CHAPTER THREE

The following Monday morning, a lone and very annoyed meter maid busied herself handing out parking ticket violations to vehicles left abandoned in no parking zones over the weekend.

"Lord, these fools could at least think of others...they ought to be ashamed of themselves. Look at this here, parking in a handicap zone. What's wrong with these black fools?"

The frustrated meter maid noticed what appeared to be foggy windows in a four door, 1997 Honda Accord. She approached the vehicle and began writing up the ticket; however, when the milky-white fog began to move about in the car, she slowly began walking around the entire vehicle.

After walking around the car, the meter maid frowned. Her first impression was that a heavy smoker or two were inside the compact car. She lightly knocked on the driver's window. As she did so, the white smoke began to gradually clear, giving the meter maid a glimpse of the steering wheel.

The meter maid knocked again. This caused the haze to dissipate even more, revealing the newly upholstered driver's seat.

"Hey, in there," the meter maid called. "You need to move this vehicle. Is everything all right?"

The cloudy haze reformed around the driver's side. When no reply came, the meter maid stepped to the back window and knocked.

As the turbulent fog began to desseminate, the meter maid bent down to have a closer look inside the car. It was still too murky for her to see clearly, so she knocked again with more conviction.

The smoke suddenly pulled away from the left side of the car, leaving the ghastly sight of Tiesha Madon's mummified corpse for the meter maid to see. She glanced at the atrophied body several moments before finally comprehending that she was staring down at a dead person only inches away. The body almost leapt up out of the thick smoke at the meter maid. She began to scream uncontrollably at the sight of the gray and completely dehydrated corpse staring heavenward. The distraught meter maid fled from the scene.