Success is Happiness

Hey, guys!  I've got a journal for you to read although, unfortunately, it's not for my fanfic.  This is for an English assignment that is due next Friday.  I just want some input. :)

Basically we had to write a short story about a rich business executive, Ms. Babcock, who is murdered at a party she is throwing to give away 250 million dollars.  However, the reason she is giving away her millions is because she has just found out that she has a few months to live.  So my character is invited randomly and after she is murdered we are supposed to build up suspense to when the killer is revealed. 

I took a different twist on the story because as the prompt is written it is like a cheesy dramatic mystery, so I hopefully strayed far away from that feel.  If any of you have read Edgar Allan Poe, I went for a feel like he has in most of his work, mainly "The Cask of Amontillado."  It's supposed to be very intense, and psychological and time jumps a few times.  Please let me know if you are confused at all with the time jumping!  Also, let me know if you think the side characters are developed enough.  Other than that, ask me any questions that come to mind.  I'm letting my English teacher read it, but I want outside opinions as well.  Thanks. :)

            We split into groups in search of Ms. Babcock.  The lights had flickered intermittently, but this last time they remained off.  Now only the iridescent glow of the moon showed light through the towering, angelic windows of Ms. Babcock’s grand ballroom.  Whispers engulfed the room, some hysteric, others curious.  Not too far from my person I saw the warm, harvest glow of a cigarette lighter riser into the air.  It cast distorted, dark shadows on its holder’s fiery face.  I could sense the crescendo of mutterings from the other guests slowly hush and turn to the only comforting source of light: the flick of hellish fire.

            A man, another guest, was holding that instrument and waited only a moment before he spoke.  “So no one has seen Ms. Eugenia Babcock all day?”  His voice had a rich resonance, deep in thought, and trippingly smooth.  No doubt he was a member of elite society.

            The guests released a universal utterance of agreement.  The man paused for a moment.  A twisted frown appeared on his face.  The room filled with echoing murmurs.

            “Ladies and Gentlemen!” he called, grabbing the crowds attention, “My name is Jonathan Anderson.  I know we all came here with the hope of receiving the 250 million dollars, but unless we find Ms. Babcock, the money is going nowhere.  We need to split into groups of no more than six and cover as much ground as possible.” 

The crowd became restless again. 

“Ms. Babcock’s attendees have a large supply of flashlights if you could come over here,” he said, waving a flashlight in his hand instead of the fire from hell.

The guests stumbled to the fire’s glow and one by one white lights scattered on the walls and people split into groups.

Amidst the chaos I joined a group headed north out of the ballroom.  I stayed comfortable in the back and kept up with them at a speedy pace.  I saw a flash of a fiery glow again.  I was with the man from hell.  The shadows of the night revealed the identity of the others in the groups.  There were two insignificant men I spotted by their broad shoulders and a beautiful black silhouette woman directly in front of me.

“Where are we looking for her?” the woman asked breathily, trying to keep up with Jonathan.  “How do you know where we are going?”

Jonathan replied nastily, “We are looking anywhere lady.  In case you haven’t noticed, we split into groups because no one knows where they are going and we have a better chance of finding her.”

“My name is Christy, by the way,” she retorted.  “You don’t have to be so rude about it.”

He sighed irritably, shrugging her off.  “Just follow me.”

What a brute.

We turned sharply left and were at two clear glass doors leading to an indoor swimming pool.  I entered last just behind Christy and the blue glow of the chlorinated water reflected on the walls and glass ceiling.

Jonathan strutted to the end of the room, leaving Christy, the two men, and I behind.  He was too eager a man.  Wonderful.

Christy backtracked to an opposite end of the room, stepping gently, impossibly slow.

I heard a thump come from behind me.  As I turned, Jonathan shined his flashlight on Christy.  I smiled.  She had fallen.  Gasps filled the room and Christy, bewildered, looked down.

“Ah!” she screamed and jumped back from the body of Ms. Eugenia Babcock.  She began to fidget.  It must have been all of the excitement.

The lights lit up around us. 

“Another groups must have found the generator,” Jonathan mumbled in awe.

Ms. Babcock laid dead on the marble floor, stretched, skin slightly translucent, and a pale blue.

The expressions of my peers brought me delight.  Which one of them could have expected to discover a dead corpse on their hopeful vacation of sorts?  Let alone one so deserving of death as Ms. Eugenia Babcock.  True, she was diagnosed with fatal familial insomnia and would have died in several months, but finding her dead before her time….  That must leave a person in sheer amazement.

Everyone knew Ms. Babcock, the great philanthropist and the charitable one, but they overlooked her evils, her sins.  How she cheated her way to greatness, through methods unclean.  When she found she only had months to live, she knew she had to cleanse herself.  If not, where else would the afterlife take her but to dine with fire.  She knew she must buy her way into the light.  But she could not be allowed to.  The money was evil, money of sin.  A moment of repent could not change a lifetime of unholy deeds.

But, the human soul is weak.  We are too easily tempted.  I knew I had to cease the desire she inspired in her admirers.  She had to die!  There was no other way.  The money could not be found.  It could not fall into the hands of weak humans.

So the night before, early in the morning, I lured Ms. Babcock on a tour of the estate.  I complimented her.  I appeased her.  I degraded my person to flirt with the witch, for she would not follow if I did not.  I led her to the site of her murder in the darkness of the night.  She fell for my charms and revealed the secrets of her sins and whispered the location of her indulgence in my ear.  At this proximity I brought my arms around her back, closer and closer to her white neck and jerked my palms around that column of flesh.  She struggled at first.  I saw the sin in the endless black pools that were her eyes.  I forced her down to the marble floor and felt the convulsions dim; the demons die in her eyes.  At last she was still.  A bloodless death.  Finally, an end to her pride and cheating ways.

I grinned and spent several minutes staring at her frozen form, admiring my approaching sainthood.  I knew God would take me now.  My mother and father would be so proud.

I crept back through the palatial estate, up two flights of stairs to the door of her chambers.  I entered the sinner’s sanctuary.  A fire was ablaze 20 feet away from me.  I dared not touch her infested belongs.  They were too far-gone.  I had one goal: to find the money…and burn it.  She had hidden in the holy book.  The witch.  Only she would dare.  I found the fallen book and gently lifted each page until I saw a thin, rectangular card.  Plastic.  Black.  I tore it from the book, broke in half with my bare hands and thrust it into the fire.

I headed back to my suite afterward and waited anxiously until we were called to the ballroom at 9:00 PM sharp.  Excitement filled me.  I couldn’t wait for everyone to applaud me.  I had saved them from inevitable sin.  They would be so proud of me.

Now, as Ms. Babcock’s dead body lay before me, I saw the awe in my peers.  I smiled bigger than ever.  They couldn’t take their eyes off me; they were so thankful.  I began to laugh, a rich, joyous laugh not be compared.  I couldn’t stop.  God would take me now.

p.s. I am also stuck on a catchy title, so if anything comes to your mind...let me know.  God, I've said that so many times! :)