The Crow (Part 3)

Chapter 3

SUICIDE IN GRAINE COUNTY

Reporter: Mary E. Rose (2018) Jan 17th

Rachel Lee Heights was reported missing at approximately 6:37 PM (Central Time) by her parents—Grace Hannah Heights and Jim Timmothy Heights. The suicidant was found dead at the Only Saving apartment complex. She hung herself. No reports of murder have been found. No struggle either. Ryan Wallace is in custody for an interview.

i

“I have no idea why she did it!” I exclaimed. I was so shocked by the news of my ex’s death, I was feeling . . . I didn’t know what I was feeling.

I was going to my parents' house when I got the call from the super telling me that maids saw the dead body hung over the dining table. I was devastated and maybe a little part of me knew it was going to happen. I was in an interview room with two state cops—one playing good cop and the other playing bad cop.

“Listen, I know it would be hard for you—your ex girl and all,” said the good cop.

“But we need to get this right, so think!” finished the bad cop.

And I said all that I could.

ii

I sat on the back porch of my parent’s house, since I didn’t have an apartment anymore while still being under investigation. I was thinking of Rachel, and how I wished that I hadn’t been so . . . blunt. Maybe even a little mean. What if I had been drivin’ her to it? I shuddered at the thought. But I couldn’t get rid of it—the thought.

“I’m sorry for your loss. I really am.”

My dad had come over to where I was sitting with two beers in his hands. He offered one to me. I shook my head.

“No more. Not after getting drunk.”

Dad looked at me in understanding.

“I can respect that.”

He sat next to me. Popped them sonsabitches open.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“I think I could have driven her to it.”

Dad looked at me sharply.

“Now don’t talk like that—”

“IT’S ALL MY DAMN FAULT!”

Dad shook his head sadly.

“No, it’s not your fault, and you’ll see that one day.”

I mumbled, “But I might as well have.”

And that was the terrible truth.

iii

Kelly Morgan ran to me as soon as she saw me. She hugged me tight, squeezing the breath out of me.

“Shshshsh. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

I cried. Bawled like a baby. Perhaps like a baby who’s ass got whacked with a two-by-four with holes in it. By the man in the crow mask. Tears streamed down her shirt, but she didn’t seem to mind. She knew about mine and Rachel’s relationship. She held me tight.

“I know it must be hard. I’m so sorry.”

No jealousy tinged her voice. That made me love her more.

“Kelly—” I couldn’t finish. I just couldn’t explain my feelings. She kissed me. A kiss worthy of kings.

“Come home with me,” said Kelly, and who was I to argue?

She led me to her white Dodge Grand Caravan. I got in the passenger side. Kelly drove me to a house that I’ve only been to twice—once to study and the other to ask to the prom. I followed her through the front door, and mysteriously to her bedroom, where I only went once. To study, of course . . .

“You changed it a bit,” I remembered.

She shrugged. Today she was wearing a loose blouse and tight yoga pants. She wasn’t wearing any bra that I could tell. It reminded me of a saying, “She’s got that Itty Bitty Titty thang going on.” But that wasn’t the case. They weren’t itty bitty at all. She pushed me on the bed. I was so surprised. I didn’t fall. I flopped.

“Kelly, what the—” I started to say, but she covered my mouth with a kiss.

Her cool tongue explored the cave of my mouth. And at the same time she slipped the rubber out of my pocket. The clock struck twelve. And we were virgins no more.

iv

My mom noticed it right away.

“Did you—” and couldn’t go on.

Honestly, I was embarrassed enough. I did not need this. Why did this always have to happen?

“Please, mom.”

She held up her hands in surrender.

“Fine! You're an adult! I won’t get in the way of your sex life!”

And she waddled away as if remembering her first time. I sighed. Now we have bad blood.

Fuck you, Taylor Swift.

v

“Someone! Please! Help me!” Knock! Knock!

I woke up, thinking that the scream was a dream. Then I heard it again. I quickly got out of my queen size bed and went to the front door. I opened it. A man with black splotches all over his skin and a rag for a shirt tumbled in. My mother screamed from somewhere behind.

“Mom!” I yelled. “Call an ambulance!”

The man had me in a drowners grip, muttering about some darkness and other gibberish. Mom just stood there with her mouth gaping with horror. I looked at her sharply.

“Goddamn it, Mom! Call the fuckin’ ambulance!”

Mrs. Wallace snapped out of that horrified daze and rushed to the kitchen where the home phone hung. I thought that I could hear her sobbing with terror, but I wasn’t sure. Now, as I looked at the dying man, I realized there was no point in calling in an ambulance.

That’s when the sick man spoke two horrifying words: “He’s coming.” And his hand went slack, his head lolled, and his last breath escaped his lungs as they, too, were delivered the coup de grâce. I stared at the body—shocked. There was so much I could have done to save him. “Why hadn’t you woken up earlier,” I scolded myself. Mom came bursting through the kitchen.

“They’re on their way, they—” she noticed the limp corpse.

She screamed.

And vomited.

And fainted.

Damn, déjà vu. I sat down and leaned my head against the wall.

vi

“Well,” said the good cop incredulously. “This is the second time we’ve seen you here. It’s almost like we’re family.”

I was sitting in the interrogation room—yet again. The person playing bad cop slammed his fist on the table.

“Tell us!” he yelled.

The good cop looked at him annoyed.

“Dude, he isn’t in here for murder, so shut the fuck up.”

“Right.”

They both looked at me.

“So, what happened? Tell us what you know.”

And I did.

vii

Now, before I tell you about what happened next, you need to know about Josh. You know that annoying customer-service automated voice on the phone whenever you call a store?

Josh is the music on hold.

I’m not saying that he’s stupid or anything like that, it’s just that, when it comes to imagination, his is a cold winter in Antarctica where the penguins never learn to swim.

So when he asked if I was going to have the death penalty when we were at the parking lot of the school, I wasn’t surprised. There’s a fine line between brain damage and enlightenment. Josh grinds that line perfectly. I was thinking how I was going to answer him, when—

“Ryan?”

I turned around. It was some woman I didn’t know. She had a recorder in one hand, a notebook in the other.

“Yes?”

“Can you tell us how the man died? And why he died in your house?” She practically shoved the recorder in my face.

I shook my head and stepped away from the stupid Sony recorder. “Sorry ma’am, but that is something I can’t talk about.” I tried to walk past her, but apparently, that wasn’t enough for her.

“At least give me a quote,” she gave me that feminine flirtatious smile a nurse would sometimes give you if you were being difficult, and said, “You wouldn’t want me to get in trouble, would you?” She tipped her head to her left.

I had enough of her shit.

“Please leave me the fuck alone,” I hissed.

I pushed past her. Josh had already left. Talk about blessings from God. I had enough of a headache already. Before I heard the hoarse coughing from my mother, I didn’t think that my life could get any worse than it already was, but I guess I was wrong. Honestly, though, I’m wrong about everything, so there’s that.

Don’t laugh.

viii

I unlocked the door to my apartment that I had finally got back.

The memories immediately came rushing to me as I stepped through the door. They always make a big nuisance of themselves on me. Sometimes I wonder what it would be like as an alcoholic.

Now, as I stare at the ceiling fan where the accident . . . no, that was no accident. That was suicide.

I locked the door and sat on the recliner and stared miserably at the wall.

There was no liquor bottle in my hand this time.

ix

“Mom?”

I was in her kitchen, looking for her. “Mom? Where are you?”

“In here.”

The whisper came from my bedroom in the corner of the house.

“Mom, are you ok?” I asked as I jogged to her room.

She was covered in her blankets, with a box of tissues. Her nose was running and as I felt her forehead with my wrist, heat pulsed from her like a lighthouse.

“Aw shit,” I muttered.

“Just the flu,” said my mother. “Nothing I can’t han—”

She coughed spasmodically.

I ran to the bedroom master bathroom, to the medicine cabinet, and stopped.

“Mom—?” The cabinet was empty. “Where’s the Tamiflu at?” I dug around, waiting for her reply.

“We don’t have any more.”

“I’ll go to the store.”

“They don’t have any more in stock, nor at the pharmacy.”

That stopped me cold in my tracks. “What?”

I did a kind of waltz to her room. She was on her elbows.

“You didn’t know?” she asked.

“What do you mean? Do they not make it anymore?” I was so confused; I’ve never heard of anything like this. “Is it not, like, a thing anymore?”

She shook her head. “They sold out.”

“Wait, what?!”

“You're saying you didn’t know?”

I looked at her. “No, of course not! Where’s dad at?”

“He went to go look for some in Quinlan.”

“What the fuck is happening? This never happened!”

She looked at me solemnly. “It has now.”

I remember that look she gave me as of today.

x

I was driving, thinking, when my message notification went off.

I drove on, not looking at it. I barely even heard it.

It has now. What the hell has happened? Where have I been? What the hell does all this mean? What?

I decided the message was probably important—or next to important—and pulled into a McDonalds. I was also pretty hungry.

The message was from Kelly: Where are you at? I’ve been looking for you all day. Thought we could go to a movie or something. Text back when you have the chance.

The message was sent at 5:47 p.m. I looked at my watch. It was now 6:32 pm.

“Hi, how may I take your order?”

I jumped damn near out of my skin. It was the server. “Yes, uh, hi . . . um, I’d like a BigMac, please.”

“The combo?”

“Nah, just the burger.”

“That’ll be $3.99 at the next window.”

I pulled up to it and waited.

I took my phone out of my pocket and texted Kelly back: I’ll be there to pick you up in a bit. I had to take care of my mom.

She immediately replied: What’s wrong with her?

Me: She has the flu or something.

Kelly: What?

Me: Probably nothing serious.

Kelly: Come here, right away!

There was a knock on my window.

I rolled down the window and got my BigMac. “Have a nice day.” I put the truck in drive and pulled out of the McDonalds parking lot.

Driving down 276, I noticed some hitchhiker on the side of the road, and he had his thumb held out. I thought, Oh, what the hell? and pulled up beside him. He opened the side door, put his bags in the cab, and buckled his seat belt. “Thank you, man. It’s fuckin cold outside!”

Now, I should have known that picking up hitchhikers was a very bad idea.

Yep.

So, I shouldn’t have been so surprised when I felt the cold, hard muzzle pressed against my temple.

“Sorry I have to do this—”

I interrupted, irritated. “What the fuck do you want?” I was scared, but with everything that was happening, I was also pissed.

The hitchhiker looked at me in feigned shock with amusement glittering in his ice cold blue eyes.

“Touchy, touchy, arncha? Just as long as you know who the boss is, we’ll have no problems.” Yeah, right.

As for what I want—” the hitchhiker squinted out the windshield— “I want you to drop me off where that roadblock is, you see?”

I did indeed see the roadblock, just off of the highway. The thing was, there were a bunch of cops there, and this man didn’t look like he was going to turn himself in to the authorities. I smelled something fishy (not really, though I did have tuna fish salad sandwiches yesterday for dinner, and the taste was still in my mouth).

I looked at him skeptically and said matter-of-factly, “And if I don’t?”

The hitchhiker threw his head back and laughed like this was the funniest thing he has ever heard. “Then I’ll kill you. I’ve done it before.” He must have seen the shock on my face because he grinned, exposing horrible yellow teeth, and said, “It’s actually a simple thing; you wouldn’t believe how easy it is.” He made finger guns as if to emphasize his point.

If Xavier Anderson was here, he’d be scratching his ass. Of course, for him, that’s a way of thinking, since that’s where his brains are located.

I initially thought this man was crazy, and I still think that nothing amounts to people crucifying squirrels (don’t ask), but this man was closer than I was comfortable with.

“Stop,” the hitchhiker said suddenly. I was happy to oblige.

I hadn’t noticed that the speedometer never dipped below 90 mph, but I did notice the red and blue lights flashing behind us—the cavalry has arrived, Skip!—through the side mirrors. We screeched to a stop on the side of the road, blowing dust.

The hitchhiker muttered under his breath, “Shit”, and dragged me out of my own truck and on the hot pavement that was sun bleached over years of summer weather. The gun he had (looked like a 9mm. I was good with my guns) was put to the temple of my head, and he had me in a headlock.

“Don’t do shit!” the hitchhiker screamed. “Don’t do shit or I’ll—”

The last part was cut off by the roar of a pistol just behind us. Probably a .457 Mag, from the size of the hole in the hitchhiker's head.

xi

The BigMac that I left in my car was untouched, and my phone notification said that I had missed ten calls from Kelly, and one voice mail from her:

“Ryan, where are you? If you get this message, call me back immediately!”

The urgency in her voice made me pick up my phone, dial her number, and call her.

She picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Ryan, where have you been!? I thought we were gonna meet up? It’s past seven o’clock!”

I shifted on the pavement uncomfortably. “I ran into a problem.”

“What?”

“I’ll tell you later.”

I never did tell her.

xii

“You gotta be kidding me!”

We were in Kelly’s kitchen, drinking coffee. She was shocked when I told her about the news of the absence of Tamiflu.

“I know,” I said with a sigh.

“But they’re never out!”

“I know, Kel.”

Kelly looked at me indignantly. “Never call me Kel again.”

I heaved in a defeated sigh. “Okay.”

Kelly hugged me tight, and I could feel the press of each individual breast through my blue cotton shirt (which didn’t leave much to the imagination). I had a sudden impulse to squeeze them.

She looked at me with big blue eyes. “You wanna?”

This time I did squeeze her breasts. “Yeah.”

She climbed onto my lap and started to take her shirt off. A sort of purling vibrated out of her throat as she began to unbuckle my jeans. Then we went to the bedroom. We lay on the bed an hour or so later, both of us naked with her head laying on my chest trying to catch our breath.

Kelly looked at me with pleasure glowing from her eyes, and said, “Damn, you’re good at this.”

“You’re the only one that I’ve ever done this with,” I replied.

She looked at me. “Same,” she said and with a sly grin on her face, she grabbed my penis and squeezed as hard as she could.

I yelped. “Jesus! That hurt! Why the fuck did you do that?”

Kelly kissed me softly, and I kissed her with more of a spark; then she kissed me with enough power to light Times Square.

I put a hand to stop her. “Didn’t we just do this?”

She started to pull me steadily, and said, “So? What’s wrong with doing it again?” She climbed on top of me, and I slipped inside her warmth with my hands on her firm breasts.

Because love.

xiii

I slapped my forehead.

“Awe, shit!”

Kelly looked up from a book called The Woman in Cabin 10, by Ruth Ware. “What?”

I looked at her with distressed eyes. “I damn near forgot I was supposed to get medicine for my mom.”

“You want me to go with you?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah,” I replied. “But we need to hurry. It’s gettin’ pretty dark, and I don’t know what time they close.”

She glanced down at her watch. “I think twelve, maybe one. It’s ten right now, so we might have enough time.”

I got up and started to dress. Kelly did as well. When we were fully clothed, I grabbed my car keys and said, “Let’s go.”

xiv

Once we got in the truck, I noticed two things: my mom never called me, which was unusual, and neither did my dad.

“Is it okay if I call my mom real quick?” I asked Kelly.

She nodded, so I dialed my mom's phone number. I waited. One second went by, then four, then ten. A minute went by, and still no answer. Eventually it went to voicemail.

“I’m sorry,” the voicemail bot said in the customary monotone voice, “But there is no one available to take your call. Please try ag—”

I hung up.

I felt only dread.

xv

“What do you mean that you’re out? How the fuck could you be out!?”

Kelly and I were at the pharmacy, and when we asked her for the medicine, the pharmacist gently shook her head and told us they were sold out.

“We get a shipment in a couple of weeks,” she offered. “You can come by and get some then.”

“What in God’s name is happening?” I asked no one in particular.

And as if in answer, it began to rain.