Letters from the Dead pt. 12

I never knew where to start when it came to Cherish.

We had know each other since we were babies. 

Our mothers were friends.

We had been in the same class together since the first grade.

We were like sisters. 

Then high school happened.

We grew apart. It was just a normal part of growing up. 

We still talked, though.  We hung out.  I still considered her my best friend, and I think she felt the same. 

She started dating a guy, a real piece of work. 

I could see that he was bad news from the moment he showed up.

Cherish was blinded by love. 

On prom night we double dated.

It didn’t go well.

Her boyfriend was being a jackass, and I said something to him about it.

At first he did nothing. 

That night, after the dance and the house parties, he decided to take it out on Cherish.  

They found her the next morning, hanging from a tree outside of our school. 

Her boyfriend skipped town.

They never found him.

Eye See You: Luke pt. 2

The video was horrible. 

She was screaming, thrashing, her body being tossed around the room.

Tossed by whom? 

An unseen force. 

An unknown sender. 

Something that is watching, but never seems to actually be there. 

There was the sound of glass. 

Amy’s battered body was tossed through a window, the eye of the camera looking down as she fell, hit.

Broke.

She lay shattered on the cement. 

Ruins pt. 5

“Any luck?”

My sister smiles at me. 

She is the reason, the only reason, I keep fighting. 

She has made a home for us out of the rubble that was once an office. 

Cubicle walls repurposed to create our own little fort. 

Tattered blankets that she has repaired so many times that hardly any of the original fabric remains.

Two cots tucked away, a sheet separating them, giving the illusion of privacy. 

She has worked so hard to create this home for us, to reclaim some small piece of our humanity. 

She was seventeen.  She should be getting ready for graduation, for college. 

Instead she was learning how to hunt rats for their meat. 

She coughs, her lungs tight and wheezing. 

It’s getting worse. 

Eye See You: Luke pt. 1

It wasn’t me. 

It should be me, but it wasn’t me. 

My name was at the top of the list, but for some reason the person in the video was not me.  It was a woman.  I recognized her from her picture. The picture I had received one week after this… all this… had started. 

Amy. 

I had been spared. 

Why? 

Letters from the Dead pt. 11

“Tommy DeMarco was gay?”

Leah looks at me, stunned.

We had decided to stop off in a small bar in downtown Wheaton.

It was Thursday, and the place was dead.

We picked a table towards the back, away from the small gaggle of businessmen looking for a little extramarital extra credit. 

I had told Leah everything Sebastian had told me. 

“Maybe that was why he acted out so much. Not like Wheaton Prep is the most welcoming atmosphere. A true conservative red blip in a solid, true blue liberal state.” 

When she was done dealing with the revelation about Tommy DeMarco, I told her about my letters.

I wasn’t looking forward to the question I knew would come.

“So, who exactly is Cherish DuPree?”

That was the first thing out of her mouth.