not unheard of for a criminal to simulate the events of a work of fiction they enjoyed, after all.

All I can say though is that we were definitely not brought here to solve that case.

I brushed the bang of my dark blonde hair back, which messed up my hair even more that what the bed had already done to it. The green but hazel eyes underneath reflected back towards me through the mirror. A thin, black jacket covered my blue shirt and was complemented with white shorts.

After I finished getting dressed, I open the door to the corridor and took a stroll through it, in order to try and clear my head of the matter. The floor of the corridor was wooden with a green paint job. On the walls to my left, there were windows that were spaced about five feet apart separated by more green wood. The windows themselves were opaque enough to make everything outside appear to be yellow. The door too each room were not as consistently spaced as the windows, due to the fact that each room varied in size, but they all looked like the doors I saw the previous night with the golden, curved handle. Those doors were brown though and these doors were red. Separating the doors, there were numerous amounts of artwork that people in the art industry would have definitely recognized, but I did pay attention to exactly what they looked like because my mind was still focused on the strangeness of a half million dollar reward and the fact that the case mentioned seemed too new to be labeled a cold case.

Suddenly, I heard a scream from the floor below. I ran straight in the direction I was originally heading and found two flights of stairs made of steel.

Because I was heading so fast, I did not have enough time to pay attention to the details of exactly how things looked on my way down the stairs.

A few minutes later, I reached the bottom of the second staircase. To my left, there was a corridor that looked exactly the same as the one that I was in a few moments before. The main difference was the color of the doors was brown, which told me that is was definitely the second floor corridor that I had walked through last night.

Quite a ways down the corridor, I spotted the shapes of two people that obviously were overcome by fear, but I could not tell exactly who they were or what they looked like from my position close the stairs.

Best detectives my foot! They did not see this coming with everything that was presented yesterday. I guess that I better check things out, in case I am wrong about what they are so frightened about. At the same time, I doubt that I am wrong that things have finally started.

After running for a while, I reached two frightened tour members. The room that they were looking at was the middle door of the entire floor. The room seemed to have the same setup as my own room even the flooring was the same. On the ground, there was a skull that appeared to have recently been skinned with marks that it had been cut off from its host’s body. The two that were showing frightened expressions were the two people that sat next to me the previous day.

“Why are you so calm? Did you do this, you JERK? I bet you did!” yelled the girl.

“Half a million dollars and a fresh case that supposedly went cold. Don’t you find that strange?” I asked in reply.

“Don’t change the subject! We know you killed her!”

“Why would I kill somebody I just met yesterday with the two of you? Besides, jumping to conclusions will pretty much guarantee that you will not solve your problems and may end up dead yourselves.”

“The guilty are always calm at a crime scene, if they don’t run from the scene. They just act surprised to be thought of as innocent.”

“Police investigators also have to be calm. An investigator who can’t handle the sight of a body may not be able to see the truth, even if it were right under their nose.”

“Who are you?” asked the man that was beside her.”

“I am only a high school student. That is the only thing that anyone needs to know.”

The girl continued to eye me suspiciously but her companion’s eyes showed a different kind of suspicion. It was the kind that seemed to suggest that he knew that I was no ordinary kid.

I looked back into the room, trying to figure out where the body was located, but none was spotted. The only thing that was visible was a message that was located below the skull. The message was written in blood in the same fashion as the clichéd bloody message on the wall. It read:

You are not one to be trifled with are you? I know that you will see this after this victim’s team members find her. Due to that fact, kid, I challenge you to find me before the twelve remaining people here, which includes the two of us, die and give me your answer to the case I presented.

I smirked, knowing that the promoter just sealed his fate as somebody involved with the particular case presented. He might not be any of the three at the table that did not die, but he or she definitely revealed himself or herself as a member of the tour. With one gone, that made eleven suspects, since the message was obviously directed towards me and I certainly had evidence that I did not have a split personality.

I looked out through the window that overlooked the front courtyard towards the vast ocean that surrounded the island.

You definitely have something to gain from that murder. Otherwise, you would not have had a good reason to kill a tour member. The truth is that you want this case remained unsolved, so you looked for people that were more competent than law enforcement officials. Many are definitely here due to greed.