Earlier that Month

Walking out of a twenty-four seven diner at dawn with a cup holder, Jake handed his receipt to the homeless man sitting outside.

“They said it should be about ten to fifteen minutes,” he told the man, placing the receipt into the cup by his side.

The man nodded. “Thank you, Sir.”

Jake headed back to his truck. The seventeen footer with a box on the back was parked in the middle of the diner’s lot, ready to be filled with junk. He opened the passenger side door. His co-worker, Ernie, wasted no time reaching over for his cup of coffee as he got in.

“You bought that homeless guy breakfast?” Ernie asked.

Jake put on his seat belt. “Yeah.”

“You do that often?”

“No, I only hunt down homeless people and buy them food on holidays,” he joked.

“So what’s got you doing it today?”

Jake shrugged. “I just felt like it.”

Ernie put the car in drive. “You think it’s going to make a difference?”

Jake didn’t think so. If a few hot meals alone were going to save this guy, then he doubted the man would have become homeless in the first place. Still, he felt much better trying to do something instead of just walking by and feeling helpless.

“Yeah, I feel you, man,” Ernie said, pulling out of the diner’s driveway. “Sometimes I start feeling bad for them too. Then I start thinking about how much I’m spending on my kids and I’m like ‘Damn, these kids about to make me homeless too.’”

Jake almost spat out some of his coffee.

“Thanks for the coffee by the way,” Ernie said, watching his co-worker choke.

Jake gave him a knowing look. “You going to pay me back?”

Ernie made a face. “Nah, that’s your donation to my kids’ college fund.”

“The politicians are already lying to me about where my money is going, Ernie. I don’t need you lying to me too.”

They both started laughing. After over a year of being assigned the same jobs, Jake and Ernie couldn’t call each other friends, but they both could admit they enjoyed working together.

The two of them were junk haulers. While others rested and the world was still coated in grey, they drove down the early morning roads, heading towards an assignment from dispatch. As per usual, there would only be one stop for the duo. This time, they were supposed to be emptying out an apartment in the city’s downtown area.

Arriving at their destination, they couldn’t help but feel an aura of abandonment. The apartment they’d be clearing out belonged to a large four-story building with over fifty residences, but they found its gated parking lot completely empty. Same for the parking on the street surrounding the building. This place was deserted to the point of being ominous.

“How long you want to bet he’s been dead for?” Ernie asked, pulling their truck into the building’s vacant parking lot.

“Dispatch didn’t say anything about the person living here being dead,” Jake replied. He eyed the back entrance of the building and spotted a young woman who looked to be in her early twenties standing on the small walkway leading up to it. Noticing the growl of their truck, she looked up from her phone and waved at them. However small, her presence gave a feeling of life to the otherwise desolate block of concrete.

“You think they’d be sending you if someone hadn’t died?” Ernie asked.

Jake huffed. “Fair point.” He didn’t like that it had practically become policy though.

Ernie parked their truck in front of the back entrance walkway and they stepped out. The young woman smiled at them as they approached. “Junkman’s Junk Disposal Services,” Ernie said, taking the lead. “Here for Apartment Number 305?”

The young woman almost managed to say something before cutting herself off with a cough. Immediately, she reached into her purse and pulled out an inhaler Jake thought looked a touch off. The device had a window on its side through which a strange looking blue liquid was visible. She pulled one breath from it before pulling something up on her phone. “Sorry. Ernie and Jake, right?” she asked, reading from a service invoice.

“Right,” Ernie said.

“Evelynn.” She offered them both a handshake in turn. Ignoring the coughing fit, she had quite the inviting aura to her. “I’ll lead you guys up to the apartment,” she said, turning towards the entrance. Upon unlocking the lobby’s door, she led them straight towards the waiting elevator.

“Everyone got moved out?” Ernie asked as they stepped into the elevator. Obviously, he was curious about what appeared to be a vacated sixty-four unit apartment building. Jake was too.

“Almost,” Evelynn replied. “This is the last one.”

“Why’d everyone have to leave?” Neither Jake nor Ernie would believe it if she told them the tenants all just up and decided they wanted to live somewhere else. Unless—

“The company I’m here for, paid everyone to end their leases early,” she replied. “They wanted a fresh start after buying this place.”

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“Which company?” Jake asked.

“Waldermann.”

The elevator grinded to a halt on the third floor and the trio stepped out into a long corridor. There were sixteen apartments in total connected to the hall with an exit leading to a stairwell on each end. The odd numbered apartments were set on one side of the hallway facing the front of the building and the even numbered rooms sat on the other side facing the back.

They walked towards Apartment Number 305, footsteps echoing along the way. Reaching the appropriate door, Evelynn came to a stop and pulled out a key. She opened the door to an adequately sized living and dining area with an attached kitchen and a hallway presumably leading towards the bedrooms.

“Two bedrooms, two baths, shared living and dining area with in unit washer and dryer,” Evelynn said as she stepped in. “You guys can leave the washer and dryer behind.”

Jake and Ernie scanned the living and dining area as they walked in. The residences they visited experienced varying states of order and tragic disorder and this one was among the tidiest. Fairly quickly, Jake’s eyes locked onto a table set against the wall. He was drawn to what he recognized as medals bestowed by the military. Amongst them he noticed what looked to be a bronze star and purple heart.

Besides the awards, there were framed pictures and documents. Draft papers dating back to the 1960s addressed to a Howard F. Singleton sat beside a mother’s letter thanking those responsible for saving her son’s life. There was a picture of twelve young men in uniform sitting across the table from a picture of three old men at a reunion. A photo of Singleton wearing his uniform both young and old sat across from each other as well.

“All the other apartments are completely emptied out?” Ernie asked. He was probably wondering if they’d be getting called back to empty out a few more.

“Yep,” Evelynn replied. “This is the only one we’re going need you guys for.”

“How come this one wasn’t emptied out with the rest?’ Jake asked.

“Everyone else agreed to get bought out of their lease. The tenant here just didn’t want to leave.”

Ernie took a quick look into the kitchen. “So you ended up having to wait out the lease?”

Evelynn appeared a bit hesitant. “Uh… Actually, no.”

Ernie put up a hand. “Don’t tell me. He’s dead?”

“That appears to be the case.” She looked regretful having to say it.

Ernie turned to Jake with an extra-wide smile on his face like being right about this was something to be proud of.

“We already had someone clear out the body and everything in contact with it,” Evelynn explained. “It’s not going to be a problem is it?”

Ernie shook his head. “No. We’ve kind of become the go to guys for this.”

While they were talking, Jake had wandered over to the dining table. Unlike the rest of the apartment, it was a bit of a mess. There was one stack of organized papers and the rest of the table was covered in a sea of scattered pages. What was particularly odd were the messages written upon them.

“They’re already here,” Jake said, reading aloud the short message printed atop the stacked papers. He flipped through a few more of the pages in the stack. All of them had short messages printed in red ink.

They’ll kill you.

You’re going to die.

You’re not safe here anymore.

Just take the money.

It was slight, but something between tension and confusion grew within him. “What is all of this?” he asked Evelynn.

“Those are the notes Mr. Singleton left behind before he started acting strange,” she said, walking over.

“Acting strange?” Jake asked.

“The previous landlord said he started acting crazy back in May. Apparently he accused the landlord of sliding these notes under his door and sneaking them into the apartment.”

“Did he?”

She shrugged. “They took it to the police and the police said the only one with any fingerprints on the notes was Mr. Singleton.”

“I’m going to go check out the bedrooms,” Ernie said, pointing towards the apartment’s hallway. Apparently, he could care less about the man who had died there. Evelynn followed after him, but Jake eyed one more note on the table before doing the same. Unlike the papers in the stack, the pages scattered atop the table were photocopies of handwritten notes written with black ink.

To Whoever Ends Up Reading This,

Beware the strangers dressed in shadow.

Definitely crazy, he thought, turning away from the table. Going from saving lives to writing paranoid notes? It was best to say that Jake was disappointed. It was a sad thing to watch someone wither away and unfortunately for him that was something he had plenty of experience with.

He came into the hallway that led into the bedrooms after Evelynn and Ernie. The hallway contained four doors in total: two for the bedrooms, one for a storage closet, and one for a bathroom.

Opening the door to the first bedroom, it was immediately clear to Jake and Ernie that this was not the room Mr. Singleton had been staying in. The four-post bed had a pink comforter, the dresser had a vanity mirror and was covered with women’s beauty products, and the picture on the nightstand was of a woman who looked to be in her thirties.

“Is someone else living here?” Ernie asked, a confused look on his face as he slid open the sliding door to a closet filled with women’s clothes.

“If there is, they haven’t shown up to pay the rent or wish Singleton goodbye,” Evelynn said.

“Heh, fair enough.” And that was that. They checked the dresser and found it was full with clothes just like the closet. That wasn’t a problem, they just wanted an idea of how heavy everything they’d be moving around would end up being.

After taking some quick glances into the hallway’s bathroom and storage closet, which was mostly filled with survival products, they headed into the master bedroom. “Uh-oh,” Ernie said as he stepped into the room. There were three things of particular note in Mr. Singleton’s room: his work desk, a metallic drawer, and what had to be a gun safe.

Just like the dining table, the work desk was covered with unorganized notes. Ernie didn’t pay it any mind and headed straight for the safe and the metallic drawer. “We don’t do firearms disposal,” he said, knocking the safe’s side.

The safe’s door appeared to be already unlocked, so Evelynn walked up and opened it. There weren’t any guns inside, just a black box and a note left on top of it. She knelt down and read said note aloud. “To whoever ends up reading this, I took the guns with me.”

“Didn’t know they let you bring guns to heaven,” Jake said sarcastically. He opened the metallic drawers by the safe’s side and found empty foam cutouts for an assortment of combat knives, an axe, and few other tools that scream ‘the best form of self-defense is the one that involves me killing you.’ “What’s in the box?” he asked.

“Probably a bomb,” Ernie said, casually leaning on the safe’s door. Evelynn stopped midway through sliding off the box’s cover and looked at him. “It was a joke.” He started waving his hand. “You can still open it. I don’t actually think he did anything.”

She slowly finished lifting off the cover.

“Phew!” Ernie gave a joking breath of relief. Placed on top of the rest of the box’s contents was another note.

“To whoever ends up reading this, our quote unquote friend told me you’d be coming. She told me to leave this here for you. It’s everything you need to get started on finding the truth.”

As she spoke, Jake looked inside the black box. He found a flat metallic container with four sunken spaces. One of the spaces was empty while the others held three metallic black bands. One for each of them.