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On the way down from the train station, he stopped in front of a hedge that felt awfully familiar to him. At first he couldn’t quite pin down why. Was it the wa it was cut, was it a special kind of hedge plant? No, he figured short after, it was the house popping up from behind the hedge. He knew that house. Though it looked a bit older and more worn down than last time he had seen it. He hadn’t been in this town for close to ten years and it showed.
Actually, he had planned to never come back here, after a big fight with his parents. He had always hated this small, unforgiving town he had grown up in anyways. But now the death of his parents pulled him back here and he felt as if it was bringing up a lot of repressed memories.
Starting with this house. Someone had lived here, someone he had spent a lot of time with. He just couldn’t quite remember who so he took another look around. There was a bus stop and he remembered sitting there many times, waiting for the bus home. But not alone, there had been more teens. A group, he had had a friend group. Why could he not remember any of their names? Just a bit further he could make out a very rusty and almost overgrown street sign that pointed the direction to a playground. Right, the alki-ground! thats what they had always called it, because there were more old drunk men there than kids. But it had always been fun to hang out. Do stupid shit, make those dudes mad. They had always provocated them on purpose and started stress. He even remembered one of his friends getting into a fist fight with one of these grandpas. And this bus stop was where they hung out before going home. Aside from one, because he had lived in this house right here.
He looked back towards the house and now he spotted a face behind one of the windows on the first floor. Right, that had been his room. He remembered hanging out on the roof, in front of the window. the hang over from the living room, and watching the night sky. Listening to music over shared headphones and almost falling asleep. The window opened and the head stuck out. In that moment he realised how funny he must look, standing there on the middle of the road, looking around and staring at the house. Loaded with just as many bags as he could possibly carry, exhausted, a little sweaty.
“Chris?” Shouted the person from said, light blue house, with a dark, masculine voice. From this distance he would have thought it was a woman. He saw long black hair, straight and silky. He could tell because of the wind that was blowing through it.
By the mention of his name he felt caught. The person seemed to recognise him and he had no idea who that was, but that could also be due to is poor eyesight. He decided to put down what he was holding in his right hand and waved towards the man on the first floor. He expected to have stumbled upon an old friend. Maybe the one he had hung out with on the roof? And a slight smile creeped upon his lips. He had completely forgotten about this. Apparently his home town did not only bear sad and negative memories. Maybe there was something good to be found here. For the first time since the death of his parents he was thrilled by the fact that he had to return here.
The head pulled back and the window was slammed shut. He flinched a bit at the loud thud, but maybe his old friend was just excited to see him and run out onto the street? Only that no, he wasn’t. The curton was pulled closed and while Chris was still confused and tried to process what was happening, the same happened to the other windows of the house, one after the others. They were closed, curtains and blinds closed. Very thrown off, he picked the bags back up that he had dropped to greet the man on the first floor. Okay then, he thought. And went over to the bus stop, hoping to remember which bus he had to take to get to his deceased parents place.By the evening he had managed to arrive at the house. He fished the key out of the mailbox by the help of a magnet and opened up. He dropped all his things in the hallway and took an exhausted look around. Slowly but surely, he started to remember more things, and this time not very positive ones. He remembered why he had hated his parents and this house he grew up in. Now, you might think that he had inherited the house and was about to live here, or clean it up to sell it, but you’d be wrong. His parents hadn’t owned this house, they had just rented it. From family friends though, and since they felt sympathetic towards Chris, they had given him pretty much unlimited time to sight the things in the house and clean it up. He also didn’t need to pay the rent, the landlords just wanted it back without having the trouble of working on it themselves. Now, Chris wasn’t yet sure if he wanted to sleep here while he worked on everything. He could also rent a small vacation apartment, he had checked on google and seen there was one around here. To his surprise, because who wanted to go on vacation here? The little, sleepy town was in the middle of nowhere and nothing interesting was to be found here. Not even a school, he had had to drive to the next bigger city by bus. Which made it even more surprising that he had apparently had a friend group here, considering he had never been quite.. conventional.
Which got more than obvious by the time he entered his old room. He had actually painted his walls black, but you could see how badly it was done. He had had no idea what he was doing. In some areas you could see the green he had painted over, in other areas the paint had scraped off. He could also see that apparently he had just painted around the furniture, because a cabinet was missing and there was a gigantic green wallpaper patch in its place. He smiled a bit to himself. That had always been him. No idea what he was doing, but he was doing it with a lot of passion. Plastered his whole room with posters, he had even tried to paint his own things on the wall, things for bands he couldn’t get posters off. Apparently his parents had really not changed much in here, ever since he left. It comforted him a bit to know they had dispised him as much as he had hated them. At least they hadn’t mourned him until the end. Finding out they had would have given him a hella heavy conscience. But this way, he had nothing to regret and felt entirely fine with what he had done.
He moved his bags up from the hallway into his old room. The nostalgia made him feel quite happy. He would be okay with staying here. Looking at the posters while trying to fall asleep, only now he could play whatever music he wanted and didn’t have to worry about his parents getting mad. Maybe there even were still batteries in that pumpkin fairy light over his bed. There was no way he would start working today, so instead he took some good looks around his room. There had to be more memories here. About his friends, maybe something that explained why his old friend didn’t want to see him. He searched the whole room, looking for something, anything. A diary, photos, notes- but there was nothing. Until he took a look into his trash bin that apparently never had been emptied. There he found a crumbled note in his handwriting which peaked his attention. He sat down on the old, wooden floorboards and straightened the paper so he could read it.
whenever i see you i still get nervous
Im pretty sure you dont really wanna see my face and i can understand that
But i hope you will at least read this and not trash it right away
If you even get this because im sure your father will find it first and i know he hates me
anyways i just feel like i have to tell you
theres a big storm coming and
And what? He turned the note around but there was nothing on the other side. Apparently he had just stopped writing and tossed it away. He wondered if he had rewritten the note and handed it over or if he had given up altogether. The paper didn’t even tell him who that note was for, but it must have been really important to him. As far as he remembered he had never been one to write letters. It sounded a bit like a love note. A girlfriend? He couldn’t remember to ever have had one. Weird. And he couldn’t even ask his parents about it, or anyone else. Except for this dude he had seen today, but after he had slammed all his windows shut in such a defensive manner, it was probably a bad idea to show up there and ask him. But if he wanted to unravel his past here while cleaning up his parents house, where else could he start? It would already be enough if the man gave him another address. There must have been more people in his life. So he decided to pay him a visit the next day and for now focused on unpacking his bags.
In similar fashion to when he had left the house he had grown up in, he had left the small place he had had in the next bigger town to come back here. Had stuffed everything that was important to him into bags and left. Cancelled the contract and left the rest of his junk back there. There was no way he would get back the rent deposit but that was okay with him. Now, all that he had with him were his precious band shirts, a stack of CD’s, a few treasures. His important documents. He could get pretty much anything else here, since everything had to be trashed, or he took it. And he didn’t even know yet where he was gonna go afterwards. Maybe he would stay here for a month or two longer than necessary, pretending he was still working on everything. He could pay his food from the little money he inherited from his parents and just enjoy a little break here. And who knew, maybe, if he was lucky, his parents had a stash of cash somewhere, hidden in a mattress, that would keep him going a little longer. Maybe even be enough for another big tattoo, he hadn’t gotten a new one in a year or two now. Anyway, he was motivated to live in the here and now, as always. While he was curious to find out more about what his teen years must have looked like, he did hope to refind some old friends and stay friends. To have someone in the here and now. Because after he left this little shit hole of a town, he hadn’t managed to make new friends he felt as close to as to the ones he had had here. Well, he couldn’t remember everything yet, so maybe he was wrong. But his feeling told him that their bond had been quite tight.By the time the sun was completely down and it was officially night, Chris had set up his camp for the night. His teen room never had a TV, but he had carried up the one from the living room so he could watch a trashy horror film while laying around on his bed and enjoying the cold night air. He had a window right by his bed that he had open now. And since it was facing the street, that was probably how someone had figured someone was home, since the dor bell rang. Right in one of the most suspenseful moments in the movie, so he got jumpscared. Over the course of ten years he had forgotten what the door bell sounded like and it took him a few seconds to realise that’s what had just happened. He went down to open the door and didn’t bother to put his skinny jeans back on, he just opened in boxer shorts. At this time of day, no one could expect him to be properly dressed.
The face in which he looked instantly unlocked a memory for him, finally. “Vin!” He exclaimed in euphoria. Finally a face he recognized! Just way older than he remembered. It had aged more than ten years, he found. The innocent and squeamish boy had turned into a tired looking man with deep eyebags, stressed skin. His cute brown locks had turned into frizzy waves. And maybe also his joy for life had gotten lost, because the euphoria was not mirrored in his expression. He just looked.. Tired. Worn out. Exhausted.
“Christopher.” Was all that left his lips and slowly but surely, Chris bright expression and smile dropped. Why was no one happy to see him? The only thing he could come up with was maybe that he had left town and they hadn’t.
“Do you want to come in?” He invited the familiar face in and brought him up into his old teen room where the horror movie was still running, since he had found it uncomfortable to hang out in the rest of the house. He had never felt at home in any of the other rooms. Not then, not now.
The new face sat down on his floor cross legged and folded his hands. “Why are you back here, Cristopher?”
No one called him Cristopher, aside from his unloving parents, to keep him on distance. That was probably the point of the man’s behaviour. To create distance.
“Well, my Parents died. Someone has to take care of all the stuff. And well, I’m the only one left.”
That answer did not satisfy Vin.
“Chris. Listen here. You had promised never to return here, couldn’t you just hire someone to clean this out? You’re gonna tear open old wounds. Nobody is gonna be able to look you into the eyes after what happened. It’s better you leave here as soon as possible.”
This only raised more questions in him. He remembered the note and some parallels to what Vin was saying. But it didn’t make sense.
“But what does that mean?” He asked in confusion. “What happened? I don’t remember anything. If something that bad had happened i would know, right?”
The other man sighed and kept looking at the floorboards as if he wanted to study their pattern, as if he found them more interesting to look at than Chris’ face. Or maybe he just couldn’t bear to look at him, like he had said.
“Someone died, Chris. Balz died. And you’re partly to blame. Some of us still wish it had been you and not him. So. Just believe me. It’s better if you leave.”
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
After Vin had left, all he could do was sit on the floor and try to make sense of everything. His head was spinning so much he hadn’t even made it back up to his old teen room, he just sat in the hallway by the entrance door. Back against one wall, feet against the other, blocking the path, but it was not like anyone would want to cross. He was the only one here, alone in this tiny house. Someone had died. Balz had died. He didn’t remember any Balz. So what did this mean, he was partly to blame? He didn’t know where to start, so he pulled out his phone and googled for deaths in this area, ten years ago. He expected Balz to be the first name and thus to hit a dead end, but to his surprise he found that Balz was a last name. J. Balz had been found dead at the age of nineteen, in a stormy night at a playground. The first one to find the body had been a R. Olson who used to be one of J. Balz closest friends. The article said the police did currently not have any leads and from his further search he found out that the case had never been solved. No one knew how exactly Balz had died. Though, he found a quite recent article. For the tenth death day of the unsolved death of J. Balz, his family and friends had gathered to lay down flowers. And there even was a picture of a group of people standing by a grave, all dressed in black. He zoomed into the picture and took screenshots, because, he saw Vin. He also saw the long haired man he had seen earlier today. He looked around to see if he recognized any other faces.
Some people looked vaguely familiar. For example the man with the bright purple hair, but he couldn’t remember any name or much else about him. Next to him stood a young woman he didn’t recognize at all. Maybe only his girlfriend and no one he would know or remember. So he focused on the two faces he knew, tried to remember more about Vin and the man from today. R. Olson, one of them had to be him, he figured. Unless R. Olson had died in the meantime which was possible.
He could slowly remember a few things about Vin. Vinny. The youngest one. The always scared one. The crybaby. He always held hands with this other boy. What was his name again? H.. h.. Horror! It was fucking Horror! He smashed his fist onto the floorboards and hissed “Yess!” since he finally remembered something else. Vinny and Horror, the two inseparable boys, he had always suspected they were a couple. But he couldn’t remember what Horror looked like. When he tried to imagine his face, there was a big blur. But.. He wore cool shirts, hand downs from his big brother. Linkin Park, Placebo, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, all the cool stuff. He had been chain smoker, from a young age on. And, Chris had always liked him. Found him very cool, how he climbed onto cars to give air guitar solos and later, when they started doing weed, would just lay around in the grass and talk about the universe in a hot dog bun and how badly he wanted to leave this town. Surely Horror must be long gone by now. And, Chris realised, he had always had a fucking hard crush on Horror. Had always been nervous around him, from young age on until the time he left the town. But, as mentioned, he had always been sure that Horror was together with Vin. He sighed. Now, where did Balz come in? How was he affiliated with his death, how was he supposed to find out if not even the police knew? Or maybe they just didn’t want to publish their information. He wandered if it was a good idea to go into the station and ask about it, if there was anything about him in that folder. If it was, they would have to tell him, right?That night he didn’t get much sleep. He tried to look at everything from as much perspectives as he could. For Balz friends it must be unbearable to not know what had happened. He wasn’t sure but assumed that Balz and him had been in the same friend group. If he really had something to do with the death of an old friend, the least he could do was try to bring closure. He should talk to the others. Tell them that he didn’t remember but that he wanted to. And if he was at fault, he should be held responsible. Since Vin had paid him a visit he thought that talking to him would be his best option, but he had no idea where the man lived. He only knew where the long haired one lived. The ultra goth. The one who wasn’t thrilled at all to see him. But where else could he start? He would have to pay him a visit in the morning.
And that he did. But at first he made sure to make a good impression. He took a hot, long shower and shaved. Then spent way too long in front of his mirror, trying to decide if he should wear his black, shoulder long hair open or tie it back. He didn’t want to come across like a hipster, but letting his strands hang down looked kinda.. Messy. Homeless. In the end he did tie it up. He took out his piercings for the day, decided to wear a long sleeve to cover up as many of his tattoos as possible. He had no idea how this man acted and thought and what he would think of his appearance today. He had never outgrown his rebellious phase, he still wore the same band shirts and black skinny jeans with holes, the same satanic prints on his hoodies and black nail polish on his fingers. For this meeting, today, he even chewed it off. Of course he didn’t bring any nail polish remover and he didn’t want to spend an hour looking for his moms old things. Those had probably dried out anyways.So, he managed to look kind of presentable when he left the house and jogged over to the bus stop since he almost missed the bus. During the whole ride he was nervous and that only grew stronger when he walked up to the light blue house that he could now clearly remember. He remembered how the first floor looked before he walked around the hedge to see it. The dark brown front door, the gravel path leading up to it with its unnecessary windings. The curtains and windows were still closed. He took a big breath, swallowed, then rang the door bell.
It took a minute until someone opened. And when the wooden door finally moved, he looked into the pale face from yesterday, only today he could see it up close. And it hit him like a brick to the face. The man in front of him was really fucking attractive. And, he didn’t have to think so much about how he looked. Because he didn’t only have long, goth looking black hair, he also had two rings in his lip and smudged leftovers of eyeshadow in his face. Tattoos on his neck, lower arms and hands and stood there in a worn out shirt of his favourite band ever. Whoa. Chris couldn’t help but stare at his pretty facial features.
“Are you Horror?” Chris just blurted out before he could stop himself. But if he tried to imagine a matured Horror, he would look like this. And it would explain why he felt like he was just starting to have a crush on this man. But he shook his head. “No. Wrong house. What do you want, Chris?”
His voice was cold. He was not happy to see him and he had to collect himself mentally and push aside just how goth damn beautiful this man was.
“I want to talk. And help. And I need help. N-nonono, please don’t just close the door on me!”
The hyper cool goth was about to slam the door shut and he could only stop him last second.
“Vin was at my place yesterday. And please believe me, but I don’t remember shit about what happened here. Help me find out. Vin mentioned a Balz and i looked up what i could find online but that wasn’t very helpful. However, if Vin is right and I had anything to do with this, I want to stand up for it!”
He could practically feel the goths gaze piercing his skin. It hurt, how someone could look at him with so much hate in their eyes. More than he remembered from his parents. And he had always been sure no one could hate him as much as his homophobic nazi-like parents.
“Are you for real? You’re not fucking shitting me?”
He nodded.
“I barely remember anything. Just bits and pieces. I recognized Vin. This house. The bus stop. But I don’t remember Balz. Or you. Or the rest of the group. I mean, i remember there was a group, but i don’t remember who was in it.”
He could see how the goth was thinking really really hard. He didn’t look very convinced, but at least he was considering. Or so he thought.
“I’ll think it through. Don’t come back here, I’ll come to you. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I have to throw up from all those memories.”
And faster than he could answer, the door was finally slammed shut and he was alone on the dirty porch. He heard the goths steps hurry away, most likely in the direction of the bathroom. Hmm. This did not go as he had hoped.. However, this gave him time to focus on the actual task at hand, to sort and throw out his parents things. He would have to bring everything to the dump or put it on the lawn and hire someone to pick it up. And then clean and probably renovate. Great. Well, if he was lucky, he could eventually see the pretty goth again though. Maybe find out where Horror went. What had happened. Make up with everyone. Finally make up with the whole town, bury the past. And.. Give Balz the peace he deserved. He was sure he was a great dude. Why else would they have been friends? If they had been at all..When he was back, he walked again through all the rooms and tried to make a to do list on the note pad in his hands. He had found it in a kitchen cupboard. But the house was so full of stuff, he didn’t even know where to start. He could start by sorting out what he would want to keep or what he could maybe sell. But then where would he put it so he didn’t mix the things up. No, he had to go through it room by room.
He decided to turn the living room into his main workplace, where he could sort through the things. Things he wanted to keep or sell he would bring into the kitchen, or, if they were small enough, into his old room. And everything that could go, he could throw into the old bedroom. Then, when he had somehow sorted everything except the furniture, he could calculate how much trash there was and how to get rid of it. He didn’t want to start throwing chairs onto the lawn when he wasn’t even sure yet when he would finally get rid of them. Having chairs on the grass for weeks probably wasn’t a good look. So, for now he turned on some music, taped notes on the doors to mark the rooms and started with the smallest things. He found a pack of trashbags in the kitchen and sorted through the living rooms. Trashed old books that you couldn’t sell anymore at all and googled to find out if the porcelain figurines were worth anything. In the end he just listed everything that seemed to be of value on a second hand site to see if any offers would come in and put these things on the kitchen counters.
While looking through the living room, he stumbled upon a few half interesting things. A few family photos that he remembered being in, but someone had put stickers of flowers over his figure. Well that proved how much his parents must have loved him. He sighed and tossed them away. Aside from one. He decided to start keeping more memories. It scared him to know he seemed to have forgotten so many things that he never wanted it to happen again. He also decided to try and find something in the house he could use as a dairy, to make sure he kept track of his life, for future reference. Who knew, maybe he had alzheimers. But that would be quite weird to have in your late twenties already.
In another drawer he also found multiple condolence cards, written by his mom. To what seemed to be the family of J. Balz. That was the first real hint that he might actually be connected to his death in some way. It seemed the cards had never been sent. Or maybe they had just been returned to sender. He also found an unopened letter in that drawer, addressed to one of his old places. With the mark that it couldn’t be delivered and had been returned to sender. He figured that his parents had tried to mail him something, but after he had already moved. And he had moved so many times in these ten years. Curious as he was, he opened the letter.
It was a fucking bill of his that had been delivered to their place. That was a real big fuck you. He couldn’t help laughing about it. Together with a few old books, he threw the letter in a metal bucket and sat down outside on the porch and lit the contents of the bucket on fire. He stared into the flames as slowly but surely the second day here came to its end and he continued to wonder what the hell had happened here. He didn’t really know more than he had known yesterday, and he felt like he was getting nowhere. He felt like crying. Especially since he couldn’t forget the cold look on the pretty goths face today. He didn’t even know his name. He had told him that, but not gotten any response. Now that was another big fuck you. It seemed as if the whole town was after him.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
The third day started as depressed as the second one had ended. There had been nothing interesting on TV and he had barely gotten any sleep. He got up at five AM because he couldn’t fall back asleep and now sat on the living room floor to some ballads from his favourite bands and a steaming cup of coffee with condensed milk. It was raining today. the perfect day to fall into depression. Which he surely would, if he found out about any more people hating his fucking guts for something he couldn’t even remember. He didn’t feel like starting work yet and instead googled around a bit, tried to find anything that might help, like a facebook page of J. Balz parents or something. He did have the glorious idea to google the address of the ultra goths house though! And when he did, he found out about Mr. and Ms. Olson. Finally. Finally he knew that the pretty goth must be R. Olson, the one who had found the body. Holy fuck. That explained a lot of his behaviour. But it also meant that R. Olson might be able to help. If he had found the body, maybe he had an idea about how the hell J. Balz had died. Oh, was cursing on dead people even okay? Ah, he thought, him and R. Olson were apparently both hardcore goths, so it was almost safe to assume that the rest of them also were. Probably even Balz himself. So, he was sure Balz wouldn’t mind.
White he finished his coffee, he was a bit lost in thoughts. That meant, the memories about the light blue house he had, he must have shared with R. He decided to call him R for the time being, until he found out the name. It had been R he had shared headphones with. Staring at the night sky. He saw a pattern, since he also remembered Horror doing that. He couldn’t remember Horrors face, but R had already said he was not Horror. So, there must just have been two similar boys. One he had a crush on, and one called R that he had the option of spending time with. He feared he might have been that kind of asshole who tried to date R, just because he was so much like Horror.
Oh, this was all getting so confusing so quickly. So he put down his empty coffee mug with ugly roses on it (he usually liked roses but this cup was just extraordinary unappealing) and started to look around the house, to see if he could find any kind of notebook or folder that he could put his own papers in. Anything he could use to keep track of the things that had happened ever since he got here and all the infos that he had.
He found a notebook with dinosaurs on it and a few childhood drawings that seemed to have been done by him. Of course he didn’t remember them cause who did? But a small note in ballpoint pen said Chris, 8 yo, dino at the yoghurt market. He could not make out a dino or a market, let alone a yoghurt market, whatever that was supposed to mean. But he just flipped the pages until he found some blank ones and started writing down.Most of the day went by without any interesting events. Around the afternoon he looked through all the kitchen cupboards to see how much food was left and noticed that it was far less than he had expected. So that left him with no other option than getting takeout for every meal, or going to the store. He remembered that there was one small supermarket down the road and got ready to head out. Now knowing that R was more goth than he had originally expected, he decided that he didn’t have to hide. He left his hair open and didn’t bother to hide his tattoos. He shouldered his favourite, very torn, backpack and left the house to go buy himself some frozen vegan pizzas and oreo cookies. Yeah yeah, the condensed milk hadn’t been very faithful of him, but there hadn’t been any other option. And anyway, he could do whatever he wanted, right? So he had decided to allow himself that small little sin.
While he browsed the store, he almost hoped to run into R. Or Vin. Or anyone else. Maybe Horror. Maybe the purple haired man. He passed the baked goods isle and could barely resist getting a donut. He loved donuts. But he knew all too well that these weren’t vegan and so he just stared at them for half a minute, very sad, contemplating all of his life choices. Was life even worth it when he couldn’t have a donut?
“Oh!” He heard a friendly, elderly voice to his right. “Cristopher! Right? You are Chris, right? Oh its so nice to see you, it must have been an eternity!”
He turned and recognized a small, elderly woman who hadn’t changed so much in the past ten years. If he wasn’t completely wrong, that must me Ms. Amsel, the ice cream grandma from the only kiosk this town had had. He remembered spending all his summer holiday money at her store. He grinned widely and just couldn’t hide how happy he was that anyone in this gothforsaken town was glad to see his face.
“Yes, It’s me, Chris!” He said and the cute old woman practically forced him to shake her hand with great enthusiasm.
“Ah”, she said. “It all went so quiet when your group was gone. You know,” She gave him an amused look, as if she was telling him a secret. “They used to say that you and your group were satan worshippers and all that stuff but I never believed that. Look what a handsome young man you have become!”
He gave her the happiest smile he could possibly bring up, because he rarely had been called something else than a failure and a menace. If nobody got him, he knew the ice cream granda from the kiosk had him.
“Thank you so much!” He beamed at her, then he realised what a great opportunity he had in front of him.
“Can I ask you something that might be.. Weird? It’s been over ten years since i saw any of my old friends. Do you know if they are still here? Or can tell me their names? I can’t seem to remember all of them..”
With an embarrassed expression he ran his fingers through his hair, but Ms. Amsel didn’t seem to mind.
“But of course dear! First of all, Vincenzo, The boy from the Mauro’s! He came to my store until I had to close down. He would always get buckets full of sweets for his so called parties, but if you ask me, I’m pretty sure he was having them all by himself.” Ms. Amsel chuckled and Chris made his first mental note. Mauro! Vin Mauro, he had a full name and could probably also find out the address, Jackpot! But the elderly woman wasn’t done yet.
“And the poor boy they had sent to the hospital, after the Son of the Balz’ family died. I think they were best friends. I don’t think I’ve seen him ever since. There’s rumour he lives with his grandparents now, the Olsons. He takes care of them but never leaves the house. He’s probably still traumatised, that poor poor boy. He was always so polite and would sometimes show me the pictures he had taken with his camera.”
And there was R! Also very useful info. So that meant R had been locking himself inside the house for pretty much ten years? That sounded insane to him! And he felt so so sorry for loading everything onto him if his psyche was that damaged. He swallowed hard.
“Yeah, I remember spending a lot of time with him.” He allowed a weak smile onto his lips. “Do you remember his name? It was something with R, was it?”
She nodded slowly, seemingly having a hard time remembering. Why did old people name everyone by their family names?
“I think it’s Richard, but you kids might have called him something else. I’m sorry, I don’t remember that clearly anymore.”
She looked apologetic and he quickly calmed her down.
“Don’t worry Ms. Amsel! If not even I can remember, there’s absolutely no shame in it.”
She laughed and patted his shoulder.
“That’s the spirit my boy! But, now I have to hurry, else I will be late for Bingo. If you haven't yet, you should stop by the Balz Boy’s grave, they made it really pretty for the anniversary!”
That was the best idea she could have given him. The grave! They usually had the full names on them. He could finally find out his first name. So he thanked her, said goodbye and rushed the rest of his shopping trip, so he could go and check exactly that.He decided to do his visit by the grave when it got dark, just in case he ran into anyone. The public didn’t seem to know he was involved, but the friend group from back then did. At least Vin and Richard. Honestly, Richard sounded like a horrible name to him, so he decided to stick with R. He threw on a black jacket and used his phone flashlight to check out each individual gravestone. It took an insane amount of time, even though he already focused on the ones with lots of lights and flowers. This graveyard was bigger than expected for such a small town. But, who knew, maybe the towns and villages around them didn’t have their own and brought their dead over here. Or the graveyard was just really old and all the graves were from hundreds of years ago. They all looked like it if he was being honest, except maybe ten that were completely clean.
During his search he also came across the fresh graves of his parents. He hadn’t even considered that he might see those, hadn’t wasted a single thought about it. So now, that he stumbled upon them on accident, he stopped and took a deep, thoughtful look. He hadn’t even asked how they died. All he knew was that it had been an accident and they had died together. Someone had tried to tell him but he had refused. Whatever it was, if it had been a car crash, a collapsed building, a candle or stove, he didn’t wanna know. He didn’t need another connection to them that he couldn’t erase anymore. Now, imagine thinking about your dead parents whenever you enter a car, no thanks. He kneeled down and looked at the inscription. It was some random bible verse. For a moment he thought about vandalising the grave but he didn’t do it. No, he would find enough satisfaction in trashing all the things that had ever mattered to them. Maybe he could burn his mothers favourite carpet and take a picture that he could leave by the grave, to make sure she would know. While he was lost in these thoughts, he stopped looking around. He just looked at the grave and thought about what they had left behind for him. A past to unravel and a lot of hatred and trauma. Trust issues. Nothing he would be thankful for. No wonder he had never outgrown his rebellious phase.
He jumped up when he heard a rustling noise. He expected it to only be a bird but he still looked around. And just in the last second he saw a figure on an old, rough stone wall not too far away. But he couldn’t make out any facials due to his bad eyesight and the figure escaped his view as fast as it had come.
“H-hey!” He shouted out, but of course the person didn’t stop. He hurried after them to the wall, but there was no trace of the person, they were gone. Weird, he thought to himself. Who would watch him and then run away? Or maybe it was just a scared teen who hadn’t expected to meet anyone here. No matter who it was, he wouldn’t find out anytime soon so he sighed and continued his search for his dead friends grave.
By the time he found it, he was already frozen through by the night air. But it was worth it, because the small but half clean gravestone really did bear a first name, and it was Joshua. Joshua Balz. He sat down cross legged and let some memories rush over him.
Josh, but they had called him Balz. And he had probably been the most rebellious of them all. He remembered that one time, when they were younger, Vin had accidentally gotten lots of gum into Balz’ hair and to get it out, his mom had had to shave his head. She had been insanely upset and underlined how upset she was by this and he also remembered a teacher saying it looked absolutely awful. From then on he would keep shaving his head whenever his parents didn’t look to upset them time and time again. And him and the others, they had had the time of their life drawing on his bald head with sharpie. Balz would wear it with fun and pride. Balz is bald, it had been funny as hell. He had been the oldest of them and he had been the first to start with stick and poke tattoos. With an injection needle from the pharmacy and liquid eyeliner. Goth, those tattoos had been risky as hell and he could be glad they never got infected. He did in fact have some stick and poke tattoos on legs and arms and now he remembered how Balz had done them. How Balz had tattooed all of them. It had been his life dream to become a tattoo artist, one who didn’t have a single inch of empty skin left. With ten piercings in his face, stretched earlobes and contact lenses. He must have been the idol for all of them. He remembered his cracked humour, he made bad jokes, annoyed the shit out of all the parents and teachers. He constantly got detention or got picked up by the cops for random shit he had done. And he was the one who fist fought the grandpa at the alki-ground. He was the one who pierced Chris’ lip, and also- Ricky’s. Ricky. Ricky! R’s name was Ricky, he finally remembered! He remembered what Ricky’s room looked like, sitting on the roof in front of his window. He remembered watching in awe when he let Balz tattoo his chest and how he just had stared and realised how fucking gay he was. He remembered having his first kiss with fucking Balz, like probably all of them, because that was the most rebellious thing Balz could have done, so of course he did.
He sighed and ran a hand over the gravestone. Shit, now the memories finally came back and slowly but surely, he felt tears coming up. No matter what had happened, Balz did not deserve it. He was the greatest fucking guy that Chris had ever met. And he hoped that Balz would know, if he watched him now, sitting in front of his grave, silently crying to himself.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
For the third time he woke up in his old teens room, on the fourth day. Today he really had to start working and fill more trashbags, but he didn’t really feel like doing it. He barely could bring up the energy to leave his bed. He still felt like crying and wasn’t done remembering things about Balz. While taking a shower, he remembered playing soccer during the heaviest rain of the year with him, Horror, Vin and two others while being high as fuck. He had known him for so many years, there was no end to the memories. And no matter what he remembered and about whom it was, most of the time someone else was there as well, they had been a pretty tight and cool group. He had had real friends, close friends, so he wondered how he could have forgotten about them? But he knew that trauma could repress memories, at least it was displayed that way in Movies. He took a wild guess that his repressed memories must have something to do with Balz’ death. So, something must have happened. And he would bet his ass that it was the missing detail to finding out what happened to Balz.
At some point he finally got to work on things. Collected some trash and moved things around. It took him some hours, but he cleaned the living room out enough to create a good base of operations. He pushed all the furniture to the sides and created a big free area on the floor. And when he was done and sat down cross legged in the middle of the big, free space, he remembered one of the best evenings he had possibly ever had.Chris stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. He had just put on makeup by himself for the first time and thought it looked absolutely awful. Like two or three times Balz had done his eyeshadow and one time Horror had made him a real cool corpse paint. And then there was the goth girl in their group, who had done his makeup too once. She was really skilled and he had looked fucking hot with purple glitter eyeshadow and some contouring on his cheeks. But on his own and with his mothers makeup, he wasn’t even able to pull off proper smudged eyeshadow. He felt absolutely unskilled and considered washing it back off, but his friends were faster because someone rang the door.
There he was, and of course he was the first one to be here. Horror. In this memory, his face was a blur, because Chris could not remember it. It gave the whole memory a scary and unsettling touch, but back then, teenager Chris, couldn’t have been happier and more nervous.
“Hi! You look really cool. You could have told me you would be going all on out!”
Horror crossed his arms just the way he always did and he couldn’t help but smile about it. He was cute. Horror was always cute, no matter what he did. Horror was a fucking light in the darkness and was the reason he got up in the morning. He hated everything else. His patents, his home. School. And in his small, limited teenager mind, he failed to see he had so many cool friends, real friends, around him who would support him no matter what, just like he actually loved them. But no, all that he could see were the negative things, and Horror. He could only see Horror.
He stepped aside to let him in. “Well, feel free to rummage through moms makeup, just don't break anything or she will kill me!”
Horror chuckled and walked to the bathroom, where Chris still hadn’t cleaned up the makeup chaos. Horror had been here many times already, whenever Chris’ Parents weren’t home. He took off his beanie, tugged his wild, frizzly hair behind his ears and started using the makeup. He got to watch him in awe. Even though his hair was very badly dyed and he was thin like a stick man and probably underweight, Chris couldn't imagine anyone more good looking.
The door bell rang again and he let in more of his friends. Vin, Balz, then it got interesting because the memory got a bit wobbly. He let in three people that he did of course know, he was friends with them. But he couldn’t quite remember. One of them was a girl in heavy goth makeup and a black, long, frilly dress. No, wait. She took off her jacket and he saw her chest was flat. Was it a boy or a girl?
But memory Chris didn’t mind at all and hugged her. “Good to see you! Did you sleep over with Justin?”
Justin, now he remembered! Devin and Justin. Devin’s parents insisted she was a boy and hated when she wore dresses or put on makeup, so she had her girl things at Justin's place. Back then, he hadn’t even known what a trans person was. Devin said she wanted to be a woman so she was. She could have wanted to be a unicorn and they would have been like lol okay. No one even questioned it.
Anyway, he let in Devin, Justin and the other boy and they started to move all the living room furniture around.
“Are you guys sure that’s a good idea?” Asked Devin after she had pushed a chair to the side. “I’m not sure if we should mess with a Ouija board in the middle of the night.”
There was a laugh from another room, then Horror joined the group. “Don’t shit your pants girl. It’s completely safe, believe me! I’ve done it dozens of times.”
Horror had improvised something similar to corpse paint with what he had had at his disposal. And Chris was so blown away. He really didn’t understand how Horror could look so good all the time? Now from a distance, he scanned him up and down. He wore black, torn shorts and a very loose Placebo tank top. The holes for his arms were cut out so deep he could see parts of his chest and he felt heat rise up in his cheeks.
“You don’t count!” Exclaimed Devin. “You’re a real fucking psycho, you know that? Of course you don’t get scared like us normal mortals. I mean, you dug up a fucking dead body so give us a break, okay?” She seemed amused though and Horror crossed his arms, like he almost always did. His expression was barely readable under all that makeup. “You're exaggerating. It was a casket and it turned out to be empty, aside from this rusty key. Yes i dug up a grave but there was no body, so chill your girl balls.”
Horror was probably even more badass than Balz was. Because the older, bald teen did everything he could to upset people for fun, behind that mask he was very friendly and liked to help everyone. Horror on the other side, he tried to stay in the shadows when under normal people. It was only when he was with his group, just like today, that he let the freak hang out and did shit like that. Somewhere he still had this polaroid picture that Horror had taken of himself.. Shirtless, covered in fake blood and corpse paint as always, making out with an angel statue on the graveyard. Yeah, a real freak. Who of course didn’t get scared by a Ouija board.
Now, as they were done freeing space in the small room, they sat down in a circle and dug out stuff from their bags. Soda, snacks, some alcohol, Balz had illegal cigarettes and Horror the Ouija Board. They tried to call ghosts all night and a few times it also seemed like it worked, but when he later talked to him alone, Horror admitted he had pushed the piece around to mess with the group. Their youngest, Vin, had almost started crying when the piece spilled out that Vin had to die. Most of them had already left, Vin was on the toilet and Horror smoked a cigarette on the front porch, talking to Chris. He remembered how nervous he was. They were alone. He was right next to him. He could reach out and hold his hand if he wanted. And he must have side eyed him very obviously, because Horror flicked the ash off his cigarette and then asked “You want some?”
Chris didn’t really smoke, just sometimes, to be cool. So yeah, he nodded. Watched Horror take another long drag and expected him to pass over the cigarette, but instead- he dropped it to the ground and stomped it out. Chris was confused. But then Horror leaned in, got very very close to his face. And Chris could feel his breath and brain stop and pulse raise. He thought Horror was about to kiss him. Finally. Even though he was in a relationship with Vin. But who knew, maybe he was like Balz. Who just messed around with whoever he wanted.
But, Horror only blew all the smoke directly into his face and caused Chris to cough for a good few minutes, almost choking on the porch. Horror laughed. As always, and it did sound quite cute.
“You should have seen your face, man! Ah, hey Vin, there you are! C’mon we should get going. See you tomorrow, Spook! Sweet dreams!”Spook, right. Thats what Horror had always called him. He run his fingers over his face and could almost smell the smoke of his cigarette. Really, what had happened to him? Had that maybe been him, on the graveyard, last night? It sounded like him and made kind of sense. Now that he was able to look back on his memories and think about them in an adult fashion, the weird boy had always been very morbid. Not afraid of death, not disgusted by dead animals. He had picked them up and torn out their skulls to put them on display in his room. How the hell had none of them ever noticed how dangerous he seemed? So fucked up.. If any of them still wanted anything to do with him, he was sure it was Horror. And who knew, maybe he was lucky, maybe he would run into him soon.
He continued the day by running around the house, thinking about which of the furniture he could maybe still use. And that highly depended on where he went after this. If he stuck around or not. Which was impossible to plan at the moment, it was up to his old friends. If they wanted him back. Because getting in touch again sounded generally nice. They had had many good times. He could very well imagine that Balz’ death had destroyed everything. He had been the head of their group. He had been the one with the brain cell. So, no wonder everyone had lost touch. And, of course, there was the thing that Vin said he was involved in the death somehow. But there had to be a way to clear this up. He was surely no murderer. It could be everything.. Maybe Balz had had an accident with Chris’ bicycle and they blamed him for not warning that the brakes weren’t the best anymore? It could be something like that. Up to.. Well, maybe he had been mad at Balz and just tried to play a prank on him that went wrong? Maybe he had had a fight with Balz and he then.. Jumped? He didn’t even know if Balz’ death had been an accident or if he had been killed or killed himself, he knew nothing. And this way, he had no idea how to find out. But if he knew one thing, then that he was a nice soul who could never hurt anyone. Who wasn’t badass at all. If Horror had dared him to dig up a grave, he would have chickened out. That was probably also why Horror had never been interested in him.
He tried to shake off his thoughts about Balz and Horror and instead went back to sorting some things. He had found three interesting boxes in the storage room that could maybe contain things of his, so he wanted to look through them. It was mainly full of junk though. An old ceiling lamp, broken porcelain, family pictures of his grand parents that hadn’t found a place on the wall, some torn clothes. Just.. Junk. And then, when he dumped the whole contents of the boxes into trash bags, something caught his eye. He had to dig through the entire trash bag to find it, but it was worth it. Because he was a hundred percent sure, that was the piece from Horror’s Ouija board! It must have gotten lost during the evening. Maybe that time that Justin got so jumpscared he threw all their things around. Yeah, right. He remembered. They had all crawled around the floor trying to find it and he remembered staring at Horror’s ass when he was on all four and tried to look under the sofa. It had paired well with his shorts.
He decided to take a late night walk. To the grave yard. And to put the Ouija board piece down where he had seen the person last night. He was pretty convinced it had been Horror. Well, when he was there he quickly decided to put it down by his parents grave, by the decor. He didn’t want a gardener to throw it away. Now, all that was left to do was to come back the next night and see if anything had happened. His hopes were low. But he was pretty much out of options.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
On the fifth day he slept in. And when he woke up he looked at the ceiling and smelled freshly baked bread, from the neighbours house. He remembered that from his childhood. The family had never liked him, but they always made bread that smelled super good. And tasted good too. One time Balz had stolen one. They ate half of it and fed the rest to the ducks at the nearby lake. The same lake they used to swim in during the summer. He remembered taking looks at Horrors Body and how Vin never joined them, squeaming something about leeches and alligators eating your feet. Just another perfect summer with the group. Flat chested Devin in a swimsuit and wasting every last penny on ice cream from Ms. Amsel’s kiosk.
At some point he moved his relaxed ass out of bed and down the stairs to the ground floor. Mentally prepared to move more things around the house, collect trash and start to take apart old furniture. His plans changed though, when he noticed one thing; the glass front door was broken. The glass was fucking shattered and he wondered how he had been able to sleep through this. And in the middle of those glass shards rested an item that caught his eye right away. A triangle shaped, polished piece of wood with a hole in the middle. The same one he had placed on his parents grave last night.
Okay, that was a clear message. He picked it up carefully and turned it between his fingers, as if he was looking for a hidden, secret message. But there was nothing, after all it was just a pretty piece of wood. Apparently Horror did not want to see him. After all he had picked the most destructive way to interact that Chris could think of. Now what? He put the Ouija board piece in his pocket and decided to start the day with a Coffee. And of course broomed up the shards while he waited for the water to boil.Close to the evening he gave the landlords a call and told them about the broken door For now he had covered it up with an old bedsheet. While he was on the phone, he tested out how easily you could now go in and out without even opening the door and focused his gaze onto the mailbox. He realised that he hadn’t checked it a single time and did so, while listening to his parents’ old friend on the phone. They said they were sorry, something about him having to go through so much. Little did they know. He was going through things, but it had nothing to do with his parents. He barely felt anything towards them at all. He gladly accepted the apology though, if it meant they weren’t mad at him for some random person vandalising the front door, since he claimed to not know anything about the culprit or a motive.
The mailbox was full of junk mail and genuinely, he was surprised it hadn’t burst yet. He could barely imagine how someone had managed to get all of this in. He carried everything inside to look through it and make sure there wasn’t a bill or something important that would come around to bite him in the ass. He quickly noticed how one of the letters was way thinner and more flimsy than the others. In fact, it felt as if it was empty. Also, there was nothing written on it at all, it was blank. He tore it open and took a curious look inside. A tiny, purple post it note fell to the floor. He frowned and bent down to pick it up, but froze when he read what it said.
we need to talk
alki-ground
wednesday
7pm
-ricky
He stared at it and then took a look at his phone. It was a quarter to six. And it was fucking wednesday. He panicked. Holy shit, he could easily have completely missed this! This meeting was in about an hour and he had wasted all day doing random shit, things that suddenly seemed very unimportant next to this. His past, his old friends. Balz’ death. Nothing could be more important than this. Especially not his parents. They were fucking dead. And he didn’t owe them anything. With a hasty motion he stuffed the purple note into his pocket to keep the Ouija piece company and raced into the bathroom to freshen up in time.When he walked up to the old playground, he was sure he would only meet Ricky. Be alone with the ultra goth.Then he could soften up, open up, tell him everything he knew and didn’t know. And hope to reestablish a bond between them. But when he walked around a row of bushes and could finally see the place, him and Ricky were far from alone. Vin, there was vin. He sat on top of the monkey bars and smoked. Ricky was seated on the swings and on the bench he saw two people he remembered from the article. The ones he had thought to be a couple, but now he recognized them, it was Devin and Justin. So almost everyone was here. There had been one more man on the photo, and one more boy in his memories. As well as Horror. Where was Horror? He was in town, he had to be. And- Wait a minute.
“Ricky can leave the house??”
Everyone raised their heads and looked at him with very confused expressions. The one who answered however, was Vin.
“Good day to you too. Of course he can leave the house. What, did you believe the grandma gossip? You should know him better than that.”
The brown haired man took a drag of his cigarette and then added “Oh, no, right. Ricky told us you don’t remember? Is that correct?”
Everyone was still staring at him and he got nervous. He had hoped to get at least one person to believe him, before facing the whole group. All he could do now was hope they didn’t declare him a liar. He folded his hands and tried to figure out where to start.
At this point he took a few seconds to scan the situation. Vin looked.. Amused, light hearted. And compared to how he had been when he was younger, it gave him a sense of maturity that impressed Chris. He still looked tired, his hair was probably uncombed and he wore a dark green long sleeve with a few holes in it, as well as skinny jeans wich let his whole knees stick out. He still looked the youngest of all of them. And at the same time, the oldest. Like he had been forced to age forty years in ten years he had been gone. What happened to Vin, that was gonna be a whole other quest to find out.
His gaze wandered to the long haired goth who was seated on the swings. His pale, small hands grabbed the chains hard and his eyes were cold. There was no empathy in them and Chris seriously doubted it might ever change. He was very sad about it. For a moment he thought about the nights they spent together looking at the night sky, talking about how they would leave this town one day and get famous as a two man band. Laying on the roof on Ricky’s house, exchanging their favourite songs. Oh, how he longed for those romantic times. When he looked at Ricky and his pretty long hair, he wanted to fall in love right away.
“Y-yeah, that’s right. Over the past days I’ve remembered a few things, but there’s still a lot missing. My guess is I’ve repressed the memories. Most of all, I don’t know what happened. With.. You know.”
He didn’t dare to say it out loud. What happened with Balz. What happened to him. And how he was involved with it.
“Well..” Finally, there was another voice. It was masculine, so he expected it to be Justin’s, but when he turned his head, it was Devin. He had almost forgotten that she was born a boy. She had pink dreadlocks and a very warm smile on her painted lips. She seemed to be the only one who actually wanted to be here. Since Justin, next to her, with that bright purple hair he had already seen in the online article, was just looking at his phone and seemed to be playing games.
“Well, it wouldn’t surprise me.” She said. “After all you were very.. Out of it, that night. I thought you had lost your mind.”
He had no idea what she was talking about, but he was dying to know.
“Please, can you tell me? I already told Ricky, I just want to know what happened. And I want it to get cleared up. For Balz.”
He regretted saying that, because Ricky jumped off his swing and stomped towards him.
“You don’t get to talk about him, he was the best of all of us! And you took him from us!” Ricky pushed him and he stumbled backwards. Luckily, Devin chimed in and calmed the situation.
“Hold on! We don’t know that. All we know is that around one in the morning he turned up in front of my window and he was bloody from head to toe. We don’t know why or where the blood came from. It could as much have been his own.”
“I- WHAT?”
Chris looked at all of them but they just nodded or shrugged. He grabbed his messy, black hair and tried to sort his thoughts. Balz winds up dead and short after he shows up, covered in blood. So, of course everyone believed he was involved.
“But what did I say? Did I not have an explanation? And, Ricky- what happened to Balz? I couldn’t find out anything. Was he.. Hurt?”
“Of course he was hurt, he is fucking dead!” RIcky yelled and Chris flinched backwards. Yeah well, that’s not what he had meant but message received. The ultra goth hated him now.
He sighed and sat down on the sandpit’s stone border. He had to take a moment to think. He tried to put himself into their shoes, to figure out what he could say to them, what could help.
“So..” He heard Vin say. “Do y’all believe him? About the amnesia thing, or whatever it is.”
He felt like they were making fun of him and let his head hang low.
The long haired goth started talking again. “I guess. I mean, he rang my door and when he saw me, he asked me if my name is Horror.”
“Mh. Did he now?”
Horror! Right. Someone was missing. Chris raised his head again. “Yeah, where is Horror? I-I’m sure he would believe me! He was always the least easily scared.. If I remember right, that is.”
Everyone looked at him as if he had just said something completely and utterly stupid. And then.. Didn’t say anything. Just stared at him, until Devin broke the ice and saved his ass once more.
“Oh, come on, guys! Don’t be so heartless. He’s completely confused!”
She walked over to him, sat down next to him and took his hand.
“Horror is just a nickname. He’s right here with us. Take a look, are you sure you don’t know?”
Chris felt as if a massive stone was lifted off his chest and he gave Devin a thankful look. Right now, she seemed to be his best friend.
“Well..” He said, lowly. “I don’t remember his face at all. He was.. Heavily underweight, wore hand down band shirts and had black hair, heavily damaged from dyeing it. If I look around here, I don’t see anyone who matches that description.”
There was a loud noise that startled him, when Ricky kicked against the metal trash bin next to the benches. “Oh, come on! You make me sound like I was a sewer rat, at least leave me some dignity!”
Chris stared at him. Ricky.. “Ricky Horror? Like in Rocky Horror Picture Show?”
Vin started to clap loudly. “Finally! There are brain cells left in that head, we are not completely doomed. Okay next, why the hell did you show up in the middle of the night, covered in blood?”
He pulled up his shoulders.
“I don’t fucking know, man! Didn’t I already say that? And anyway, if Ricky is Horror, then who smashed my front door last night?”
At this point, everyone started to talk over each other and it was impossible to make out what any of them were saying. Chris grabbed his head and tried to think straight. And to remember, at the same time. But he couldn’t help it, it was all too much at once. And everyone around him was putting so much pressure on him, himself included, that he just couldn’t take it. He felt a tear roll from his eye over his nose, then dropped from the tip of his nose and fell to the sandy ground. Still, nobody seemed to bother and the voices were starting to drive him insane, so at some point he just stood up and shouted, very fucking loud. “Shut the fuck up!”
He took hard breaths, trying to calm down.
“I’m going home now! Sorry my memory doesn’t work like netflix or something where you can stream anything whenever you want. If you need me, you know where I lived. Just- not everyone at once. I need time to remember. Please. Good. Thank you.”
While the others were still looking at him in surprise, he took his awkward leave. He heard some whispers behind his back, then Devins soft voice. “Goodnight, Chris! Get some rest!”Short before going to bed, he decided to check the mailbox again and found a new post it note.
to answer some of your questions
i smashed your door i got angry
im sorry about the door but not for getting mad
and balz
he was cut open and his neck broken
found at the alki ground
i hope youre gonna rememer for fucks sake
Holy fucking goth. How did that even- He couldn’t even begin to imagine. And Ricky had found him? Horror. Ricky Horror had found him. He took the note inside, sat down on his bed and let his thoughts roam. So, he had always had a crush on Horror. But he had also spent a lot of time with him alone. Maybe.. Just maybe, there had been more between them and that was why he was so aggressive now. But, that was pure speculation. And he tried to focus on Balz anyways. But what Horror had written didn’t ring any bells. He didn’t even know where Balz had lived. Maybe he should stop by there tomorrow and see if he remembered anything. He should be able to find ot where that was.
With that plan in mind, he hit the hay. Tonight he popped some sleeping pills from his patents medicine cabinet, because he knew he wasn’t gonna get any sleep. And when he finally drifted off, his last thought was how much he hoped not to have any nightmares about Balz and Horror.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
It was one of these saturday mornings, where Chris’ father was at work and his mother went to have tea with her friends, so he was alone at home. He woke up with anticipation and practically jumped out of his bed. The free days, those were the best. The group would meet up at the alki ground, everyone would go whenever they felt like it. Usually Chris was one of the first ones, hoping to get as many minutes with Horror alone as possible. Just sit down, talk. Gossip about the others, exchange ideas for tattoos or wild plans on how to spend the day.
He ran around his room and dug through the clean shirt, looking for something to make himself look presentable. If it was warmer he would maybe go shirtless, try to show off. He had this cool little tattoo of a ghost on his chest that Balz had done for him. Sadly it hadn’t been Horror. He had tried a few times to get him to tattoo him, but the other boy seemed to be resistant to his hints. And how resistant he himself was, he was about to find out today.Because when he arrived at the old playground, someone was there already, but it was not his crush. On one of the swings sat Devin, today in boy mode, and he sat down next to her to keep her company.
“Hi!” He said. “I’m starting to think we should build a hidden stash for our things somewhere around here. For the weed and the tattoo things and Horrors Bird bones. And you could drop your stuff too, then you won’t always have to wait for Justin to bring them along.”
The goth girl next to him smiled but looked down at her hands.
“That sounds like a nice idea, thank you.” She smiled a little bit. “Chris.. Can I ask you something? Are you and Horror a thing?”
He looked at her in sheer surprise. And felt heat rise up to his head.
“Uh.. No, no we’re not. Why would you think that?”
She played with her soft fingers.
“Well, you spend so much time together. I don’t talk to Horror as much as I talk to you, but it’s like no matter what you say, it’s about him. It just got the rest of us thinking.”
The rest of them? He felt himself blush harder.
“Well.. Okay, but please don’t tell everyone. I like him. But I don’t think he likes me. He’s with Vin, right? So yeah, there’s nothing. Just.. Me and y stupid feelings.”
She still didn’t look at him. “You’re not the only one with stupid feelings..”Until the end, he had thought that Devin used to have a crush on Horror too. Today was thursday, the sixth day in this stupid town and he started to understand things that had happened years upon years ago. And he felt sorry for Devin, for being so blind. She must have had a really hard time already and loving someone who never loved her back or even realised surely didn’t make it better. Considering that, he was proud of who she had become. This memory didn’t help him with finding out about Balz, but now he wondered if Horror had ever known. He wished he could ask. But he shouldn’t, at least until the whole thing was cleared up and he could declare himself innocent.He was in the middle of disassembling the tv shelves when he heard the door bell and right after a shout for his name. “Chris? I’m not here to start problems, but can I talk to you?”
That was Devin. He put down his tools and hurried towards the front door. “Yeah, I’m on my way!”
He opened the door for her and somehow made his way through the bed sheet he had hung up too, a bit awkwardly.
“Hi!” He exclaimed happily and brought her into the living room, sine it had the most space.
“Well, as you can see I’m sorting through everything. Most of it has to go. What brings you here?”
She had more self esteem than back then. She was tall and pretty, just sadly not Chris’ type, since he was very gay.
“I felt like I should check on you. And see if I can help in any way. Either with remembering or with, well, this.”
He scratched the back of his head. “Oh! Well, gladly. There’s no rush though. I can stay here until I’m done with everything. But.. Maybe you want to sit down and tell me a few things while I work? I can offer you a drink.”
She accepted. Sat down on the sofa and watched him work on the shelves. Told him how many nice memories she had of this room. She also remembered the Ouija session they had had here so he showed her the wooden piece in his pocket. She could barely hold back her excitement.
“Yes!” She cheered. “Oh my god, I remember how freaked out Vinny was! He was a hundred percent sure that Balz was the one moving the piece. Back then I thought there really was a ghost in here, but thinking back at it, Maybe it really was Balz.”
He couldn’t help but grin. “I remembered too. And you know what? It was Horror. He told me after you left.”
“No way!”
Both of them laughed.
“Ah, Chris, it’s good you’re back. Living here got so depressing after what happened. Then you left. Ryan moved. Ricky pulled back and Vinny would rather spend his time getting high and wasted than talking to us. After some time, Justin and I moved to. We’re actually only here because Ricky called us. So, say what you may. But he wouldn’t have called us if he ddn’t want to talk this through.”
Funny enough, this calmed Chris down a bit. And he once again felt sorry for how he had left everything behind. He couldn’t remember why he left town, he had been sure it was because of his parents. Maybe that was part of the reason.
“What did you all think after I left?”
“Well..” She looked down onto her hands.Devin sat on the bench on the alki ground and stared at her phone. She had called her friends together and was currently trying to convince Vin to come too. She didn’t have very high hopes to be honest.. But she had to try, at least. Justin had a doctors appointment and would be there afterwards and Horror was on his way. Since he lived just across the street, she just told him when she arrived and he left to come over.
And there he was. She hadn’t seen him in weeks and was very glad to finally see him in front of her. “Hey!” She stood up to give him an awkward hug and he silently sat down next to her. He looked exhausted. Had dark circles under his eyes, without the use of makeup. His hair had gotten longer and he had started wearing thick hoodies for some reason.
“How are you holding up?”
He shrugged and dragged the tips of his dirty converse sneakers through the sandy ground.
“I’m not sure. But, is it true? You didn’t want to tell us over chat but I know. I heard it from the Kiosk lady. Is he really gone? Where to?”
Both of them were silent for a little while before she answered.
“I don’t know. But I wanted to pay him a visit and his parents said he had left like two weeks ago. And I’m really sad that I missed him. I would have tried to make him stay.”
The boy next to her shook his frizzly hair. “No, I’m glad that he left. I mean, I’m also sad of course. But I just couldn’t bear knowing he was around. I just can’t stop seeing Balz when I look at him. And since he refuses to tell us what happened I just can’t stop thinking it was him.”
She felt her chest tighten. Of course she couldn’t shake the thought either. It was just suspicious and there was no logical explanation for how Chris ended up soaked in blood the same night. But she wanted to believe it wasn’t the way it looked. Chris had always been a nice person, there was no way he could kill someone. If any, she would have expected Balz to do something like this, of all of them.
“Did you like him?”
She couldn’t help but ask. The question had burned inside of her for ages. And now that Chris was gone, now that it was over anyway, she had to know.
Horror looked at her with wide eyes.
“Well.. Kind of, yeah. But we were one big group of friends. I know enough stories in which groups got destroyed because one couple broke up. And aside from that.. I know that you liked him, too. I would never do that to you. Well, now it all doesn’t matter anymore anyways. Hey, can I.. tell you a secret?”
She nodded and swallowed hard, not sure what to expect.
“To me it almost feel as if our whole group was a bad sitcom. I had a few deep talks with Balz once. And he told me that he liked you. While you liked Chris. I’m thinking maybe he had some kind of stress with Chris. Maybe it escalated? What do you think, Is that maybe why?”Chris stopped working so he could look at her and tried to process everything. “I.. I remember talking to you. I told you i liked Horror. Does that mean we were both just.. Practically missing each other?” He sat down on the ground and tried to sort his thoughts.
“I don’t remember having a fight with Balz or anything. And I always thought Horror was with Vin. And that you were with Justin.”
She just shook her head.
“You also mentioned a Ryan. That must be the last one from the photo in the article then, right? Did i catch up with everyone or a I missing someone of our group still?”
She told him that was everyone. He didn’t remember Ryan at all, so he asked her to tell him a few things. He was the normal looking one in the group. The one who barely talked and instead just sat there with a beer, lost in thoughts. When they talked to him he pondered about god and the world. He could easily have been friends with the more normal kids, but just decided to hang with them. The satanic cult, how some used to say. Just because they wore black and listened to alternative and metal music. Well, that was probably satanic enough for the older generations.
“Really, there’s nothing special to say about Ryan. Aside from.. Huh. Now that I think about it, he was only there when you were. Whenever you were sick or busy, I don’t remember him being around. And he was the first one who left after you. Like.. A month later, I think. So pretty quickly. I think if any of us were friends with him, it must have been you. Horror doesn’t even have his number or address. Which also explains why he isn’t here with us.”
That made lots of sense to him.
“I wanted to visit Balz’ old house and see if that rings any bells. Would you maybe keep me company?”
She nodded. “Of course. Maybe we can do that tomorrow around noon? I’ll pick you up here. I wanted to check on Ricky and Vinny as well today, so I’ll be on my way soon.”
Yeah, that sounded like a good idea. That way he could spend some more time thinking.
“Alright, thank you. I’ll be ready when you get here. And, Devin- thank you. Really. You’re the only one who still likes me, I think..”He spent another evening alone in his teen room, just this time he was drinking, leaned against the wall and staring at the static on the TV. So, Horror had been his one true love. And Horror had liked him back, but they never became a thing. Maybe they would have, if he didn’t suddenly show up, covered in blood. He could have been the shoulder for his black haired goth friend to cry on. They could have been sad together. Since he had been close with Balz too. All of them had. Balz had been their big idol, the one who taught them to raise their middle finger. All of them had loved him. Well, that meant him, Horror, Vin, Devin and Justin. He didn’t know about the last one, Ryan. He remembered his face now, but nothing else. Nothing. He was like a ghost, even though he had been there all these years. Maybe he should actually start with him. Because that was weird. Maybe more repressed memories?
So, Devin didn’t know anything about Ryan. Maybe someone else did. He didn’t have their numbers, all he could do was wait. And that was starting to make him angry. He was wasting time, that wasn’t fair.
He stood up and put his beer down. Fuck it. He knew where they lived. Or at least he could find out. So he would go and talk to them! But before he went and knocked on anyone’s door, he walked down to the graveyard. There was a good chance Horror was there, right? And if he was, that meant he was ready to talk. Fingers crossed.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chris stumbled through the high grass between the older tombstones on the graveyard. It was darker in this area, because no one put grave lights down here. If Horror was hanging around on the graveyard at night he was sure he would be there, of all places. He had remembered a few more things about Horror in the past, like, two days. More of those dark hints. He remembered a time where he had called him the Graveyard-Boy for multiple weeks and he also remembered the group partying on the graveyard at midnight to celebrate Horrors birthday. Yes, if he was anywhere, it would be here. Looking back at it, he wondered why the boy was so obsessed with Graves. But when he remembered his own obsession with pumpkins, he stopped wondering. Yes, pumpkins. Pumpkin socks. Pumpkin boxershorts. Pumpkin ring. Pumpkin cups and fairy lights. Simply everything.
“Now, speak of the devil..!” Chris muttered under his breath when he looked around a corner. Somewhere in the dark distance, he saw something that looked like a glowing pumpkin face. There was no way someone else set it up, it was Horror, he was sure. So he approached carefully and stared and listened into the night. But there was nothing else, as if Horror wasn’t even there. Huh, he was a bit tipsy yes, but he wouldn’t just overlook a person, right?
No, he wouldn’t. Because when he arrived at the pumpkin, it was seated on the pedestal of a statue, there was no person here to overlook. Only a folded paper, halfway tugged under the pumpkin. He took it and looked around. No one there. Just the old, mossy stone statue next to him. Come to think of it, he knew which statue that was. The angel that Horror had made out with on that polaroid. He sat down in front of the statue, unfolded the letter and began to read.if you want to remember then how about this
we have been here before, just you and me
i think it was a few months before everything went downhill
i had brought you here so we could talk about a few things
you told me many things about ryan that i didn't believe at first
I just wanted to let you know that like a year or two later i asked him
and he confirmed what you said, actually made it sound much worse
i assume you don't remember those things either
maybe thats for the better, just be assured you’d be glad he isn’t here
-horror
He stared at the paper and tried very hard to make sense of it and remember. Just today he had talked to Devin about this Ryan. The one he knew nothing about, aside from his name. The invisible child in the last row. What could he possibly have to say about him? But what he found much more interesting was that he had trusted Horror enough to tell him about whatever it was. Alone, in private. He was sure it meant they had been very close.
He tried to remember said night. Him and Horror, right here? Talking? Hmm.. Slowly but surely, something came back to him.He walked down the path on the graveyard. But not alone, he was holding someones hand. And not just anyone's hand, it was that one hand, that fucking hand he had wanted to hold for ages. Only it was platonic right now. He was here because he had called Horror and asked him if he had time to talk. But, now that he was holding his hand, the world was alright again.
“Thank you. That you, like, made time for me. You know. ‘Preciate it.”
Horror rolled his eyes and stopped. “Spook. Come on. You know me by now, right? I always have time for you.”
He didn’t know what to say and just looked at him and repeated “Thank you”.
They walked a bit further until they reached the stone statue and sat down on the ground in front of it, facing each other. Horror grabbed both his hands.
“We’ve been friends for so long. Now listen to me. If something happens, you come to me, yes? No matter what it is. I’ll get you out of everything, promise. Okay?”
He nodded slowly. “Okay. But you don’t have to get me out of anything. Its alright. I just needed to talk to someone.”
Horror shook his hands. “And that someone is me, always.” He looked him intensely into the eyes and Chris felt like he was getting lost in them.
“Okay.” He said, smiling a bit. He was in fact glad he had Horror. Way too often he just didn’t talk up and instead tried to swallow all his problems. But eventually he choked on them, just like today.
“Good.” With a satisfied and smug grin, the boy let go of at least one hand ans scooted next to him, so he could also lean against the stone and look up into the dark night sky. Around here they could see dozens of stars. That was perhaps the only advantage of living in a small town like this.
“Hey Spook?”
He almost bathed in being called that name. Some time ago Justin had used the name too and Horror had declared that he alone had the right to use the name, so it felt very special. He loved it. Call me Spook. When were alone and when were with the others. As if I was yours.
He answered with a “Mmh?” sound and slowly tilted his head to the side, until it touched Horror’s. Then, they stayed like that for a little while.
“Do you still wanna leave this town one day? I know I said I didn’t wanna come because I actually like how small it is here, but.. It would be very empty without you here. I think I would follow you. If you take care of me.”
In that moment it dawned him that Horror was actually a quite scared and fragile person, but he seemed to be one of the only ones to know. He acted like the scary freak when they all met up. But in moments like this, or when they hung out on the roof in front of Horror’s window, he was calm, almost poetic. He clung onto him and didn’t wanna be left alone. It almost seemed like he had two personalities. But, Chris was convinced it was actually about his ego.
“I still wanna go, yes.” He said and felt around until he found the other boys hand and grabbed it.
“And I’ll take you with me. We can get a cool little place that we turn into a whole graveyard.”
He heard the low chuckle next to himself.
“That sounds very cool. Man, what luck we have similar tastes, right? Imagine living with a girlfriend who wants to paint everything pink!”
Chris couldn’t hold back a laugh. “But pastel goth is a thing! Imagine, all pink but its pink bats and skeletons and pumpkins.”
They kept talking about subcategories of goth and their future apartment for quite some time, until they heard a familiar shout in the distance. Oh no, that was the graveyard gardener and he hated to have teens hang around here. Which might be related to Horror continuously stealing cool decor and grave lights to put in his room. So they jumped up.
“We gotta bounce!” Chris whispered and his friend Horror grinned at him wide.
“Okay, but first I gotta give you something!”
He had to get on his tiptoes so he could even reach up to him, since Chris was a tall, big edgelord with extra thick shoe soles to be even taller. He then quickly pressed his lips on Chris’ cheek, then dashed off into the darkness.
“Catch me!”Chris did not remember if he had managed to catch the boy. He leaned his head against the stone behind himself and looked up into the sky. He was still tipsy. What the hell did this mean?
No, he was sick of playing these hide and seek games. He stood up, pocketed the paper, picked up the pumpkin just because he wanted to keep it and then made his way over to Horrors house. He would just ask him. He was as open with all of them as he could, yet he started to feel like they were playing their games with him. First Horror smashed his door, then he yelled loudly and angry when the group met at the playground and now he left notes that Spook could not make any sense of.So, now there was a slightly drunk Chris on the bus with a carved pumpkin on his lap, seated in the bus. He had had to turn off the candle, but that was fine. He would relight it at home. He was busy studying the paper once more, so he didn’t even notice how someone sat down with him. After a little while he looked up and stared right into the persons face.
He recognized him. He was the last one who had been on the picture in the article, so he squinted his eyes. “Ryan?”
As the man nodded, he felt his stomach twist and turn, in a bad way. An alarm bell went off in the back of his head, but he couldn’t tell why. Because of what Horror had written? He quickly stuffed the paper away.
“Good to see you, Spook.”
Since when did he call him that? That was Horrors name for him. Horror had made exactly that clear. So he frowned.
“Chris. Just Chris please.”
For some reason he felt better now.
Ryan rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say, Chris. I got a call from Justin that you’re all meeting up and didn’t invite me. What’s that for?”
Chris couldn’t help but shrug. He was not in the right mindset to deal with this.
“You know what, why don’t you stop by my old place tomorrow and we talk? Im kind of out of order and its late already.”
The other man did not want to be pushed off that fast. He actually grabbed Chris’ hand and looked him dead in the eye.
“But the bus has already passed your place. Why are you not going home then?”
Our tall goth started to get uncomfortable, slowly but surely, since he couldn’t get his hand out of Ryan’s grip.
“Because I’m not sleeping there but I’m there all day to work. Now, please see me there tomorrow, I have to get out here.”
The bus announced the next stop and luckily it was the one at the old playground, where Horror lived. He stood up and Ryan let go of him, finally, but followed him to the door.
“Oh, funny! That’s exactly where I’m getting off.”
For like another minute they stood there in awkward silence and Chris almost squeezed the pumpkin in his arms.
The bus came to a halt. The door opened and when Chris got off and turned to leave, Ryan was still just mere inches behind him. He felt a shiver run down his spine and hurried down the street, then walked around the hedge and jogged up to the door. He rang the bell quite hastily.
It took a few seconds of course, then the door opened.
There was Horror. And his expression shifted from curious to annoyed to horrified. Chris had no idea what was going on. But Horror grabbed his shoulder and pulled him inside.
“Chris! There you are, I’ve been waiting for you, come in. Hi Ryan, nice to see you, see you around? Yeah? Nice, goodnight!” And then he slammed the door shut.
Chris felt dazed.
“Are you alright?” Horror grabbed him by both shoulders.
“Wow, I’m glad you remembered. Where did he even come from? Was he after you?”
Horror looked through the peephole and tried to see if Ryan was still there so Chris put the pumpkin down and scratched his head.
“Okay, time to explain some things. I don’t remember crap about Ryan. But he’s making me feel super uneasy. You seem to know something. Tell me.”Spook was seated on the couch. In his hands a fancy halloween cup with vanilla coke. It had always been his favourite but he thought he remembered that Horror hated vanilla. So this was just another mystery on the shelf of weird things that happened ever since he got back here.
The other man took a moment in the kitchen and when he sat down with him, he held a steaming black coffee in a just as fancy halloween cup.
“I was half asleep.” He explained. “I feel like I need to be awake for this. Now, tell me. Did Ryan bother you?”
The tall goth squinted his eyes.
“Well.. uh, yes. But also, what’s up with that? I remembered what you wrote about.” He showed the letter, by now half crumbled, and he saw the man blush a bit. He kept explaining.
“But, I don’t think I remember all of it. We were talking about Ryan, but what did I tell you, what did he do?”
Horror sighed.
“Okay, I’ll tell you, but hold on to your cup. You weren’t quite clear that evening, but you said that he creeped you out. That he would constantly call you, come over uninvited and when you met on the street he would follow you everywhere. It sounded to me as if he was stalking you or something, but you denied that. You were always way too nice and still played it down and protected him.”
Spook looked at him with wide eyes. That was pretty much exactly what Ryan had done today. Maybe he just didn’t know the concept of personal space and that was it? As a teen he might have been overexaggerating.
“Did he do that with y’all too?”
Horror shook his head.
“Also, I asked him after you left and he told me that it wasn’t like that at all. He said you had been dating and that's why you spent so much time. I kind of assume you didn’t?”
Spook first shrugged, then shook his head.
“I don’t think I ever would have. A thing I remember clearly is I’ve always had a crush on someone else.”
“Ah, okay.”
It was impossible to read Horrors expression.
“Well,” He said. “now he’s back. Goth knows how he got here, i purposefully didn’t call him. I.. I’m still doubtful about the other thing, like, you know. But I guess I’m holding my promise. If he bothers you, I’ll jump right in and help you. Let me give you my number..” Horror fumbled his phone out of his hoodie pocket and Spook nervously did the same. Getting his crushes number was still a quite exciting thing, so he had to keep it together while saving in the number that Horror read out loud.
“Thank you.” He smiled, a bit shy. “I uhm.. I tried to get him to leave and since he didn’t leave me alone I kind of told him he could see me at the house tomorrow..” He heard Horror sigh. “But at least he thinks I’m sleeping here and not at my house! So I should be good for now.”
His crush nodded.
“Okay, that’s good. Then.. I guess I’ll be there tomorrow. But It’s getting late, so maybe you better head home. It’s kind of creepy that you're here at night, you know..”
Oh shit, right, they thought he was like.. evil, maybe. Like, a suspect in Balz’ murder. Of course Horror didn’t want him in his house at night. So he stood up, very quickly, and clung onto his cup.
“Right! Yeah, yeah. I’ll.. yeah. I’ll leave you alone. Sorry.”
He downed the cola since he was sure that Horror would just pour it down the drain, he hated Vanilla Coke.
“Sorry again. But, thank you for the pumpkin.”He stood in front of his house and stared at it. He wasn’t quite sure what to do. The house looked as sad as always, with the bedsheet in front of the broken door. The only thing that was out of place and eerily creepy was.. The light. In his room. Someone was in his room. And there was no doubt who that was. But, what was he supposed to do now? He could call Horror. But.. no. He had creeped him out enough at night. And he wasn’t a teen anymore, he was a grown ass man. He would go in there now and tell Ryan to leave. And if he didn’t, he would simply call the cops. Right. That’s what he was gonna do.
He quietly snuck through the broken door and went up the stairs. He knew which ones made noises and which not. So he reached his room without raising suspicion and saw him.
Ryan had opened a cabinet and was digging through his things. Whoa, what a creep. He cleared his throat and Ryan dropped what he was holding.
“Jesus, Spook! You scared the shit out of me. I thought you didn’t sleep here?”
He pointed at the bed. And Chris had to take a deep breath to not start yelling at the man.
“What are you doing here, uninvited?”
He wondered if Ryan could get dangerous. He didn’t want to wind up dead. Wait. If he thought Ryan might kill him, then maybe it was him who- that thing with Balz..
“Ryan, I think you should leave. I don’t fancy visitors after midnight. And.. again. Please call me Chris.”
The man picked up what he had dropped. But he did not show any intent to leave. He stared at Chris intensely and then sat down on the teens bed, folded his hands. It provoked the talk goth beyond belief.
“Okay, what's wrong? Aren't you glad to see me? Come on, I was your first boyfriend!”
Chris was very sure that he had not been with Ryan, ever. So he frowned back.
“No, I’m not glad to see you in my room in the middle of the night when I haven't seen you in ten years. Now, please leave.”
Ryan did not stand up. He just stared at him.
“But Spook, We’ve been here so many times, especially at night. How can you not want me here?”
Okay, Chris realised he was talking against a wall. He wasn’t gonna get Ryan out of here. Now, should he call Ricky or the cops right away? Or should he not call anyone at all to not cause a scene? He sighed, pulled out his phone, stared at his display and decided to do the latter, or, at least pretend he was. He dialled a fake number and intensely watched Ryan’s reactions.
No one picked up and there was only the error beeping sounds, but there was no way the other man could hear that from the distance.
“Cerulli, I have an uninvited visitor in my house who won’t leave.”
..
“Yeah I know him, but he won’t go home and I don't think i can get him to leave the property without using violence. Yeah. Could you send someone over?”
Suddenly, Ryan jumped up onto his feet and said loudly, he almost yelled: “Alright, alright, I’m leaving! But I have to say I’m quite hurt that you throw me out. We’ve always been so close!”He did in fact leave and Spook was very glad about that. But now, he was downstairs and looked at the broken front door, he felt nervous. Before he went to sleep, he went through the effort of pushing furniture from the living room into the hallway and blocked the door with it. In addition to that he locked all other doors within the house including his room and pulled the blanket over his head in his bed, praying he’d survive the night.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Chris woke up and realised that this day was gonna be very, very exhausting. He had told Ryan to find him here today to talk, Ricky had said he would show up to help and Devin also wanted to stop by and visit Balz’ house with him. And none of these three people had given him a hint of when they would actually be here. At least the stress helped him to get up earlier than the past days. He set up some coffee and poured in almond milk he had bought, not his favourite alternative to milk but he could be glad the small store here had anything at all. He tried to do some more of the work he was actually in this house for, but it was very slow, with all the thoughts that were racing through his head. He thought about Ryan, his crush, about everything that he remembered and what not. He sat down and took a moment to recap. He knew they had been a nice, tight friend group, all of them. The rebellious teens of this town. All kind of dark and goth, but that was probably due to the head of their group, Balz. Everyone kind of wanted to be like him. Had he been any other kind of person, they all might have ended up as gangsters or sports enthusiasts. But no, Balz just had to be the thing that people around here hated the most, satanic and dark. Everything had worked out, everyone had a crush on someone, lots of confusions and misunderstandings, but it had worked out. Until Balz winded up dead, and as Devin had told him, Chris showed up the same night, covered in blood, and refused to explain. And as the group disassembled after that, he left town and forgot about everything. He forgot his friends, he forgot the death, he forgot this super big crush he had on Ricky, at least until he saw him again. Without even remembering, he still felt the same. He needed to sort this out. For Balz, but mainly for Ricky. Horror. His little Graveyard-Boy. Once this was cleared up, he could talk to him about it. Tell him. He knew now that Horror had liked him too. Maybe there was a way to catch up to what could have been. But not until everyone, including himself, knew for sure that he did not kill Balz. He had been one of his closest friends. He would never kill him!
Second to that, he needed to know what this thing with Ryan was about. This man he had met last night, the man who had followed him around, broken into his house, dug through his stuff, rambled about being his first boyfriend. He couldn’t remember, but he was a hundred percent sure he would never have dated him. Ricky had told him he had been uncomfortable, because Ryan had done these things in the past too. And last night, just for a short moment, he had thought that Ryan was dangerous, maybe dangerous enough to.. He didn’t even want to think about it.
He wrote all his thoughts down in the little notebook he had found, with his childhood drawings of dinosaurs. He believed he remembered that he had liked those a lot as a kid. He put the book down in the kitchen, next to his empty cup and went to the living room to get to work.
Today he bagged up the clothes. He looked through everything, just in case he found something interesting, but only remembered how fucking ugly his parents clothing style had been. He threw everything out aside from a few belts and socks and threw the trash in a corner next to the big bed. He pulled off and trashed the sheets too and then went through the nightstands. He found a lot of pill bottles in the drawer on his moms side. Different kinds of antidepressants. He didn’t know if she had always taken those or if it happened after he left. He thought about tossing them out but then decided to keep them and threw the bottles onto his teen bed instead. You never knew when it came in handy.
Shortly after that, the doorbell chimed and he went down the stairs very cautiously to see who it was. Now that he had a bedsheet hanging in front of the broken glass door, he couldn’t see who it was. He really wished Horror wouldn’t have broken it. He opened up the door slowly and was very relieved to find a friendly face in front of it.
“Devin! Oh I’m glad it's you. Come in.”
“Who else would it be?”
She stepped over some things on the hallway floor, his bag and jacket and he quickly picked them up after her. Silly him, he shouldn’t leave stuff on the floor for people to stumble over.
“Well..” He hung both things onto the coat hangers on the wall. “I ran into Ryan yesterday and he was being really weird. He gives me the creeps.”
His friend went to the living room, like last time, and sat down on one of the seats he had pushed aside.
“Ryan? How comes he’s here?”
Now that he thought about it, she should know. Apparently Justin had contacted the creepy man, so he told her and she seemed pretty confused.
“Justin, huh? No, he didn’t tell me anything about it. He doesn’t talk a lot anyways. He also didn’t wanna come along today.”
He wondered, maybe Justin didn’t want to dig up any of these old stories. Maybe he had made his peace with it and wanted to forget. He couldn’t put it past him, but he still wanted him to know that he was innocent.
“Well.. Sounds like it’s gonna be a messy day.” He sat down on the floor in front of her, since none of the other seats or the sofa faced her way. “But maybe that’s good? If we’re all at the same place, maybe we have a better chance of figuring this out. Or well, me, that is. I keep saying We but actually that’s my job.”
She leaned forward to get a little bit closer to him and put a hand on his shoulder. He looked up to her and found her soft smile to be incredibly reassuring. This far, she had been the nicest towards him. She had liked him once, he knew that now. He just hoped she was over it, he didn’t want to break her heart again.
“You can’t do this alone if you can’t remember. I want to help you. And to find out. I know we all won’t ever be the same, but it could be better, you know?”
He nodded, slowly. He hoped for that too.
“What happened after I left? To all of you. None of you still seem the same.”
But she shook her head.
“Maybe another time. We should dig up the past first.”
And he agreed. Devin helped him with the cleaning of the house and they decided to wait a while to see if Ryan showed up. And, well, Ricky. They bagged and boxed up more stuff, She kept a few things of his mom’s jewellery and Chris started to disassemble some bigger things to make more space. Then, after a while, there was arguing outside and both of them went to the front door to check.
He opened up to find two men by the fence gate, talking loudly. Both Ran and Ricky were there. It looked surreal, considering they also hadn’t talked in ten years and just were both here because of him. His old and new crush, Horror, stuck in the possibly thickest hoodie he could have found, he looked as if he was trying to hide away. Yet he almost yelled at the brown haired, normal looking man and it looked like he was trying to block the way. He went out to both of them. Usually he would invite people in, but he didn’t really want Ryan inside the house, not again.
“See?” said the creepy man, when Chris stopped by the small group. “Of course he wants to talk to me, he came outside. You can’t just tell me to leave and expect me to listen.”
“Nobody wants you here.” Said Ricky and crossed his arms. It gave Chris flashbacks. The man had always done that, his whole life. Whenever he wanted to ward someone off, when he tried to look cool, when he was amused, when he was angry, he did it pretty much all the time. It instantly reminded Chris of many, many things, too many to hang in those memories right now.
“No, he’s right.” Chris wanted to put a hand on his friend’s shoulder to show they were a unit in this matter, but he knew better than to do so. Ricky didn’t trust him. He probably didn’t even want to be here. He was just here to keep his promise, to protect him from Ryan if Chris needed it. “I’m very busy with my parents house here. I don’t really want to dig up old stories. Sorry, but I didn’t come back here to talk to you.”
“Old stories you don’t remember, eh?” How on earth did he know that, he must have talked to someone. Maybe Justin. It was the only thing he could think of. “Come on man, you just disappeared without a word. That was weird. That’s not how you end a relationship, right?”
He started to feel just as angry and annoyed as last night. And he was worried that Ryan’s words would get stuck in his friend’s heads. Especially Horror’s.
“We were never in a relationship, where the hell did you even get that from? Why don’t you just leave me alone?”
The man looked from Chris to Ricky and back.
“Ooh. Okay, I get it. Now that you have what you wanted I’m out of the game. Alright.” Ryan lifted both hands in a defensive gesture. It reminded Chris of when he didn’t remember that Horror and Ricky were the same person. How he had remembered to have been in love with Horror but only ever spent time with Ricky. And for a short moment he had thought he was this kind of asshole who would date someone just to fill the void. He hadn’t done that with Ryan, did he? He wouldn’t.
“Am I tripping?” Horror unfolded his arms. “Can you also not remember? Chris was almost always with me, I would know if you two had been a thing. I need a coffee. I’ll leave this to Devin.”
Chris watched his his friend went into the house and how the goth girl came up to him instead.
“Ryan.” She said. “We got a lot to do here. I think this is all a little too much at once. We should sort this out another time, yeah?”
Chris felt like he zoned out. He had watched Ricky go inside and thought about how different he was now. He wished he knew if he really wanted to be here. He wanted to know what he thought and felt and what he could do to fix all this, aside from remembering and clearing up Balz’ death. Yet, what if he remembered what had happened that night but it had nothing to do with Balz? Would anyone ever believe him? He would need to find out who had done that to Balz. Cut open, they had said. He needed to find Balz’ murderer or Ricky would never like him again.
He looked back to the two people next to him and noticed they were arguing. “No, I think this is just as important! How would you feel if your ex denied you?”
This whole argument felt as if it was going nowhere, so Chris tried to cut it short.
“Just leave, please.” He shook his head. “Let’s not do this now. My parents died, okay? I don’t want to deal with this now.”
“You didn’t even like your parents.”
He sighed in distress. He tried to think of anything else to say, he ran out of ideas of how to get rid of the man.
At least until Ricky came back outside. He showed up all of sudden and pushed both Chris and Devin aside. He handed the tall goth something. Chris took it. A notebook. He had left that in the kitchen, where the slim man had went to make a coffee. Now Horror grabbed the annoying, creepy man by the collar.
“Did you kill Balz?!”
Chris felt like he was hit by a truck. He realised what consequences this had. He had just scribbled down his thoughts but someone had read them. That hadn’t been the plan.
“I- what?”
“You heard me!”
For a moment no one knew what to say, but Horror with his stupidly long hair shook the man he had grabbed by his clothes and went on.
“You’re always after Chris and I know Balz was jealous of him, do you have anything to do with that whole thing?”
Ryan tore away from the grip and took a few steps back, then adjusted his clothes.
“No! If you ask me, it was some stupid rando who just got fed up with him. You want to know why I left when Chris was gone? Because I got really fucking fed up with all of you making him the bad guy. Look at him, he couldn’t hurt a fly! He picked flowers for his school project and got laughed at. And you think I'm crazy? Get real guys!”
That was the first positive thing Ryan had said this whole time. It even made Spook feel a bit lighter, finally someone had said what he thought the whole time and lifted some stones off his chest. The man still creeped him out, but he lowly muttered “Thank you..”
“Ah, whatever.” Ryan looked really upset now. “I’ll leave you with the people who think you killed our friend, if that’s what you want. Have fun.”
He left. He finally actually left and Chris wasn’t so sure if that was what he wanted anymore. He didn’t like how weird Ryan acted, apparently always had, but he believed him. At least he believed him to be innocent. Hearing that was good, but it made him incredibly sad, because the others didn’t seem so sure. No matter what was wrong in Ryan’s head, he didn’t even consider Chris to be a bad person. Maybe Ryan wasn’t so wrong. What if all he said was true?
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Now Ryan was gone and Chris was left behind alone, with the other two. He felt a bit confused, a bit lost. Looked at one friend then the other and finally to the ground. He looked at the plastered stone path that led from the sidewalk up to the house. A few sad gras plants tried their best to grow between them but didn’t really get far. He had to face it, in some way Ryan was right. He was here, trying to buy the trust of people who wanted to believe he was evil. He tore his ass open to convince Horror, who apparently felt like he had to throw up when he saw him and Devin, who sounded soft, nice, but even though she had loved him once, she should know him better, she found it possible that he killed Balz. Chris knew deep inside of him that he didn’t do it. So what did he owe those who didn’t believe in him?
“I..” Ricky’s voice broke the silence and he looked up. The man had his arms crossed as always, he had them wrapped tight around his own body and seemed a bit jumpy. He moved from one foot to the other and brushed some hair out of his face when a little wind got caught in them. “I remember that school project.”
Chris frowned. Right off the bat he couldn’t remember, but did it matter?
“Let’s go inside before he comes back..” He made some more coffee while both his friends sat in the kitchen with him. The ultragoth was awfully quiet and avoided looking at anyone all of sudden and Devin raised her eyebrow at that, as if to say what the hell is going on between you two? so he shook his head, because he didn’t know.
“I’ll be right back.” Said Devin and got up, then left the kitchen and finally the two boys were alone.
Chris leaned against the counter and eyed his friend. Crush. Whatever he was. Now that he took a closer look, something was different. His hair was less straight. It fell in waves when before it had looked like a silky smooth waterfall. Now it even looked a bit greasy and uncared for.
The coffee machine on the counter behind him made a beep so he turned, picked up the cup and placed it in front of Ricky on the kitchen table.
“Hey. What’s wrong?”
His friend’s blueish eyes met his own and when he stared at him like that, Chris remembered that he had always thought his eyes looked like the universe he always talked about. Because he had done that a lot, all the time.
“Ugh. Nothing.”
The goth grabbed his coffee and hid his face behind the cup. So the tall man sat down across from him.
“Was it something that Ryan said? Talk to me, please. You always did.”
There was an uncomfortable noise when Horror ran his fingernails over the rim of the cup. He looked down into the black coffee for a moment, then he said something.
“Do you know.. Do you have any idea why I’m mad at you?”
Chris sat straight up. He thought that was easy to answer. Everything was about this single one thing, nothing else seemed to matter in this small town.
“Because of Balz. Because I didn’t tell y’all what happened that night. And then left without clearing it up.”
“See- no.” Ricky pushed the cup to the side and folded his hands on the table. “I’m really fucking mad at you because you didn’t talk to me.”
The man leaned in and instinctively Chris did the same. Then Ricky whispered;
“I didn’t give a damn about what you did. I just wanted to know, but you ran away from me. We talked about leaving this town, we talked about forever, but you left me.”
Now he leaned back and the tall man needed a moment to process what had been said. “You..”
But Ricky stood up.
“Thank you for the coffee, but I’ll head back now. Do me a favour and stay away from Ryan.” Chris drank the coffee that his friend had left behind and pondered. He figured that all this talk about it being creepy to have a murder suspect in his house had been a made up excuse. He wasn’t sick of seeing him, he was hurt. He had left Ricky behind without a clue about why or what was going on and then showed back up ten years later with a cheery smile and expected everyone to take him back into their lives. So.. To the rest of the group he needed to prove what had happened that night. And he needed to remember why he had fallen silent and left if he ever wanted Ricky to forgive him. All of this felt silly, he didn’t know if he deserved this or not. He had to take a trust leap and do this, hoping to find out that his friends were in the right and that he could make up with them. But he didn’t know, it could as well be that he never did anything wrong. Maybe he did all this for nothing, when he shouldn’t have to. But there was only one way to find out.
He heard how Devin came back. When she arrived by the doorframe, he looked up to her. And suddenly he thought of something.
“Devin? You said I left without a trace, right?”
She nodded.
“Then why did Vin say I promised never to come back here?”
He remembered very clearly. The night he came back, the brown haired boy had been at his door. He had definitely said that.
“Huh?” She leaned against the counter. “Are you sure he said that?”
Yes. Absolutely.
“I wanna talk to him. Do you have his number?”
She nodded again. “Yeah. But, Chris, why don’t you talk to him in person? We’re headed over anyway.”
He frowned. They wanted to go to Balz’ house. This town wasn’t so big, maybe they lived close by.
“Okay. Yeah let’s do it.” She was here with her car, so the ride was pretty short. He hadn’t even noticed the small purple car earlier but now he was glad he didn’t have to sit in a bus. He could look out of the window and be in thoughts without anything bothering him. He watched houses and parked cars pass by and felt both home and lost. Most of the time he thought about Ricky. He thought of texting him, but he knew he didn’t have the time right now. He wanted to talk though. He wanted to know more. He wanted the man to help him find out what they both wanted to know.
The vehicle came to a halt so Chris blinked, came back to reality and looked out the window. He barely recognised the area. The woman got out of the car so he did the same and followed her across the street. They both stopped and looked at the building in front of them. “Whose house is this?”
“Balz and Vin.”
He first frowned at her, then looked back. It was an apartment complex so he wasn’t too confused, just surprised. It looked vaguely familiar around here.
“We weren’t here a lot, right?”
“No.”
Yeah, right. He remembered this one time they had all met up here on Balz’ birthday to surprise him and someone had yelled at them out of the window, chasing them away.
“His parents didn’t like us very much, did they?”
He felt how a big but soft hand grabbed his while they looked up at the house.
“They didn’t know us. Remember, Chris. He lived here without them.”
Oh. Right. Balz had been older than them. His parents had kicked him out. He had.. Yeah, he had lived with this young woman here. So he quickly turned to Devin.
“What about his girlfriend? Where’s she?”
“That’s his sister.” His friend smiled at him. “It’s good you remember but there’s still a lot of work to do. Come on.”
She walked up the small path and steps and rang a doorbell. When Chris followed her and looked at the name plates, he spotted the name Mauro, but Balz was nowhere to be found. The buzzer activated very quickly, so Chris barely had any time to look at much else. Before he knew it, he followed the woman inside and up the stairs, until they reached a half open door with a familiar brown haired boy standing in the frame.
“Oh, it’s you.”
Vin stood by the open front door and leaned his head against the frame. When they reached the top of the stairs, he made space to let them in. He looked tired, like always, maybe a bit more even. His hair was frizzly and uncombed, his face laid in wrinkles.
He led them into a living room and Chris took a good look around. He saw a few posters that reminded him that Vin was into video games, he saw a statue of Link and Zelda on a shelf. From the rest of the decoration and how tidy it was, he assumed the man didn’t live here alone.
“Who do you live with?”
He looked back at Vinny, who let his head hang and smiled a little bit.
“So you remember at least a little bit now, huh?”
“No, I assumed.”
He heard another pair of footsteps and looked up to the living room door where he spotted a girl. She looked vaguely familiar, just a little bit. She didn’t smile. Something felt off. “Can I get you something to drink?” She asked, so he shook his head. The woman left seconds later and he turned back to Vin.
“Who is she?”
“Balz’ sister, Jana. I married her a few years back.”
Wow. Vin was married. The youngest of all of them. The one who had always been scared and didn’t even waste a thought about girls. That was one of the things that had always made him think he was gay and in a relationship with Horror.
“Congratulations.” Chris gave it a smile. He wanted to radiate positivity here. He tried to do everything right. It made him think of something though. “Is that.. Why you wanted me to leave when I showed back up?”
He had just found out that Jana existed. That made things a bit different. Wasn’t it even harder for Balz’ sister to dig back up the stories around his death, even more so than for his friends?
“No. Jana is convinced he was just at the wrong time at the wrong place. She’s pretty much through with all of it.”
Alright, he had been wrong on that conclusion. But he still couldn’t make sense of that first conversation they had had at his house.
“But then why? You wanted me to leave and-“
“No.” Vin said straight up. “I told you it would be better if you left, I didn’t say I want you to. I said some of us still believe it was you, some of us are still mad at you. I didn’t say I am. I just knew that all you will find here is pain.”
He looked at his old friend. That evening they all met at the alki playground, Vin had seemed pretty malicious. Unlike now or that time they talked alone at his house. Was it all an act? Did he have something to hide? Maybe he didn’t want his friends to think weird of him for- was he on his side?
“Okay.” Chris nodded slowly. He felt better. Devin was nice to him. Maybe he could count Vin as a good one too. He exhaled deeply, now a bit more relaxed. “Do you know anything else? You said I promised never to come back here but it seems I didn’t talk to anyone before I left.”
“You did. You talked to me. I brought you to the train station. But you didn’t want anyone else to know and I kept my side of the promise. I’m breaking it right here but you also broke yours.”
He did know more than he had said! Chris felt excited, he was getting somewhere. He just had to remember. The memories were somewhere, they had to be. They had to.. The train station. He sat on a bench and waited. People were standing or walking around every here and there and he sat with folded hands, tapping his foot nervously. No one bothered with him, aside from how rebellious he looked, but he felt like the whole town was after him. He felt paranoid, as if everyone was secretly judging him or would call the cops any moment. Even though he hadn’t done anything. He really hoped that his friend would be here soon like he had said he would, because he didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to at least see one more face before he left.
He looked down. By his feet he had two bags that he had stuffed his whole life in. Some clothes, the cash that he had, a few cds and a discman, some memories. Some papers he would need to start over somewhere else. It was wild to see how few things you actually needed, physically. He could leave almost every item behind, stuff was replaceable. But people weren't. He would lose everything he had. A place in life. People who loved him. People he loved. Especially.. Horror. That was the hardest of all. He had never even told him. But now it was too late anyway. The whole group had gone haywire after what happened. He didn’t even want to think about it. He didn’t want to remember, he really didn’t. There was nothing he could do. That hurt the most.
“Chris!”
He looked up right when his friend sat down next to him.
“Oh thank hell you’re here.” He leaned in and hugged the brown haired boy who returned the gesture. Chris felt so much better now. “What are you gonna tell them?”
“Nothing..” Vin shrugged and gave him an unsure, apologetic smile. He was young, scared and not cut out for any of this. But he was the only one who knew that he was innocent.
“They’ll wonder where I went.”
“Well..” The voice next to him was soft and weak. “There's no reasoning with them. And can you blame them? We have to do this. We can’t sacrifice someone to save our own skins.”
“Yeah..” He muttered and looked at the rails. “Promise you’ll never talk about it?”
Vin nodded faintly.
“Yes. I.. You promise you won’t come back here?”
He nodded as well.
They sat in silence after that. When the train rolled in they hugged and said goodbye. And Chris was sure he would never see any of the faces again.