Serial Experiment

Wilson had been worried about the apartment, he thought it would be awkward staying in a place that was so obviously stamped with a dead man’s presence. That sort of thing led people to see ghosts. But surveying the scene he realized that it likely wouldn’t be a problem at all. Tooth had left his stamp, but he had left it in the Read it and Weep, not here. If he hadn’t known that Tooth had lived here he would have suspected it had been abandoned. He set the box and the jar of peanuts down on the small table by the door and had a look around.

There were a few signs of life, of course. The bed was made in that haphazard sloppy way that people who live alone make the bed. It looked very familiar to Wilson, his own was made up in much the same way. The lavatory had a simple tub and a standing rack with a towel hanging from it, a small wooden shelf next to the tub held a plate with a half used bar of soap and a crumpled wash rag. He checked the pantry to see if there was any food slowly spoiling. He had not smelled anything, but it was good to stay on top of things. He was surprised to find an ice box, apparently equipped with a cold stone. That kind of enchantment was hard to come by, and very rare. Most people would have just had a refrigerator. Either the book business was far more lucrative than Wilson had been led to believe or Tooth had had an interesting past.

Other than the ice box Wilson had to admit that the place was a lot like his. The furniture seemed to be in better shape, for certain, but it was just as sparsely decorated. He and Tooth had more in common than he had previously thought. There would be no ghosts here. The closet in the bedroom held a small selection of shirts and pants, he remembered seeing a wash tub for the clothes in the kitchen, clothing options apparently not high on Tooth’s list of priorities, as well as a chest of personal items. The apartment may as well have been a suite at a hotel. It was where Tooth ate, slept, and bathed, but it wasn’t where he had lived.

Wilson began to sit down at the little table to ruffle through the box when he remembered that he had passed another door by the top of the stairs before he had entered the apartment, and began to wonder what it was. Possibly a storage room? He went over to the door to check but found it locked. He fished around on the key ring and found one to match the door, and opened it up. He was met with two surprises. The first was that the room beyond the door was not a storeroom at all, it appeared to be a bedroom. The second was that it was occupied.