Unlovable Things- Part 3

"Of all the brothers in the world, I get stuck with the dumbest." Maya rolled her eyes.

"Do you hear that?" Janae asked.

Splash

"What was that?" Asked Andy.

"Probably just Leo being an ass again," said Maya.

A terrible choking sound was radiating down the hallway.

"Ignore it!" Maya demanded. "He's just being a jerk again."

"Maya, move!" Andy yelled, "Something is really wrong!"

She pushed her out of the way and the girls raced to the back of the house to find Leo sprawled out onto the floor. An open bottle of bleach lay spilling out on the floor next to him. His lips looked blue and he was struggling for breath. He was dead before the ambulance even arrived.

"It worked." Maya whispered.

"What worked?" Asked Andy.

"Leo listened," said Maya, "And now the song is out of my head. I can think again. The pressure's gone."

Andy looked at Janae and then at Chloe. They could all still feel that weight in their own heads. It pressed up behind their eyes like a terrible migraine.

"There's three of us left," Janae said.

"No," Andy shook her head. "There's four."

"No..." Janae said, "Maya doesn't count anymore. Leo took her place. She's safe."

"That's disgusting!" Said Maya, "I didn't make him do anything! He did it himself!"

"No one is saying that, Maya." said Janae. "But you said yourself... it's gone."

"It's gross!" Chloe shouted. "I'm not doing that! I'm not killing someone else. I will not be a murderer!"

Chloe stomped out, she walked towards main street with Andy and Janae in her wake. They were trying to keep up, but Chloe was fast. She was racing forward, mumbling something about how she would be the one to decide her own fate as she reached the overpass. Without hesitation, she climbed the fence and leapt headfirst into the traffic below.

Andy and Janae screamed. There was nothing they could do.

"Let's go, Janae!" Andy cried. "We can't save her!"

She tugged her arm and dragged her along as fast as she could. Probably best if they weren't found at the scene of another death.

"Stop!" Janae screamed, snatching her arm away from her friend. "I can't do this, Andy! I can't give this to anyone else, not even a stranger!"

"Janae! Quit being a baby!" Andy shouted. "Barstow is full of people no one would ever miss. Old people, homeless people, drug addicts... take your pick!"

"Oh my god, how could you even say that?" Janae glared at her. "I can't do that. I can't live with that choice!"

"I don't want to die!" Andy cried.

"There has to be another way." Janae said, "We can fix this."

"We have to decide, Janae. The pressure's getting worse." Andy held her head. "It feels like a bee is stinging me right in my brain!"

Janae nodded, "It feels like someone is standing on top of my head, I get it."

"I have the link right here on my phone." Andy whispered.

The girls looked at each other with red eyes. They were best friends. They'd grown up together in this desert. They'd shared clothes and secrets since they were five years old.

"I'll do it." Janae whispered, taking Andy's hands in her own. "For you, Andy."

"What do you mean?" Andy asked, snatching her hands away.

"I'll listen again!" Janae sobbed, "Maybe if I listen twice, it cancels out? Like a double negative in a sentence, I don't know?"

"That's not how it works," Andy said. "The rule said you pass it on. It didn't say you can cancel it. We owe two lives."

Janae fell down on the cement with her head in her hands, sobbing.

"I have an idea. I'm going home." Andy said.

"Andy, wait!" Janae cried.

She didn't wait. She ran as fast as she could and raced in through the front door of her house, which was empty. Her parents were probably still at work. Good. She ran to her room, grabbed her phone off of her bed, and looked at the names of all the people she went to school with. She scrolled through names of relatives, people on social media, friends she didn't talk to anymore. She stared blankly at the screen deciding her next move.

She thought about everything she'd seen over the last few days. The bleach, the bus, the pills, that final image of Chloe wriggling through the air as she fell to her death...

She opened up her group chat for math class. There were 30 people in it. She tried not to think about any of them as human as she posted the link and typed one message.

"This is the song everyone's talking about. It's called Unlovable Things. It's actually pretty good."

She hit send.

The stinging in her head vanished instantly and the silence of her room returned to normal. For the first time in days, she could breathe properly. That relief made her feel sick to her stomach. She'd done it. She'd passed the debt on. She'd traded a human life for her own. She was a survivor.

No...

She was a murderer.

Over the next few days, she sat like a shell in her room. Her parents had told her about Janae, who had walked into the desert without anything, not even water. Police found her body picked over by the desert wildlife.

Andy was the only one left now. Maya was alive... but she'd moved away and they hadn't talked since. Her parents couldn't stay in the house where Leo had died. Andy had lost everyone. She was alone. She never left the house, and she'd stopped using the internet. She'd thrown her phone into a drawer and never charged it. Most days, she just laid in her bed staring at the ceiling for hours.

"Andy?" Her mom had cracked her door open, "Are you gonna eat today?"

She didn't reply.

"You can't just stay in here forever," her mom had walked over and kneeled down next to her bed, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes. "You should come outside and get some fresh air."

"That was a classic!" the DJ said. "Now we've got something new for all you cool kids out there! This track has been blowing up on social media. A weird one if you ask me but people can't seem to stop playing it! So here it is, the number one request of the week, Unlovable Things!"

The bouncy song wound its way down the hall and into Andy's room, caressing her ear drum like an old friend. Andy pushed herself up on wobbly arms, nearly face planting into her nightstand as she scrambled up on weak legs.

"Turn it off!" She screamed, holding her ears.

"Andy!" Her mom yelled, grabbing her arms, "What is wrong with you?"

Andy pulled herself away and raced towards the stereo in the living room. She reached out and tried to turn it off, but the knob broke off in her hands. She twisted the volume knob, but the sound level refused to change. She ripped the cord from the wall. Silence filled the house, but the music continued inside of her head. The sound climbed through her mind and danced under ribcage. It was inside of her. Again.

She looked at her hands, which were shaking. The pressure behind her eyes was throbbing with full force. A small spark of familiar pain buzzed through her brain. Her face was pale and she was sweating as she realized there was no one left to give the song to. She'd already used her friends, now the song was infecting the whole town. It was everywhere.

Andy screamed as the song bounced around inside of her skull. Her skin crawled and her heart raced as the horror sunk its teeth into her body. She'd tried to run and hide... she'd literally killed others to save herself... and for what? Here she was back at the beginning again. A loop that she couldn't escape.

Her eyes erupted with tears as she realized this was the last sound she'd ever hear again. She was only twelve years old, and she was already finished. The song played on, louder and louder, until it was the only thing left in the universe.

Authors note:

This is part 3 (and the finale) of this story. If you're starting here, you should probably go back for parts 1 and 2.

I wrote this story quite some time ago surrounding a song I'd already written. It was such a fun project for me because all of the kids and hubby helped me with this song. You can hear all of them and I LOVE that. It was just a fun song I made while figuring out my sound and how to edit and other things. I thought this story would be a fun way of promoting the song while creating an immersive little spooky story set in my hometown of Barstow, California. I originally published this story in my book but decided to add it to Vocal as I am currently re-editing that book and adding some extra stories to it and revamping the others as I feel my writing has improved since publishing. Also, in the process of re-doing my cover. I think I may REMOVE this story from the book itself as I think it stands better as a digital story with clickable links. If you have any opinions on that, I'd love to hear them!