Free Set Me Alight by Bill Leviathan Page B

what Paul was on to. It explained so much. All of us commoners were walking around hacking up our lungs, our skin was pale and blotchy no matter how much sun we got, our hair was thin and brittle, and we were always suffering from one ailment onto another. Those people in Vanderbilt Park though, they were built like the Greek gods, rivaling the likes of Michelangelo's David. It had gotten to the point that biologists would classify us as a different species from them. A stunted, deformed species who will soon die off if they know what's good for them.
    At first I started telling myself that now I had to drink more alcohol, as it was the only way to know that the liquid I was drinking was safe. Though after I put some thought into it, I don't think a small amount of alcohol was going to do much to remove heavy metals. I don't think boiling the water was going to do much either, but I'm not what you would call an expert on the subject. I could try and distill the water? Could the chemicals evaporate out with the water vapor or not? I guess it was all moot, as there was no way I could have afforded to start distilling my water. I might as well save the cash and die early.
    I heard a knock at the door. I didn't know who the hell would bother coming around my shack to see me. I thought if it was that pipsqueak Pim again stopping by to go on another panicked rant that literally and figuratively went nowhere, I was going to lose it. Maybe that rich family finally went to the authorities and it was the cops banging down my door. Kevin only hit the man a few times as we were leaving, but I couldn't imagine the man was feeling too good the following morning. It was going to be somewhat of a challenge to explain to his peers how he got so bruised up living in his cushioned little cocoon. Maybe it was something worse than the cops, maybe the mining companies had some sort of secret police force that they were siccing on me. I was sure I had a dark, dank future full of sensory deprivation and missing patches of skin if they were coming for me. I figured I might as well just face it, and opened the God damned door.
    “Are you Pete?”
    “Yes, what's it to you?”
    “Someone told me to deliver this to you. Good bye.”
    He handed me an envelope, and then immediately bolted to his bike and hightailed it out of there, looking back over his shoulder as though he was being hunted by a tiger. To say I was a bit taken aback is an understatement. The envelope was blank, not a single marking on the whole thing, so I wasn’t sure how he knew to deliver it to me. I guessed someone had to hand it to him in person and tell him where to go. It’s not like he was a real postman.
    It looked like a letter of some sort. When I unfolded the paper, a key fell out onto the floor. The key looked identical to Paul’s storage unit key I had given away to the mining company. On the paper was a handwritten letter that went:
     
    Pete,
     
    If you are reading this, I have died from some unnatural cause. I always feared that what my brother first stumbled upon, and then I picked up, was going to get me in the end. I have left you a key to a storage unit. I dare not say what's inside the unit in this letter. The key alone won't get you into the storage unit. There is a pin code you must enter as well. Again, I can't say the code in this letter, and my only hint to you is that it is related to what you loved to do most. I hope the information you find in there does you well.
     
    Sincerely,

Paul
     
    Paul’s crap conspiracy kept getting weirder and weirder. I guess Paul was able to intuit his own demise. I could only assume that whatever was in the second storage unit is what Paul believed got him in trouble. With the letter, what we discovered out about the water in Vanderbilt Park, and piecing together Paul's ramblings from when he was alive, it seemed almost certain that the 'accident' that killed him had to be staged in some way. Now it looked to be my turn