Chief Mason was having one of those
rough nights at work, “I’m sorry to bring you in this late, honey, but can you
take a seat?”
“Sure, Dad, what do you want?” said Rose,
his daughter, following instructions.
There was no other way to break it
to her. The painful truth wasn’t easy to share to anyone, not even the friends
and family of this certain victim. “There is no easy way to put this, but a
friend of yours, he was found dead this morning…”
“Oh, my God, who?” responds his
daughter in shock.
“It appears that Alexander Pedder,
your-um boyfriend, died this morning by shooting himself in the forehead with a
suppressed handgun.” She covers her mouth with complete fright. “His body was
retrieved this morning by a riverbank.”
“Why would he ever do such a thing? He loved
me!” She cries out as she curls up into her father’s arms, staining his report
files with her tears. “I can’t lose anybody anymore!”
“I’m so sorry, I know it’s been a
rough year for you because of Kelly’s suicide…”
She interrupts in a sorrowful tone, “What should I
do?”
Chief Mason couldn’t see his
daughter like this again, he comes up with a logical solution, “Honey, I think
your mother and I should put you into counseling. I don’t want you to ruin
yourself over these losses.”
“Daddy I don’t need counseling! I’m
a senior for God’s sake!”
“Oh Rosie, it’s only for the best…”
A deputy begins to escort the
grieving Rose out of the office, there was nothing to prevent such an incident like
this. The police chief watches his daughter dragging herself out of the door
with tears, flooding her face. Poor kid, he thought, she doesn’t deserve to be
with people like him, ones who would rather take their own lives using sheer
cowardliness to rid themselves out of what could become a perfect life for them.
“This damned world…” he gets out of his chair and proceeds out of his office to
call it a night.
Alexander Pedder was an idol at
Drakeland High School. From commanding the marching band as the senior drum
major to achieving the highest grades imaginable. His personality wasn’t golden,
however. He was a man who always relied on his ego, due to where it has gotten
him to in the past, instead of showing compassion to people he viewed as
“socially rejected” in his high school community. His death was unlike anything
he has done before, but what could have influenced it?
One afternoon, Alex made the usual
trip down to the Government room to greet his girlfriend of four months, Rosemary
Mason, before he headed off to lunch, but today seemed to be very peculiar to
him, where could his beloved Rosie be?
Instead of making the effort to find
her, Alex just shrugs it off and heads toward his locker to fetch his car keys
for lunch. The senior hallway ranked of decaying meat and other putrid odors
that penetrated through his nose. Janitors must be working on the bathrooms,
thought Alex. The closer his footsteps were from the locker, the stronger the
odors became. He couldn’t bear any more of the stench, so he lengthens his
stride to prevent anymore suffering from his hallway trip. As he opens his
locker, something hard hits the floor.
“What the hell?” says Alex noticing
the blood and flesh all over his pant leg. Suddenly, his distraction shifts toward
the object that hit the ground, the head of Rosemary.
“Ruh-ruh-Rosie?” examining the head,
he finds a roll of paper in her mouth. He opens it:
You R Next…
It was written in blood, Rosemary’s
blood. Quickly, he places the head back in the locker and heads to the nearest
water fountain to clear any suspicion of him being a murderer. He rushes back
to his locker only to find the blood gone, and then he opens the locker, no
head, but something else. A rope. What could all of this mean? thought Alex. No
time to act. He had to get out of the school before something strange could
happen to him. He got to his pickup truck and begins his journey to the nearest
fast food restaurant down the road so he can wipe away this horror from his
mind. Clouds began to form around him, as if day has transformed into night,
and the rain starts to pour.
“Just my luck!” curses Alex. Just
two more miles to go; he could already hear the thunder cracking down towards
him. A tree could not bear the whiplash sent from the lightning causing it to
begin its crash-course to the hood of the old Ford pick-up. The impact shot
Alex through the glass and onto the road, scraping his very flesh onto the dirt
and broken glass; however, he remains intact. Before fading to white, Alex
looks around for help and sees a figure of a tall, lanky, awkward girl
strutting towards him. The lightning then wipes away her darkness to reveal
only rotting flesh and bone, with rope burns around her neck. Alex hurdles back
towards the tree and sees nooses tied to every tree branch surrounding him.
This is a nightmare. No. This is a punishment, a curse. Instead of running to a
hospital for aid, Alex limps towards the girl, trying to figure the truth
behind this torture. Lightning strikes him down to the pavement as the winds
intensify, tearing the road behind the demon-spirit of the girl.
“Why?” he whimpers in the roaring wind.
There would be no response from her, only the
pointing of a rotting, bony finger calling judgment upon the cowardly prep-boy.
Before another bolt of lightning could strike him, whiteness draws closer to
Alex. A saving grace? The blinding light distracts Alex from his surroundings,
the only sound being the silencing of the storm. As color fills his sight, the spirit was now
a pile of ash.
“Get in!” It was Rosemary driving her father’s
Chrysler 200. The grill seemed to have an impacting dent when she arrived. Has
she killed the spirit? Has she weakened it temporarily in order to rescue him?
No time for questions, Alex thought, I should get into the car. Why should this
two-faced man receive redemption? The awards he won and deeds he done modified
his personality, but in an ugly way. It just goes to show that not that many
people are wise enough to stand up against the popular kid in school and would
instead conform to the ways of his or her personality just to be accepted. This
wasn’t the case for the dead girl standing in the road; she wanted to show how
anyone could be accepted in school by just being themselves. Rosemary pulls
over to a foggy graveyard, an unusual place for her to stop by.
“Get out, I need to show you something.” instructs
Rose.
“What are you talking about? Did you not see that
girl in the road!? She wanted me Rose, I don’t know what for, but I need help…”
says the crying teen. This day has turned into a total nightmare and the last
place he wanted to be was a resting place for the souls of the damned.
“I’ll explain everything, trust me.” She kisses him
on the cheek, and he follows along in response. “Four months ago, there was a
freshman, my cousin,” as soon she started the story, Alex beings to panic. “She
wasn’t the most popular, as a matter a fact, I think she joined the band
program just to fit in; anyway, every attempt she made to share the power of
friendship it always ended in a disaster. No matter how hard I tried to include
her in any social activity, she would always shy away knowing how hurt she had
become from previous attempts. There were always people she idolized at school,
the drum majors, the teachers, even the student council.”
“Did I know her?” questions Alex, being afraid of
where he’ll end up next.
“I suppose so, but you would have never talked to
her as a friend…” She guesses.
“And why is that?” responds Alex in his cocky tone. Alex
never liked being held back from the truth. He always wants to hear what people
have to say about him, no matter what kind of answer he is expecting; however,
there was no answer from her. Rose wasn’t even making eye contact with him;
instead, she was staring at a headstone. Alex looks down and reads:
Here Lies the Rested
Soul of
Kelly Marie Reinhardt
He looks back at the teary-eyed Rosemary and it all
started to make sense to him. He remembers the awkward moments of Kelly trying
to make friends, messing up on marching drills, and never receiving help or
influence from anyone. He remembers walking away or asking her to leave in a
polite, but sarcastic tone whenever she participated in events that would involve
people such as herself. How could she have bared such pain? Suddenly, he
remembers his friend, Robert Cluez, and how he started the bullying rally.
Shortly after Kelly’s death, Cluez was found dead in his car from a razor wire that
burned into his neck. Alex checks on Rosemary:
“Rose, are you feeling okay?” says Alex in a caring
tone.
Rose then draws out a firearm, fitted with a pop can
suppressor, “You’re next.” The weapon whispers through the fog as Alex trembles
to the ground. Rose leaves the gun beside her dead, would-be “lover” along with
a half emptied bottle of hallucinogenic drugs beside his hand.
“It’s done, my angel.” she leaves the headstone and
drives off into the darkness around her…
