Cutscene
“There’s a safe here!” Lexi exclaimed upon removing the painting from the wall.
“Uh yeah, there usually is,” responded Shade.
“Well now what?” Lexi said, defeated.
“Now we open the safe,” Shade said removing her bag and bringing out a bunch of tools.
Lexi just sat back and watched, totally mesmerized as Shade worked on opening the safe, or at least appearing to know what she was doing. As the time passed by Lexi became bored and found a comfortable chair and eventually dozed off. She was awakened by Shade nudging her arm.
“I did it,” Shade said. Lexi noticed a hint of surprise in her tone.
“Have you looked inside?” Lexi asked.
“Nope, we are going to look inside together,” Shade said proudly.
They walked up to the slightly open safe and opened it all the way. Lexi was a little disappointed that there wasn’t any victory music or shimmering lights as they revealed their trophy. The safe contained what would otherwise have appeared to be items of little interest to them: stacks of papers and a box. Unsure of what it all was they decided to take everything.
Shade was all ready to go when Lexi said, “Wait, we should get his computer or something, shouldn’t we?”
“Yeah, but let’s hurry. We’ve been here way too long,” Shade said, slightly panicked. As they roamed around the house they didn’t see a laptop but they did find the office with a huge desktop. “There is no way we can carry that back without attracting attention,” Shade said.
“I know,” Lexi said, a little bummed out. “Let’s at least hide it in case those other people come here.”
“Fine,” said Shade exasperated, “but take a picture of the back of it first so if we are able to come back we can hook it up again.”
“Good idea,” Lexi said pleased with Shade. “I knew there was a reason I brought you along.”
“Can it, smart ass, and just get it done,” Shade said. Lexi took a photo of the computer’s power cord configuration, unhooked everything, and found a remote location in the house to hide the tower.
“Okay, let’s go,” Lexi said. Soon after, they were out of the house and on the way back to the morgue.
Opening Credits
Back at the morgue Lexi and Shade unpacked the box and all the paperwork and began going through it. “What are we looking for?” Shade asked.
“Instructions,” remarked Lexi.
“Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” snarked Shade. “Here what about these?”
“I do believe you have found them, my dear Watson,” said Lexi.
“Why am I Watson? If anything I should be Sherlock,” snapped Shade.
“You? I have the brains and the looks. If anyone’s Sherlock it’s me.” Lexi stuck her tongue out at Shade and Shade responded by punching Lexi on the arm, hard. Rubbing her arm, Lexi looked over the instructions and compared them with the mask.
“Okay.”
“Okay?” replied Shade, “Okay what?”
“Okay, I think I understand how this works. Let’s try it out and see… Ummm, why don’t you go sit over there and I’ll put this on you.”
Shade cut in, “You are crazy if you think I’m going to let you put that on me first. Why don’t you go sit down and –”
“Me?” replied Lexi. “Not me.”
“Well, then who?” asked Shade. They both looked around in thought. Suddenly it dawned on them at the same time.
“THE GUY IN THE FREEZER!!!”
“But should we?” asked Shade.
“Why not? It’s his invention. I’m sure he would be honored to be our test subject,” Lexi said nobly.
“You have a weird way of finding loopholes in morality,” Shade said.
“You’re just jealous,” Lexi replied.
“Of what?” Shade asked.
“Me, of course,” and with that, Lexi opened the freezer and pulled out the dead guy’s table. “So here we go. Just going to put the mask on like this and push this button first, and then this one, and then I think it is this one.”
“YOU THINK?!” Shade yelled.
“Yes, I think. Anyway, it’s too late now. I guess we will just have to wait and see if it worked.” A few minutes passed and the light from the mask faded down. Lexi and Shade looked at one other in anticipation. “Ready?” asked Lexi.
“No,” replied Shade.
“Good, here we go. On three… One… Two… Three.” Lexi pulled the mask up and the dead man’s face was gone. “We did it!” exclaimed Lexi. Shade just looked at the man with no face, now puzzled by how it worked and shocked that it actually did. Lexi walked over to Shade and lowered her hands. “How exciting is this?” Lexi said. Just then, they heard the sound of a wet splat on the floor. Lexi and Shade looked down and jumped back with a gasp.
The man’s face was on the floor.
“I’m not sure that was suppose to happen,” Shade said as she and Lexi both leaned in to get a look at the oddity on the floor in front of them. The eye and mouth jumped open. Lexi and Shade jumped back, screaming, pushing themselves as far away from the face as they could. When they couldn’t go any further they both started laughing uncontrollably for the next few minutes.
“Well, that is something you don’t see everyday,” Shade said. “I think I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life now.”
“I feel like there’s a good pun here that I’m missing. Oh well, I’m sure it’ll come to me in a few days or so,” Lexi said. “Um, I guess we now try to remove the face from the floor.”
“Sounds good to me,” Shade said. “I’ll go get the mop.”
“Funny. But we need to put it back on that guy before his autopsy tomorrow.” Lexi said.
“Great. Nothing like a deadline when have no idea what you’re doing,” Shade said.
“Well, first things first: put the mask on the face on the floor and suck it up,” Lexi said.
“Suck it up?” Shade asked.
“Well, I figured it worked like a vacuum. You know, suck the face up and blow it on,” Lexi said with a straight face. Shade was nearly rolling on the floor from how hard she was laughing at that point. Lexi was confused and tried replaying what she said in her mind until she reached what she figured Shade was laughing about. “Oh grow up and help me suck face.” That comment made Shade laugh even harder. “I can see you are going to be tons of help right now.”
With that Lexi placed the mask over the face, pushed the buttons, and hoped for the best. When the lights went off she picked up the mask and the face was gone from the floor. Walking back to the table with the frozen guy, and stepping over her incapacitated giggling partner along the way, she placed the mask on the dead guy, glanced at the instructions, and pressed the corresponding buttons. Shade calmed down and was able to stand up. She made her way over to the table with Lexi just as she was removing the mask. Shade looked down at the dead guy and immediately fell down laughing again. Lexi, who was watching Shade, moved her eyes over to the dead guy and started laughing as well.
“Well that certainly isn’t right,” Lexi said as she looked at the man who now had a mouth on his forehead and eyes on his chin. “This is going to take some time to get used to.” An hour passed and between all of the laughing and mishaps they finally got the man’s face somewhat back in the correct-ish place. “It’s close enough,” Lexi said. “I can’t deal with this or your laughing anymore. During my autopsy tomorrow I’ll just say it’s botched plastic surgery and leave it at that. Now, off my floor and out of my morgue, Miss Giggles. I need sleep.”
“I’ll come by after the autopsy tomorrow,” Shade said as she left.
Lexi put the body back in the freezer, washed up and got into her bed in her secret room. She closed her eyes and was preparing to drift off to sleep when her alarm went off. “Of course it would be time to get up.” She got up, put on coffee, took a shower, and began the autopsy for the police who would be by later that morning.
—
Lexi had just finished the autopsy when the police arrived and began asking her the standard questions about what happened. She could tell they were trying hard not to look at the guys face, and that made her chuckle a little. She informed them that it was a heart attack and that there was no evidence of foul play involved. One of the officers then asked her if she was able to identify the man. This threw her off as this was not normally part of the questioning. She had no idea, and the thought crossed her mind that if they didn’t know, maybe no one else knew. It’s quite possible the guys who broke in the night before didn’t know what the man looked like, but knew a name and that’s why so much of her office was in shambles. They needed proof that wasn’t there, at least not at the time. The police officers then tried to get the man’s fingerprints, but when they ran his fingers over the paper it was just a smudge.
“What’s the deal?” one of the officers asked her. She looked closely at the man’s hand and was shocked at what she discovered.
“His fingerprints have been removed,” She told them.
“What? That can’t be,” the officer said as he picked up a hand and examined it.
“But it is, and it appears he’s been doing it for a very long time. His fingers are all calloused and scared. I will try a dental match but that will take some time; however, if someone has gone through the process of removing his fingerprints, then chances are the dental records aren’t going to be there either. You might just have to wait to see if someone reports him missing.”
“I guess you’re right,” the officer said. “Since it isn’t a murder, there really isn’t a rush. Can you keep him here a while longer?”
“Sure,” Lexi said, “but how long is a while?”
“A week, two at most, but if three comes around that means we have probably forgotten about the body and you can dispose of it,” the man said with a straight face.
“No problem,” Lexi said as she followed the group of police officers out of the morgue. “No problem at all.”