After he died they went through the house he had shared with Jennifer and found a lot of things, first of all that there were bottles stashed everywhere. It was like when you start thinking about ants after years of just letting them be and then you start thinking you see them everywhere. They end up on your food and running up your legs when you are in bed, just because you opened that portal to them.

Well they could literally not step sideways in that house without breaking an empty or half-empty fifth of liquor after it struck them that there must be booze cached everywhere, though Jennifer protested she had never noticed he had a drinking problem. She had asked his best friends Renault and Chevrolet to go through his things for her because she was afraid she would find love letters or tokens of affection from other women, locks of hair or panties with flaky white stuff still stuck on the inside.

Chevrolet, she said, you please take the lead and make sure you give me any substantial amounts of cash you find, I trust you, or jewelry or lottery tickets. She said, Feel free to help yourself to any keepsakes, I know you were both true friends to him.

Chevrolet and Renault broke open the dead man’s trunk in the back of the upstairs guest bedroom after clearing away the crates of empty screwtop wine bottles to find a full-body latex suit, gloves, and prissy black boots to match. Oh Mon Dieu, exclaimed Renault, he was a sex freak too, but Chevrolet, digging a bit deeper in the trunk, found not ball gags and lubes but nunchucks, throwing stars, and a heavyset grappling hook, and at the very bottom the iconic yellow utility belt of the Peoria Vigilante.

Exchanging looks, Chevrolet and Renault knew they were experiencing the epiphany that their dead friend had in fact been the man who single-handedly fought crime in the dark and spiraling streets of suburban Illinois for more than twenty years, and like those ants that crawl on you, or the bottles of liquor stashed inside the flusher tank, they knew they had discovered the true identity of the mild-mannered journeyman electrician they thought they had known and loved, may he rest in peace, and many thousands of truly obvious clues that they had just straight up missed passed before their eyes in a flash.

At that moment the huge spotlight from the mayor’s mansion on the bluff in South Peoria clicked on, and everyone rushed from their houses as it blinked frantically into a grey and dangerous sky, and shrieks of terror rent the air as molotov cocktails began to fly and explode into innocent victims’ yards and faces.

Pushing Renault and Jennifer aside, closing the upstairs bedroom door in their faces, Chevrolet turned back to the superhero’s closet, cracked his thick neck, and reached into the trunk for the suit.

Colin Gee (@ColinMGee) is founder and editor of The Gorko Gazette. Stories in The Penult with LEFTOVER Books. Novella Lips forthcoming from Anxiety Press.