Part IV, Chapter I - Calendar

I went to the station with my friend Jane and slammed my paperwork on the boss' desk. He was hunched down writing something on a paper that he barely saw my feet.

"What the fuck?" he looked up. "I thought you were officer Heinz for a second. Y'know him, always slamming papers on desks"

"I'll be in my office waiting for a case" I claimed "Or is there already a pile of shit on my desk?

"I haven't checked. Where have you been all morning? I had to send Peter and you know he's from a different precinct"

"Oh, you know, I did what people my age do when they're home alone"

"Hae a mental breakdown alone in their bedroom?"

"Something like that, yeah"

I walked to my office. Jane continued to follow without saying a word. There was one file on my slightly dusty desk. I opened it to find a paper with the lyrics of a song:

"Put another X on the calendar"

I looked up to see the calendar in my office had a maroon bold X marked on the date tomorrow 6th of August 2018. Behind the paper was a message: JR WR WKH FRIIHH VKRS

"Jane, what can you crack from this?" I asked

"I have no idea but" she answeresd "That coding format looks familiar. It looks like a code from a cartoon that aired on Disney and ended back in 2016 that had codes at the end during the credits in every episode. My cousin had an obsession with it and spent half a day cracking codes on his coffee table. I never cared to understand it and didn't have time to watch the show, I think I may have missed out on something spectacular"

"Let's go see your cousin"

"Alright, We'll take the car i've been saving to give to you. I warn you though, he's insane. Like, mental institute insane"

"How do you get new cars quickly?"

"I will explain later"

We reached her garage and upon opening the garage doors, there was a car under a sheet. She pulled it off and in my surprise revealed a bright black 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am that reflected like a diamond.

"What do you think?" asked my friend.

"This is the same type of car David Hasselhoff talked to" I said, rubbing it.

"Too bad this one doesn't talk back. Here, you drive, i'll direct you to his house" she tossed me the keys and I did not manage to catch it. We arrived at her cousin's house that was not that far.

"Remember, he is insane" Jane remarked.

"You're the one who flew us out of a windshield" I reminded.

A man opened the door before any of us could knock.

"James!" she cheered before giving him a hug. He was as tall as me and wore sky-blue pyjamas.

"It's been so long" he laughed. He seemed to have almost the same personality as Jane, who claimed he was insane. He looked behind us and asked

"Is that KITT from Knight Rider?"

"That's not why we're here. We need your help" said I.

We sat together surrounding his coffee table.

"Can you crack this code?" I handed out the paper. "Jane said its format looked like that of the codes from a show you watched"

"Oh yes!" he agreed "Gravity Falls, man, I miss that show. Luckily, I have a copy of all every episode including the shorts on DVD. Care to watch with me?"

"No time, we need this code cracked"

"Well, that's easy. You go three letters back from each letter. For example, take this 'J' and go three letters back, now we have a 'G'. It's that simple. You try, here's a pen and a paper"

I did as he said and cracked the code which revealed to be "Go to the coffee shop"

"I got it!" I raised the paper. "Thank you, i'll watch the show with you when-slash-if I survive. Come Jane, not a moment to lose!"

"Is he your boyfriend?" I heard him ask Jane and saw, from my friend's face, that she was offended.

"No, he's just my friend and detective partner"

"Doesn't change the fact that he's a boy and a friend"

I told him to shut up, for, I was offended as well. He apologized. We arrived at the coffee shop and sat down waiting for something to happen. There were only five or six customers including us.

"You guys are here too?" a familiar voice called out. Peter Rutherford sat with us.

"What are you doing here?" asked Jane.

"I was summoned here by this very letter from the crime scene earlier this morning" he pulled out a letter, unfolded it, and showed it to us.

"Hello Peter" it said in printed words "Go to the coffee shop"

"We had to crack a code to get here" I implied "And you get a simple message?"

"Oh please, whoever sent us here is probably playing with us" theorized Peter. "So now what?"

"We wait, good thing this crap is opened 24/7"

Peter nodded in agreement and ordered three cups of coffees. Jane and I had a race to see who finishes first while Peter watched, worried. Jane finished first and yelled "I am the Goddess of coffee!" waving her hands. I finished nearly five seconds after her.

"Where did you get that funny mask, Peter?" she asked, laughing.

"What mask?" he asked. I looked and he was, indeed, not wearing a mask.

"When did you color your hair?" I asked Jane.

"What the devil are you on about? Jane's hair is still jet-black" Peter pointed out and upon realization, spit out his coffee "Excuse me, mister?" he called one of the employees "What's in this coffee?"

"Peter" said Jane whose voice is now smooth and twisty like a drunk person "Would you like another cup?"

My vision blurred and my hearing started to fade, but not enough that I managed to hear the rest of the conversation.

"The coffee" I heard the employee "Contains caffeine"

"No shit, Sherlock" laughed Jane.

"Other than caffeine?" asked Peter in a drunk voice.

"Serotonin, I think. Or did I put too much? I also added a mix of chloroform smell, or something? I don't really remember because I don't really care" his voice got louder that gave me the impression that he was now closer to my hearing and was talking to me.

"Sir?" he asked "Sir, you should be careful when drinking pretty much anything, you'll never know if something is wrong. Here sir, have a delicious cupcake" he placed a blurry cupcake infront of me as I sank on my arms. Jane and Peter had their heads laying on the table.

"Let's make this even more challenging" he whispered to my ears as everything slowly faded to black. "Don't worry, I won't kill you yet"

Everything was dark, then I started hearing voices.

"Put another X on the Calendar" the voice sang.

"Summer's on its death bed.

There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends. Brother, please sing with me!"

I looked behind to see myself in third-person sitting on the sofa back home with my sister on the left.

"I don't know the lyrics"

"I'll write it down for you and you better memorize it" she paused the song and stood up to look for a pen and paper. I followed trying to hug her but, on my next footstep I was on her open grave holding a shovel at midnight. It was the time I buried her.

"Do you remember how I died?" she asked behind me. I turned around to face her.

"You didn't die that time I buried you" I answered. "The video, the corpse under our house. I thought you were dead before"

"This is your fight, brother, not mine. Do you remember what I asked you before that night?"

"You didn't ask me anything. You said something but didn't ask. It was a simple 'Goodnight' because it was bedtime"

"I asked you something before that" she claimed "I asked you something before saying goodnight. Do you remember how I died?"

"Your scream woke me up, it was 11:49pm. I rushed to your bedroom and found a corpse"

"And there was something else. Do you remember?"

"You're asking too much about remembering something!"

"You know it's really not me asking. It's you. This is your mind, after all. I think he's out"

"What?" the last sentence confused me "Who's out?"

"Wake him up, hurry, Peter!" the voice faded to Jane's. I opened my eyes and I was back in the coffee shop. The cupcake was intact, and the time on the wall clock said it was 11:55pm.

"He's up" exclaimed Peter.

"Pen and paper now!" I cried. Jane was alarmed enough to immediately grab her notepad and pen and handed it to me. I wrote down everything I must remember from the dream. My head spun around.

"Cupcake was here"

"We know" exclaimed Jane.

"What are you writing? Who's Cupcake?" asked Peter.

"I had a dream, wait no, I was travelling through my memories. I think I was lucid dreaming and the only thing in my mind was Emily" I said quickly.

"Who's Emily?"

"His little sister" answered Jane.

"You have a sister?"

"Had" I corrected, writing fast. I finished listing down what I must remember before they all faded away.

"Oh, i'm sorry. What happened? asked Peter

"No time to explain. Just know that this is all happening because of her death, the man who wibbled with our coffee was Cupcake. The cupcake!" I exclaimed.

"What about it? i'm sorry, i'm confused"

The thin wrapper of the cupcake had words visible. I unwrapped it to find a message "Suicide or murder? accident?" was written.

"Sounds like the thing we had on our first case together" mentioned Peter.

"What was his name again? David?" asked Jane. "Check if there's an address"

I did as she suggested. No address or anything else were printed. The only words were "Suicide or murder? Accident?"

"If the only direction this is leading to is David's accidental death, as William solved" said Peter "Then we must go to his house again"

I nodded in agreement.

Jane and I travelled by my new car, Peter took a taxi. We arrived by 12:20am. It was now the 6th of August. The house was now for sale with a sign that says so in the front, and all the lights were turned off. The door was locked.

"Let me" said Peter, picking the door lock. He successfully unlocked the door and led us inside, turning on the lights.

"Didn't know you could pick locks" said I. "Let's separate. Jane, you check the living room upstairs, I will take the bedroom or bedrooms on the same floor, and Peter, you check the living room and kitchen down here"

We took off to our given positions. There were two bedrooms, although, the man lived alone. The first one I opened was empty but still looked around. There was nothing, not even a hidden compartment. I checked the next bedroom, this one was not empty. The bed touched the opposte sides of two walls and did not face the door but it was touching the wall and made it easy to see the through the window, there was a desk drawer next to it with a lamp placed above, and a cabinet next to the desk drawer. First I checked under the bed, it was empty with nothing but dust bunnies, next, was the desk drawer which was filled with mail but, upon checking, all were not from Cupcake. I even checked under the lamp shade. And the cabinet was empty, nothing out of the ordinary. I walked out to find Jane.

"Anything?" I asked.

"Nothing so far" answered she. "You found nothing, I perceive"

I walked back to the bedrooms to see if I missed anything. I did not. I touched the walls and climbed the floor, I even went underneath the bed. Nothing!

The thumping of footsteps rushed up through the stairs.

"I found something!" cried Peter. He held a small white envelope with a giant "C" on the back. He opened it.

" 'Summer's on its death bed' " Peter read to us "Isn't this a song part of that Panic! at the Disco song?"

"It was one of her favorites" said I "The Calendar. She even told me to memorize it so we could sing together. But in Cupcake's case, he's using it to make riddles. The next one will probably say 'There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends' "

" 'Summer's on his death bed' " repeated Peter. "Death bed. Summer?"

"Summer can also be a name" I exclaimed.

"Shit!"

"What? what's wrong?"

"That's my wife's name!"

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「「Yes, William, do you remember? - Cupcake」」