Often the most perplexing mysteries have the simplest solutions, the most complex questions, the simplest answers. Sometimes we seek them long and hard only to find the solutions and the answers lie right before us. This line had helped Lake thoughout most of his life, as long as he knew this, there was realy nothing that he couldn't figure out. At least thats what he use to think. His mind was all over the place, how did he let a chipmunk he hardly knew, convince him to come look at a cold lifeless body for the rest of the afternoon. She sits over on a desk rummaging and stealing documents from a draw, and he's looking at some creepy body. It wasn't the first dead body Simon had looked at though he'd seen plenty of dead people. Last year in Spain, Sinders took him to see humanoid de corpes where they pretty much cut up dead people and put them up on display. The main reason he felt a bit weird wasn't because he was dragged into finding how a killer murderd a woman and leave with now trace. He didn't particulary like stoving over a cold corpes, but that wasn't why. Simon dredded to think he liked investigating a murder mystery, he seemed to like the challenge of slowly undoing the chain of events to find out what happend. It was almost he was in a Jonh Dickson Carr book. He finaly had something to test his mind on insted of riddles he finds in the back of newspapers. He felt a certain thrill and excitment about the crime, locked room mystery storys were his favorite. But that was a rather sick and horrible thing to feel.
A few whiles later Eleanor had finished raiding everything that wasn't bolted down and trotted over to Simon. "Sup, Sherlock." She said standing next to Simon. Eleanor joined Simon at staring at the body. Lake was chewing his tail and examining the two stab wonds on the body. "Get that out of your mouth!" Eleanor slaped Simon's tail. "Sorry mum" Simon went to have a closer look at the cuts. One on Mrs.Lincraft's stomach and another strait through the front her neck. "Hmmmm.." Simon said. "Hmmm? What does that mean?" Eleanor asked trying to make sence of what he was talking about. "It means Hmmmm" He stood up strait. "I don't know about you, but do these cuts look a bit...well blue?" Eleanor also had a close look at them both. The stabs where surounded by a blue mark. "Yea.. a bit cold aswell." She look at SImon." Well what does that tell you?" "Well Eleanor, that tells me that those wounds have been subjected to a coldness before the rest of the body did. You see lifeless bodys go cold after a while, you can see that by the paleness of the rest of the body." Eleanor finaly seemed to understand what Simon was talking about. She was just about to say something untill the door of the room flew open. At the door stood the lady who guided them into the room and the security guard, they look mad. "What did you say your names were again?" The lady asked them. Simon sighed and looked and Eleanor with his eyes squinted and a tight brow. Eleanor giggled nervously a bit. "Sorry Simon." Before they knew it, they where grabbed by the tails and thrown out of the complex quite harshly. "Well that was painful" Simon said picking himself off the hard ground and dusting his clothes. He turned to see if Eleanor had survided the landing. He couldn't see her anywhere. "Eleanor?" Simon called out a bit worried. "Painful?" was the responce Simon got from the trashbin next to him. "Painful for you mabey" Eleanor said emerging from the bin. Simon began to laugh. "Ha,ha,ha laugh it up magic boy." She lept down from the bin and removed some slime from her sholder. "Ill call thingy to come pick us up" Eleanor took out a small phone. Simon looked terrified. "No,no,nooo im not getting in that moblie coffin with that woman again. Im getting a cab." Both of them made their sepperate call and waited to be picked up. A few moments passed and Eleanor's phone began to beep. She began to read the text message she just got. "Well thats just great, she's been pulled over by the cops and can't make it." Simon raised one eyebrow. "Of all the people." He wistperd to himself. "Yea go ahed and joke again, I have got anyway to get home now." Simon felt a bit bad. "Look, you can stay at my place tonight if you what to." Eleanor let out a loud huff. "Well it loos like I don't have alot of choice."
The cab pulled up infront of them and they both jumped into the car and it went off. The trip back to Simon's windmill was a long one and gradualy fell into the night. A loud car horn woke Simon up who must have dosed off on the car trip. He wiped some eye crust from his face and began to jabb Eleanor with one of his claws. 'Wakey, wakey" Eleanor jolted up. "What?" She aslo fell asleep in the car and was in a state of confustion. "Where here." The cab driver opened up the car door so they could get out. Outside the sky was filled with dark clouds and nothing but blackness surrounded the chipmunks. When Simon had finished paying the dirver he rejoined Eleanor who was looking at the windmill. The place that Simon lived in gave off a almost depressing feeling. The wind picked up and caused the blades to rotate quickly. Both of them stood next to each other staring at the spining blades. Both of them felt the strange sadness that came from living in such an isolated location. Almost exiled from the rest of the world. "You really live here by yourself?" Eleanor asked Simon quietly. Simon nodded his head slightly. Second later a loud crack of thunder was heard and small drops of rain fell from the sky. Both of them rushed to the door step as hurricane-like winds span the windmill's blades more voilently then ever.
Just as the chipmunks retreted into the windmill, flashes of light pierced the dark room. The sounds of the rain aws the only thing to be heared from the outside world. Simon pulled a string which lit up the room to reveal the mystic chambers of Lakes house. Lake went on to fix the place up a bit like Eleanor wasn't there. "How do you mannage all by yourself?" Eleanor asked Simon who was throwing sticks and logs into the fire place. "I just do." where Simons only words. He walked over to a door, opend it and pulled out a tube like object. He walked over to the fire place and pointed the tube at the wood. SImon pulled a trigger and a gush of flames came from the tube and ignited the wood. Eleanor began to become familiar with her enviroment and walked around the windmill. She walked into the next room along, it seemed to be a study of some kind. The room had a single table in the back and was surrounded by book shelves. If he didn't have enough. Eleanor climed up the bookshelf onto the second level to a row of identical book, all of them blue. She took out the 5th one along, jumped down onto the desk. She looked behind herself to see if Simon was watching. He was still incinerating the wood in the fire place and was throwing what seemed to be alcohol on it. She began to flick though the pages, nothing of interest in them. Just old drawings of tricks, tour dates and income from the shows. She closed the book and was about to put it back when a picture fell out. Eleanor lokked around, Simon was still burning wood so she picked up the picture and held it up to the light. It was a photo with a very young Simon, he was playing with a rubber band and manages to get it tangled up around his fingers. Next to him was a woman who looked in her 20s, she was looking and smiling at Simons struggle with her bleached white hair covering one eye. Simon began to talk from the other room "Well i might as well show you to you room now." Eleanor began to panic a bit. She put the photo back in the book and jumped to the shelf. Insted of putting it back where she got it, it was pushed into a small gap at the end of the same row of books. "There, its like i never touched it" Eleanor thought to herself. At that point Simon enterd the room. He saw Eleanor up with the books. "Incase you wondering, there is 4296 book in this room." Eleanor hopped down. "Oh thanks, you just saved me along time on counting". Simon looked up at the identical blue books. He twisted his face. "Hmmmm.." He leaped up to the row and pulled out the book Eleanor was looking at. "I tought id.." He said to himself quitely. He began to drag his finger along the books counting and placed the book back in the 5th place where it was before. "Oh he would just know." Eleanor though to herself.
Simon guided Eleanor back into the living room. "Right, here's the key and your room is up the stairs. Left at my room. I think." Eleanor grabbed the ring of the key and dragged it upstairs with her. Simon was still trying to get a fire started but has no such luck. He contemplated his predicament and thought of only one solution for it. Napalm. He went into the kitchen to conjure up the flamiable substance. He glued it all over the wood and set it alight. The fire was a bit more intence than he had anticipated. The fire exploded and left a nice black smudge over his glasses. He began to clean them with his coat untill he relised that he had set his coat on fire. He franticly threw it of onto the floor and proceeded to stamp on it. Eleanor came down at that point. "Are you alright? I heard an explosion." Simon kicked his burnt coat out of sight. "Nah its fine. I was just getting a bit hot." Eleanor saw his coat on the ground. "So you threw your coat on the ground and stamped on it in an effort to make it cooler?" Simon wiped his brow and quickly changed topic. "Urrr so did you find your room alright?" "Well no actualy the door won't open." Simon walked up to the stairs. "Did you try the key?" He said with a smug tone. Eleanor crossed her arms. "Don't be a smart-arse, go look for yourself." When the both ventured up to the room it was clear that the key was in the key hole. "Well there's your problem" Simon said pointing at the key. "Its not in properly." Eleanor clawed up the door and stood on the handle. "Looks like its in properly to me." She grabbed the key's handle and tryed to twist it open again. "Yea like I said, not in properly." Simon went up to join Eleanor. "There are a few things you should know about me." SImon took out the key. "Im weird and unusual." Eleanor rolled her eyes. "I didnt need you to tell me that." Simon fliped the key around, placed the handle in the key hole and turned it to open the door. "No I mean really unusual." They both jumped down. "As long as you don't eat chipmunk meat, we wont have a problem." Simon cleared his throat in a awkward way. "Oh you are kidding me." Eleanor said with disgust. "Well thats what I was told it was, after I ate it." Eleanor took a look in her room. It was actualy pretty clean, it looked as if it haddend been used in a while. Simon and Eleanor both went into the room. "Urg..I havent been in here in ages." Simon's voice echoed in the slighly empty room. Eleanor looked down and noticed a panflit on the floor. "What's that?" She said pointing at it. "Oh, ive been looking for that for ages." Simon picked it up and began to scan it. "Oh it's this friday." Simon thought out loud. "What is?" Eleanor took the panflit out if Simon's hands. She began to snicker at what it said. "You can't be serious? Chipmunk watching? What do you do there?" Simon reclaimed his panflit. "Well once every year, my nature group and I set out some food at see if and chipmunks come and eat it. And then we record it." Simon explained. "Awww looking for a mate are we?" Eleanor teased. "Ill have you know we are very interesting creatures, and I would like to know what I would have been like it I couldn't talk." Eleanor began to laugh hystericly. "You are unbelievably single, aren't you?" Simon started to move his tougue around the inside of his mouth. "Well mabey you sould come along to find a mate." Eleanor stoped laughing. "Well ill have you know" She said in her best Simon impression. "I do have a boyfriend actualy he's a chef, or a cook." Simon began to walk back down stairs. "Well ill let you and your room get acquainted with eatch other."
A few mintuets later Eleanor came back down stairs to find the contence of her bag spread around the place. "Well it nice to know i can leave my bag here and it'll be safe." She turned to Simon and found him liying on his couch holding a picture he took out of the bag above his face. "You did the same thing to my books." Eleanor hauled all her things together. "How did you know I moved that one book? They all looked the same to me." Simon turned his head. "They are the same, exept the peice of white tape you probbaly didnt notice. For each book the tape was lowerd sligtly, you would have never seen it." Eleanor pushed all the loose items in her bag. "And I guess that it was inevitable that you saw that picture." Eleanor scratched the back of her head. "Yea, sorry. Who was that anyway? The girl?" Simon looked back at the picture he had stolen out of Eleanor's bag. "Her? She was my original caretaker. She left four years ago for whatever reason." Eleanor looked around not wanting to get deeper in to this topic. "Ya know what? She was the one who suggested I call myself Lake. Probably her way of reminding me I almost died. She always had a odd, dare I say sick sence of humor." Eleanor gave a nervous laugh. Simon sat up. "That reminds me of this one time she took me too school with her. That was about six years ago but it was something that always stuck with me. You see this one time there was this other girl that she didn't like and she came in to school missing most of her fingers and one arm broken. I think she had a farming accident, or something. All I remember was that it involved a truck she was in. I think she said it hit her without giving warning of its intention to do so. But anyways, everyone else was giving her sympathy. Do you know what my girl did? She walked right up to her and said 'sucks to be you'. Eleanor looked quite shocked "She sounds lovely" Simon went back to looking at the picture. "Well she's gone now. I got a note explaining everything. And she gone." Eleanor when down to sit next to Simon. There was no noise apart from the booming storm outside. Both sat quite untill Eleanor remenberd to ask Simon something. "What are you doing?" Simon didn't break eye contact with the picture. "Im trying to reach a state of abstract mindness." Eleanor started to nod. "Right. And what did you take out of my bag exacly?" Simon showed the face of the picture. "Just a picture of Mrs.Lincrafts body that you stole." "And have you found anything interesting?" Simon hauled himself up and showd the picture to Eleanor. "Well apart form the execcive amount of blood around the neck dispite the fact that the weapon missed any major arteries. Nothing." Eleanor took the photo and squinted at it. "Whats this 'abstract' mine thingn your on about?" Simon began to inspect his tail. "Well its when you try to remove any thoughts in your head that say 'its impossible' and start to think of ways it could be possible." Simon put his tail in his mouth and stated to chew it. "If you start chewing your tail one more time im going to cut it off." Eleanor said in frustration. Simon remained motionless wiht his eyes closed. "Here we go." Elenaor said. "Whats that?" Simon opened his eyes to see what Eleanor was talking about. She was pointing at Lincrafts neck. "I can hardly see anything. Have you got anything bigger?" Simon asked. Eleanor walked over to her bag and pulled out the remaining pictures. She fliped though them and removed one. "Yes, here." She gave Simon a enlarged picture of Lincrafts neck. One side of her neck was riddled with punchure holes. "Why is there so many pin holes in her neck?" Simon asked aloud. This point required abstract thinking for Simon. He was thinking what a fire place, lots of blood with an unknown origin and pin holes all had in common. Simon's left eye began to twitch. "Im assuming that a twitching eye means you know where thoes neelde holes came from." Eleanor said. Simon snaped out of his trans. "Those what?" Simon faded into a trans again. "Those needle holes" Eleanor said with a raised voice. "Oh of corse their needle holes, not pin." Simon said feeling quite stupid. "Fantiastic, how does that make any difference?" Simon pushed his glasses up his nose. "Well if it was a pin all you could do is poke. If it was a needle you could poke and.......oh dear." Simon stood still. "What? Have you worked it out?" Simon had a shiver down his back. "I have but.." Eleanor grabbed Simon by the shoulders. "But what." Simons crystal eyes moved left to right. "Its well kind of, disgusting." Eleanor let go of Simon. "How so?" Simon cleared his throat. "Well think of it this way. If you wanted a weapon gone you would dispose of it right?" Eleanor nodded. "Mabey you could rule out manuly disposing of a weapon if the weapon was to vanish. Now whats one thing that would vanish infront of a fire?" Eleanor shruged her sholders. "Well if fires hot than if a cold item, lets say ice was put infront of it the ice would melt." Eleanor relaxed herself. "Whats so disgsting about ice?" Simon gave aloud sigh. "It is what the ice is made out of which is disgusting. The only way I can think of how to explain the execcive amount of blood it if the ice was made out of it." Eleanor put her paw on her face. "And judging by the needle holes id say it was her blood." Eleanor put her paw in Simon's face. "Alright you've made you point, now stop."
The Springwood Slasher presents: Simon Lake: in cold blooded, Part 3