Angels of Disaster

Jeremy Crest: To Love a Woman

In southern Kentucky, early morning, Jeremy Crest and Debra James quietly sat on the hood of Jeremy's car, waiting for the police to arrive at the crime scene. They weren't upset, nor were they happy, they were content. They felt no regret for the past few days. They only felt a connection toward one another.

Jeremy could hear the sirens of the police cars in the distance. They were coming to investigate to screams and yells of the victims. The lovers thought they were safe, but a farm was closer than they thought.

Just in case they never saw each other again, Jeremy turned to Debra and took her hand in his. "I love you, Debra," he said.

"Finally." Debra kissed Jeremy and laid her head on his shoulder. "I love you, too."

The police pulled into the site and were instantly greeted with the smell of rotting flesh and ashes.

Before they could get to him, Jeremy pulled out his gun and shot himself in the head. He limply fell to the ground. Debra hopped off the car and tried shaking Jeremy awake, but it was useless; Jeremy wasn't moving.

The police hand cuffed Debra and stuffed her into the cop car as she watched Jeremy get put on a stretcher and carried into and ambulance.

She cried, and for the first time, Debra James felt genuine fear.

*

Debra finished her story but couldn't find the words to share what happened to Jeremy. Her love shot himself in front of her, and she couldn't help but hate him for that.

She got up from the bleachers and walked away from Jacob.

Jacob was curious about Jeremy's story, but decided not to bother his love, who was obviously upset by something. He sat on the bleachers, biting his fingernails. Debra looked familiar, and he couldn't help but love her.

Thinking about his past too hard gave him a migraine, though, so he chose to let the thought slip away. It hurt his heart to think of Debra with anyone else, and he'd kill anyone who got in the way of him and his love. With Jeremy out of the picture, Debra was Jacob's, and only Jacob's.

Maybe I killed someone. He was used to subconsciously thinking of plausible reasons why he's in prison. He committed a crime, but he didn't remember what it was.

He stopped thinking before he hurt himself again.

*

Debra sat down next to another prisoner and started talking to him without warning.

"Can I share a story with you?" she asked him.

"You can talk but you'd probably get more out of talking to a wall." He talked without looking at her.

Debra noticed a prison guard behind them, listening in to the conversation. She didn't care this time. She was ready to confess now.

"Jeremy Crest was my sister's boyfriend, James. He wasn't lean, more average, and he wasn't built perfectly, either. He had a crooked smile and a tendency to bite himself when he got nervous. James liked perfect guys, but Jeremy wasn't perfect. He was far from perfect, and I loved that about him.

"Since the second I was born, James has been a pain in my ass. As the older sister she thought it was her responsibility to make my life a living hell, and my job as the little sister to take it. She took everything I had and didn't let me get anything I wanted. Jeremy was one of them.

"James and I got in another fight, this time about Jeremy, and my mother sent us away on a weeklong camping trip to sort out our issues instead of being a decent mother and talking to us herself. James told her friends to come along to rub in the fact I didn't have any friends. Jeremy and her were dating at this point, so she invited him, too.

"The first couple nights I stayed innocent in the eyes of the law, but Jeremy took over instead and killed the first three friends. Adriana Grey with fire and Kenneth Norman by drowning. He took out to the woods the third night to show me Emma Jones being held in a cage, and she later killed herself by ripping her skin apart. The next two nights I helped with the next deaths. Jason Gutierrez by 'plastic surgery' then a gunshot to the head and Fallon Bell by physical torture then we hanged her.

"Lastly was Astrid James. Jeremy gave me full control of my sister's death. She died by mutilation, mental trauma, then I gave her the option to whoever she wanted to. She turned the gun on herself and pulled the trigger.

"The next morning, the police were called on me and Jeremy, and Jeremy shot himself instead of dealing with the jail time. I watched him turn into the past victims we had just killed because he was scared. Or at least her tried turning into another rotting corpse."

The person Debra told all this to didn't move or say anything to her about the story. He wasn't listening, but Debra didn't mind.

Behind them, the guard walked up to her and started taking her away to an interrogation room to tell the full story. Just then another guard blew their whistle and started taking prisoners back to their cells.

"Thank you," Debra said to the person sitting next to her. He looked at her and quickly looked back into the yard.

Debra really was thankful.

*

Jeremy was rushed to the hospital so he wouldn't die from the otherwise lethal gunshot to his head.

Before shotting himself he thought of Debra. He loved this woman and didn't want her to see him curl in on himself in prison. He was terrified of the tight and compacted prison system. He was claustrophobic, and even though it wasn't claustrophobia, he was still scared of small, tight spaces.

In the moment, Jeremy thought killed himself would best help his lover.

The doctors did everything possible to keep Jeremy alive, and they did so successfully. Even though he almost died, he'd still face jail time for his crimes.

*

Jacob followed the crowd back to his cell and sat down on the cot, where Debra sat. He laid down on it, smelling the blanket and curling into a fetal position.

He watched Debra get taken away by a guard out in the yard. It's been fifteen minutes and she hasn't come back.

What happened, love? Jacob sighed shifted onto his back. Please, don't leave me.

Jacob Layton is his name, or that's what Debra said his name was. Guards rarely call prisoners by their names, so he wouldn't know if that was his real name or not.

He looked off the cot, on the desk against the wall. His yellow package was sitting there, waiting for him to open it. Jacob got up and walked to the desk. He picked up the package and folded up the seal, then stopped.

Debra told me not to. But if she wasn't coming back, why shouldn't he open it.

Curiosity got the best of him, and he opened it.

Inside were seven smaller envelopes, with the numbers 1 through 8 on the outsides of them. They were all for him, so he opened them.

He opened the first one, and it was a picture of a skinned girl lighting a fire.

The second envelope was of a skinned guy holding a bucket.

The third was a picture of a skinned girl standing by a tent.

The fourth was of a skinned boy with a filled in chest.

Fifth was of a skinned girl talking to the group.

Sixth was a girl being held up by knots in the rope rapped around her.

The seventh picture had a girl, Debra, and boy, Jeremy happily holding each other, on the hood of a car, taking a selfie.

Jacob dropped the picture as all his memories flooded back into his head. He knew what his memories meant, and he knew why he was in jail, and he knew his real name.

His name was not Jacob Layton, but Jeremy Crest.