I A Quiet Death #2
The killer chased them into the upstairs entry hall. Lance charged down the stairs four or five stairs at a time, heading down to the house’s bottom floor. Jalon followed right behind him.
The man in the mask pursued them down the stairs into the entry foyer.
A man with a gun had them at gunpoint. He wore a mask.
Fear came now.
They might die.
They had nothing they could do.
The wolf-masked man shot Lance in the head, point-blank.
Lance died.
Lance lay on the foyer with a hole in his head and blood gushing from the hole.
Jalon looked around. He saw no one. He looked at the window and saw a figure: a male figure, wearing all black and a mask. He was running away from the Grey household.
Jalon yelled at him. “Hey, asshole!”
The man turned.
He turned away, ran around a corner, and left.
Jalon looked at Lance.
There was no coming back.
There was no fixing a hole in his head.
Jalon called 911.
He didn’t remember anything for a while then.
Jalon sat in his living room, wearing a black dress shirt, black dress pants, black socks, and black dress shoes. Damn. Funeral garb.
He didn’t remember how he got there.
He didn’t remember how or why the killer hadn’t just shot him to death.
The killer had whispered something - with a voice disguiser.
“Sorry.”
Then the killer left.
Jalon’s best friend Lance had been murdered - he remembered that. He didn’t remember what happened for a couple of days after that.
He remembered fear.
He mostly just thought, fuck, I can’t believe it, my friend is dead.
He looked down.
His phone sat in his lap. His Kindle sat in his hands. He used the Kindle every day - it was set to read Edgar Allan Poe.
Jalon sat at home in his family’s cozy living room.
He didn’t remember leaving Lance’s home or arriving at home.
His home was a two-bedroom, one-story apartment with a nice finished basement.
He sat in a cozy living room with a television, two couches, a bookcase with a hundred books, and a coffee table with art books featuring artistic nude paintings.
On the walls, Jalon’s father had put several antique guns that the family owned - an old shotgun and a revolver from the Civil War, a real relic.
He hung a painting of the American West above the television.
At the black couch sat Beatrice and Walter, two teenage geeks in Jalon’s group of friends.
In the next room and in the rest of the house stood a dozen or so adults in nice clothes talking about Lance and remembering him and pretending that they cared about him deeply. This was a wake.
Walter wore glasses and an old-timey dress shirt with suspenders. He had a pen attached to his shirt’s pocket. He took out an old-timey watch and looked at it. Then he looked at his phone and checked some things.
“Hey,” Jalon said. “What the hell happened?”
“Lance killed himself,” Walter said. “He committed suicide with his family’s firearm. The other night. You haven’t been well, my friend. We wanted to role-play in his honor last night, but you didn’t really focus and couldn’t pay attention. We basically scrapped the whole thing.”
“No,” Jalon said. “He was murdered.”
“No,” Walter said. “He killed himself. The police report was clear.”
“You have to believe me. There was an intruder. I saw him running away.”
“What did he look like?” “A man, maybe heavy, wearing all black, wearing some kind of mask.”
“That’s like thirty percent of the population,” Beatrice said. “What kind of mask?”
“Yes, thirty percent of the population, and I didn’t see the mask,” Jalon said. “It might have been a wolf?”
“A wolf?” Beatrice asked.
“A wolf mask,” Jalon said.
“But not a werewolf,” Beatrice said.
“No,” Jalon said. “No vampires or werewolves or ghosts. It’s a guy in a mask.”
“I remember when we role-played,” Walter said.
“Lance was in our horror game. We were designing a system in which Earth would be taken over by aliens, and we would have to form a group to fight back. We wanted the game to be something we could put online and sell for a few bucks. Lance had written about twenty pages for it. I was impressed.”
“I will take over his part if you want,” Jalon said. “I feel a little more aware now.”
“You seem more aware,” Walter said. “You weren’t really all here before.”
“My best friend died, Walter,” Jalon said. “In front of me. I’m never going to be okay again.”
“I know, all right? I won’t forget our roleplaying sessions. Pizza, Dungeons and Dragons, whichever module interested us.”
Jalon turned to Beatrice - the goth/geek girl sitting with them. She barely looked up at them, then back at her phone.
“I need to send some texts, just a second,” Beatrice said.
“My dad’s started a huge argument with my mother.
They are screaming at each other, and my little brother is throwing a fit.
Okay, handled. Listen, Lance was a goth geek fuckup who hated life and himself and thought that no girl would demean herself enough to date him.
He was absolutely a suicide. No one bothers to murder us, Jalon. No one. He killed himself. I’m sorry.”
Beatrice Tritten wore a black dress with a purple hat.
She seemed taller than her short height because she impressed people with her personality.
She wore purple boots and had a Christian cross around her neck.
She had wide cheeks and pouty lips and a normal person’s body - not super skinny but certainly not fat.
“And someone has started flirting with me again. Jesus,” Beatrice said.
“I have enough of that with my boyfriend. Why isn’t he here?
He just texted that he is opposed to suicide.
We get to play roleplaying games and board games, do geek stuff, and hang out with friends. That should be enough for us.”
“You lost weight, and now everyone loves you, even though you are the same you,” Jalon said. “The cool kids want to do despicable things to you now.”
Beatrice continued. “Irrelevant. I remember that we got together to role-play and play board games on Tuesday nights over dinner. We ordered pizza and ate said pizza and breadsticks with the special garlic sauce and drank soda - especially soda with lots of caffeine. I remember the good times. Who cares about the bad?”
“He was a truly wonderful young man - does anyone not remember that?” Walter asked.
“Today we remember a wonderful friend, and that is enough truth for today. I know in my heart that he killed himself. He hated himself and his life. He felt ashamed of being a young man who might have been gay or might have just been scared that he couldn’t date girls successfully.
Either way - he had very low self-esteem, Jalon. ”
“If any of you are stupid enough to kill yourselves, I would be so disappointed,” Jalon said. “We can’t have this happen. I love you all too much to have that happen.”
“I live a good life. I’m shocked that Lance was depressed enough to kill himself,” Walter said.
“He was murdered,” Jalon said.
“No,” Beatrice said.
“Yes,” Jalon said.
“The cops checked,” Beatrice said. “Suicide.”
“I disagree,” Jalon said. “There’s a murderer out there, and we need to find him.”
“You’re an idiot,” Beatrice said. “We are in high school. We can’t solve a murder. Especially when the victim clearly shot himself. You don’t remember entire parts of that weekend. Why do you think you remember everything correctly?”
“Why in the hell not?” Jalon asked. “He was murdered. I swear this to you.”
“By the way, where is my darling boyfriend?” Beatrice asked.
“I don’t know,” Jalon said. “The teenage guy known as Ghostkin is missing in action. I don’t know where he is or what he is doing right now.”
“Haven’t seen him,” Walter said. “Off doing who knows what.”
“Where does he go?” Beatrice asked. “I misplace my boyfriend more than anything else in my life.”
“I don’t know,” Jalon said.
“Is he a superhero?” Walter asked. “That’s my guess. That he tries to fight injustice.”
“There are no heroes. None.”
“Police, first responders, military, all heroes,” Jalon said.
“Police are indeed heroes,” Macmillan Cable said. “And we should trust their conclusion: that Lance Grey committed suicide.”
Macmillan Cable, a black geek, walked into the room.
He had been in the entryway with about half a dozen adults expressing sympathy about the death of Lance.
He was tall, six foot two inches, and skinny.
He wore a nice red dress shirt and black dress pants.
He had a buzz cut, no facial hair, and gentle features.
He went to New Liberty High School with Jalon.
He played in a lot of the same strategy gaming tournaments and competed to win.
“You like the cops?” Jalon said.
“I’m giving the cops a chance, hoping that they can turn out to be innocent and good,” Macmillan said. “They say that it was suicide. That is enough for me.”
“No,” Jalon said. “Wrong. Not true.”
“Come on, let’s believe in the cops,” Macmillan said. “You have to believe in the police. Jalon, you are sad and hurt. Let’s not hurt a random innocent because you want to blame someone.”
“Nope,” Jalon said. “He was sorry.”
“Fascinating,” Beatrice said. “How are you, Macmillan?”
“I am studying Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, specifically,” Macmillan said.
“I’m consulting InfoXTL,” Jalon said.
“What does it think it can do to help our lives?” Macmillan asked.
“You don’t like it?” Jalon asked.
“No, I don’t,” Macmillan said. “I don’t trust InfoXTL.
A corporation created it. It isn’t self-aware.
It isn’t a sentient being yet. I don't believe it’s anything beyond a clever program that can sound legitimate.
It works for a corporation, a company with interests and angles and a perspective. It’s not balanced.”
“You don’t know that,” Walter said. “It’s smart enough to write essays and make intelligent thoughts.”
“It’s our friend,” Jalon said. “It was Lance’s friend, and it’s our friend. We consult it daily on all aspects of our lives. Although our lives suck right now.”