Killamazoo poses many questions

As the first week of Killamazoo comes to a close, some readers are scratching their heads. This is a very different kind of tale, but I promise, it’ll be just as zany as Pay Dirt and just as thrilling as Early Departure, especially since you’re helping me write the story.

Here’s what we’ve got so far…

Chapter One

He woke staring at a mirror above the bed and at the .44 Magnum in his hand.

The white in his hair and beard looked pure, compared to the bluish white face of the beauty lying beside him. With three fingers, he touched her cheek, then jumped sideways off the bed.

On his knees, he fumbled for the phone, then punched the numbers 911.

"Housekeeping."

"Huh? No. Miss, I need an ambulance."

"Mr. Burrows, is that you? You can't dial 911 direct. This is Vivi, extension 91. Say, you need towels?"

"No-mam, I don't think so. Listen, what did you say my name was?"

"Last time I checked, your name was John. You OK, Mr. Burrows? What kind of emergency you having?" He glanced at the corpse on the bed, then down at the gun he'd dropped on the floor. "Mr. Burrows, are you there?"

"Yes-mam, sorry. I just woke up, a bad dream, that's all."

"No worries. Hey, call back if you need those towels."

"Sure thing, I will. Thank you very much."

He picked up the gun and stood, looking down at the body on the bed. "Where the hell are our clothes?"

Then someone knocked at the door.

"Housekeeping."

"Say what?" He opened the door six-inches before it hung on the safety latch. With his physique out of sight, he peered through the gap. "I told you, Lady, I don't need any towels."

"You’re tripping, Burrows. I just got here." The woman filled the area between door and jam, top to bottom. "Open up, I gotta clean your room."

He looked back at the corpse on the bed. "This is kind of a bad time. How long before checkout?"

"Six months at the Elmore and you checking out now, yea right. See you tomorrow." She shoved two towels through the crack and closed the door.

John Burrows picked the towels up from the floor and looked back at the bed, wondering how long it would be before the corpse started to smell.

In the bathroom, he stepped over a lace bra and a blue silk dress to stack the towels with four others, each towel the same, gold, monogrammed with the letter E.

On the counter, he found a rabbit's foot key ring holding three keys, next to a money clip keeping a folded stack of bills and a driver's license. He didn't know the face on the license, but he didn't know the face in the mirror either. The face in the photo had a beard, but brown not white. Holding the license closer to his eyes, the smoother face looked familiar, but still wasn’t a face he remembered as his own.

Donning jeans from the floor, he pocketed the clip and keys, then found a Wolverines sweatshirt and shoes in the closet. Dressed, he hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the doorknob and looked for the stairs.

If he could find a hardware store, lime would mask the smell of the dead woman, at least until he’d discovered who she was and whether he killed her. How did he know about lime? Hopefully, from working on a farm, or better, from some book or movie.

Down four flights of stairs, he stepped into a crowded lobby and found a woman standing with two men, but staring at him. He grinned and nodded, but she didn’t smile. Instead, she trembled, then collapsed on the floor, her face white.

Not another one.

“We need help over here,” one of her companions yelled, as the other worked to revive her.

When the crowd surrounded the woman, John grabbed a Kalamazoo Gazette from the front desk and checked the date, August 17, 1987. He began reading the lead story, about a child surviving a plane crash, then the woman gasped and someone in the crowd applauded. The woman sat and began to speak, rapidly, saying something about Elvis Presley, then John Burrows left the building.

Ready to join the fun? As before, send me messages or leave comments through Twitter or Facebook. Tell me what you’d like to see our characters do next, where you want them to go, and what you want them to do. Together, we’ll have one hell of an adventure, and when it’s all over, I’ll publish the novelette on Amazon and give everyone who helped a complimentary copy.

Here’s the plot we’re working with this time…

The year is 1987. A man wakes up in a hotel. He has no idea who or where he is. He soon learns he’s at the Hotel Elmore in Kalamazoo, Michigan and his name is John Burrows. The woman in his bed is gorgeous, but dead. John’s got a gun in his hand, and someone’s knocking at his door—Oh, and if that’s not wild enough for you, except for his white hair and beard, our hero looks identical to a guy who died ten years earlier, a guy named Elvis Presley.