Success is Happiness

Here is the second rough draft.  It is worth reading again because I added a couple paragraphs, fixed most the spelling and grammatical errors and deleted/rephrased many sentences.  Tell me what you think! :)

We split into groups in search of Ms. Babcock.  The lights had flickered intermittently, but this time they remained off.  Hours before I had been called down to receive final instructions from Ms. Babcock.  I observed patently that Ms. Babcock would not be coming down from her chambers when, two hours after nine that night, she still had not descended the tall stairs leading to her grandiose ballroom.  Others around me wondered if her illness had finally killed her or rather stupidly if the thick sheet of ice blanketing the steeply sloped driveway triggered a “tragic” fall.  Without warning, the lights had begun to blink until they blinked for the last time, showering me in the devil’s darkness.

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.  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.

            The man holding the instrument 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.  Only a man of such despicable status could portray such evil pride.

            The guests released a universal utterance of agreement and echoing murmurs.  I regressed to my usual patient self.  Calm.  Collective.  Just watching.

            “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 staff has a large supply of flashlights.  If you could come over here, they will pass them out,” he said, waving a flashlight in his hand instead of the fire.

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

It ever amused me, chaos.  I could not help it.  Inevitably, I would grin and revel in the fluctuating timbre of the human voice.  Of course, amidst the chaos, I could not speak.  Calmness overrode any irrational thought and directed all of my energy to relishing the sights and sounds around me.

I joined a group headed north out of the ballroom.  Staying comfortable in the back, I kept up with them at a speedy pace.  A flash of a fiery glow caught my eye.  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 of a 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 the hell they are going.  We have a better chance of finding her split up.”

“My name is Christy, by the way,” she retorted.  “You do not 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 proceeded to the end of the room, leaving Christy, the two men, and I behind.  He was too eager of a man.  Wonderful.

Christy pivoted facing the opposite end of the room and stepped 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, getting to her feet, looked down, bewilderedly at what had caused her fall.

“Ah!” she screamed and jumped back from the body of Ms. Eugenia Babcock, fidgeting.  It must have been all of the excitement.

The lights blinked back.

Ms. Babcock lay dead on the marble floor, stretched out; skin slightly translucent, and a pale blue.  Her eyes were empty, lifeless.  Her middle-aged face no longer occupied by fine wrinkles.

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 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, fortunes 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.  Appeased her.  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.   Forcing her down to the marble floor, I 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.

 Grinning, I 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.

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 twenty feet away from me.  I dared not touch her infested belongings.  They were too far-gone.  I had one goal: to find the money…and burn it.  She had hidden it in the holy book.  The witch.  Only she would dare.  The fallen book lay on her beside table and I gently lifted each page until I saw a thin, rectangular card.  Plastic.  Black.  I tore it from the book, broke it in half with my bare hands and thrust it into the fire.

My suite then called to me and I waited anxiously until we were called to the ballroom at nine the following night.  Excitement filled me.  I could not 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.  A grandiose smile occupied my lips.  They couldn’t take their eyes off me; they were so thankful.  I began to laugh, a rich, joyous laugh not be compared.  I could not stop.  God would take me now.