Love Me To The End

Chapter 15: Didi's Swansong

As midnight approached, a huge crowd had formed in Hangar 4 to witness Didi's swansong deathplay. The whole setup looked hugely impressive under stage lighting, the large screen had been prominently placed to display the footage from inside the car and the car itself gleamed from the fresh coat of paint we had given it.

Uncle Morbid came out to address the crowd.

"We have something very special today, the first time this particular swansong has been performed at the Mortal Masquerade. When the spirit concerned requested this, it was so crazy, so impossible, we just had to make it happen. So, please welcome, for her swansong deathplay, Didi the Doll!"

A sustained synthesizer chord cued a lighting change, illuminating a spot at the entrance to the hangar. The opening bars of Lene Lovich's New Toy began to play and Didi appeared in silhouette, striking a pose in the light. Then she was off, dancing into the hangar, working the crowd, playing off of every cue in the music. Didi continued down to the staging area, passing in front of the imposing structure of the crusher and on to the bonnet of the car, where she danced and posed like a model at a motor show. When the music faded, she slid theatrically down from the hood and let me and Scott help her into the car seat, strapping her in.

It was clear that Chris had been visualising and rehearsing this entrance for some time. Now was his moment to shine as Didi, in Didi's final moments.

Didi waved from the car as it was lifted up into position. I looked at her doll-like mask sat in the car on the main plate of the crusher. I remembered what it was like feeling that intense moment of doomed anticipation and felt happy that Chris was finally getting to experience it for himself.

I stood at the controls waiting for the cue to activate the crusher. Didi looked down at me and nodded. It wasn't a mask that allowed for much expression, but I knew inside Chris was beaming. I pulled the switch.

The last time I witnessed the crusher in action without being inside it myself was the first time they showed it to me with the crash dummy inside. Seeing a living person in there as the giant steel plates rose up was breathtaking. I looked at the big screen, showing Didi's reactions throughout. I thought about Winky, the little red light on the camera inside, that would be Chris's companion throughout all of this. As the plates made contact and the car began to buckle with a loud creak, Didi looked around, then directly at the camera, then did a celebratory double fist pump.

The image on the big screen shuddered as the car was crushed from the sides. Didi's arms were being pinned into the sides of her body as the metal buckled around her. Then came the sudden moment of silence, like the eye of the storm, when the side plates reached full compression.

With a roar of hydraulics, the front and back plates began to engage, crushing the car inwards. Didi gave a last little wave on the big screen as her knees were pushed up into her chest, the fabric of her party dress crumpled and torn from the maelstrom around her. The image froze, turned to static and completely blacked out as the crusher completed its destructive work. And that was the end of Didi the Doll.

I hit the switch to reset the mechanism. There was a massive round of applause from the assembled spirits as the side plates fell back into position to reveal the crushed cube of metal. I wondered if Chris could hear the applause from in there. I hoped so, he deserved it. I shut down the machine and climbed up to help attach the cube to the loader fork.

We took the cube to the area behind the house, where Scott had the tools ready to break Chris out. It took us about an hour to release him, as soon as he was out he rushed up to me and gave me a big hug.

"Thank-you all for making this happen," he said. "It was everything I ever dreamed it would be."

"I'm so happy for you, you've waited so long for this. This is your moment, you deserve it."

I kissed him on the forehead and we went up to Limbo together.

—-

"You were perfect, and that entrance!" said Maise to Chris. "I'm sorry I had to watch from here and couldn't be in the room with you."

"It's OK," said Chris. "Lexie was there, and I'm glad I didn't have to compete with Axiala for attention. She was an incredible avatar, too bad you had to kill her off."

"Well, Debs deserved her moment. She played so hard for it."

I looked at the two of them sat together. Maise was a born cosplayer, any image she put together was immediately hers. Chris, unmasked in Didi's party dress, looked happier than I'd ever seen him, as if it was more than just a dressing-up costume.

But the euphoria of Chris's big moment was coming down fast, bringing our common suspicions back to the surface. We could have continued to ignore them and let nothing spoil the moment. But every time we were together now, it was becoming harder to leave certain things unsaid.

"You know, the first time we met here I felt like we'd met before," Maise said to Chris. "Just like it was with Lexie, though I dismissed it at the time."

She paused for thought.

"Do you guys get the sense we've known each other a lot longer than we thought?"

We all agreed.

"I'll tell you something else strange," I said. I told them about how I could just turn off and daydream while doing admin, as if the work was only there to frame my life here like a plot device.

"Maise, you never tell me about your work. What do you do after you drop me off every day?"

"Well," she replied, "I go around all our different branches to see how they're running, I do board meetings... but if I'm honest I'm mostly thinking of you guys, and this place."

I took a deep breath, knowing instinctively that my next question was going to be painful.

"Maise, you work for your parents. But when did you last actually see them?"

A tear was already forming in her eye. Chris was grimacing.

"I haven't seen my parents in years," Maise admitted. "I don't know where they are. I just know I can't be with them."

It was exactly the same as with my own parents. Chris too, it was clear from his expression.

"I think I know the reason," said Chris. "Well, we all do, don't we?"

We became aware of Uncle Morbid sat in the room with us. No-one had seen him enter.

"We're dead, aren't we?" said Chris. "For real, I mean."

Uncle Morbid nodded silently.

"So who are you? Death? God?" asked Maise.

"No," he said calmly. "I'm not the other guy either. I just look after you here."

He looked each of us in the eyes.

"I do try to leave enough hints for you to figure it out in your own time," he said.

Angels, avatars, spirits, the Mortal Masquerade... I had to admit, it wasn't exactly subtle.

"So what is this then? Heaven or Hell?" asked Chris.

"Best just call it an afterlife", said Uncle Morbid. "It's whatever you make of it, just like regular life."

"Tell me this," I demanded. "If we're such deathwish freaks and this is us living out our fantasies, why all the mucking about with roleplays and special effects? Why aren't we just killing each other for real and coming back over and over?"

I knew the answer as soon as the question left my lips.

Because real death isn't fun.

Because real death is cold, painful, messy and random.

Because real death SUCKS.

That's when I remembered everything.