The Pie Hole

Two years, three weeks, and seven minutes later, Carmen drove into a new town just north of a town called Coeur d’Coeurs. The town was bigger than the town Carmen had passed through a few minutes before. It had a homey feel to it, and it was a big difference compared to Seattle.

Carmen had lived in many places through that last couple of years. The first place she lived in was along the beach in Los Angeles, but the beach had made Carmen remember Miami, making her want to go back to her old life. She felt like she could have lied about how the doctor’s made a mistake, but with the advancement of the technology and medicine that was an impossible lie. Besides, how could someone last a few days not breathing?

She then moved to a small town in Nebraska, thinking that she could get out of the busy eyes of city dwellers. It didn’t work. She hated it there. She stuck out like a sore thumb with the tan from the beach sun, so she moved to another town. Then moving every now and then had become normal for Carmen. She would stay in a place for a month or two before finding a reason to move on to another place. One of the most common reasons why she moved was because she wanted to find the man who brought her back and because she feared that killer would find her again.

She had articles about her death and the investigating, hoping to find the killer. It proved to be useless though. She had no knowledge about solving murders, and she didn't even know who it could be. She knew that body from somewhere, but she couldn't place the familiarity to anyone she had been that close to.

She didn’t know why she had chosen this town in Massachusetts. The drive was a long one from a suburb of Seattle. She turned onto a street, looking for an apartment building. She passed it twice before finally finding it. She had flown out here two weeks before to look at the apartment and get the furniture for it. All she brought with her now was her clothes, her small French bulldog Olivier, that letter she had when she was brought back, and a few pictures that she had drawn.

She had thought about throwing the sloppily written note away, but she couldn’t ever bring herself to do that. It had become a symbol of second chances to her, and she felt loved when she thought of the mystery man which was what she had named him. The glimpse she saw of him when she was brought back was imprinted on her brain, and she had drawn him multiple times. Carmen had tried to draw what his face was like, but it never seemed to quite fit. In most of the pictures that she was satisfied with, she had given him wings, believing he was her guardian angel in a way.

She dragged the bags from her car to that apartment. Olivier barked from the pet carrier. Carmen immediately regretted carrying all the bags at once now that she couldn’t open the door to get into the apartment building.

“Having trouble?” a man said to the girl who wasn’t dead’s side. He had light red hair with freckles dotting his nose and cheeks. His voice was gentle and kind of sweet.

“Yeah,” she admitted with a nervous smile. She had never been comfortable in secluded spaces with only one other person. She began to wonder if she should have gotten a larger dog that could do more than take a little nip out of someone's leg.

“Here, I’ll help. I’m William, and you are?” the man asked as he took two of the bags from Carmen.

She introduced herself and followed the man inside. They made a little more small talk as the climbed the stairs to her apartment. Once at the brown wooden door, it was clear that they were about the split ways. William took a good look at his new neighbor, before handing her back her bags once the door was open.

The apartment had one bedroom, and it was to her right. The living room was large and had a flat-screen TV placed in front of the couch that had come in yesterday. All of her furniture was already here and set up for her. She set the bags on the couch and let Olivier out of the carrier. He cautiously stepped out of the blue box.

Olivier had gotten used to the constant moving, but it still took him a few days to be used to a new place. “This is your new home,” Carmen purred, petting his gray fur.

The dead girl who wasn’t really dead started unpacking her bags and making a mental list of what she needed to do. She had to get a new job because the money she had left over from the last one would run out. She needed to get food for herself and her dog along with some cooking pots and utensils. She sold her last set because most of the plates were broken, and her pots were stolen when she had left to look at this apartment. Luckily, that was all they took.

She threw her sheets and blanket for the bed into the washer and dryer that was inside the apartment. She went around and dusted the best she could with water. She added cleaning supplies to her list of things she needed.

Once she was happy with her work, she put Olivier in the cage he actually slept in. Olivier was never allowed to roam freely in the apartments when Carmen wasn’t there. She didn’t want to pay for cleaning the floors because he had an accident. It was easy to clean an cheap two dollar blanket than a hundred dollar carpet.

She drove around finding a grocery store, and trying to make it a quick trip, Carmen Davis only bought the things she needed. When she spotted a restaurant located close to her apartment with a ‘now hiring’ sign, she stopped and parked in the small parking lot of The Pie Hole.

The store wasn’t too busy, but there were people seated around the layout of tables. A tall brunette man stood behind a bar. He had on a black shirt with white apron tied around his waist. He looked at the blonde girl with curiosity. It was clear that she had never been here before as she walked towards him.

“I’m new in town, and I saw the sign when I was driving by. I was just wondering if I could fill out an application,” she started, raising her arms on the counter. The bottom part of her tattoo came showed. It was a tattoo of the Egyptian god Anubis who took the dead over. She found it fitting for her when she first moved to Los Angeles. She still looked at it thinking about the blond man who ran from the room.

Ned looked at her, a little lost in his own thoughts for a second. He nodded his head and told her, “Yes, of course.”

Carmen watched him disappear behind the bar for a second before he stood back up with a piece of paper. She dug in her purse, thinking she had a pen. She hated that she looked unprepared for this. Maybe she should have given this a little more thought, before stopping her car for this. Sighing, she asked, “Do you have a pen? I’m sorry. I thought I had one.”

“It’s fine. I have one,” he said, pulling a pen out of his apron’s pocket.

When she grabbed the writing utensil from the pie maker, her fingers brushed across his more calloused ones. There seemed to be a pulse of energy in Ned from this touch more from the fact that he wasn’t used to touching. He had grown used to keeping his hands to himself unless he was helping his business partner Emerson Cod solve a murder.

Ned had a special gift. He could bring the dead back to life with a single touch, but with the second touch the person would be dead forever. He didn’t know that Carmen was a dead girl, but somehow she didn’t fall over from his touch. That would have been a shock for everyone including Ned because that was the first time he had touched her, and he wouldn't have known she was dead.

Carmen didn’t even know that Ned had that special gift even though her head was drifting to the man who had that same gift as the pie maker. She wanted to thank him for so many things, including getting the chance to apply for a pie restaurant even if she wouldn’t have chosen this as her life’s profession before that night that changed everything. She was just happy that she had a second chance to do something.