Murderer

Chapter 24: Brendon

I walked on the unlit sidewalk, struggling along as if my ankles were chained up. It was around midnight, or at least that's what I thought it was. I didn't really pay attention to time anymore. There was no point for me to. When you are no longer expected to be somewhere, you have an infinity of time. I trusted the sky, the moon, and the sun to tell time for me.

House after house, I collected flowers from their gardens, making a beautiful bouquet of all colors. Each color was an emotion I had felt ever since the kidnapping. Red for love, and anger. Blue for the sadness that overwhelmed me always. Yellow for the happiness I felt with Leslie. Black for death and sorrow.

But there were no black flowers. And I didn't want there to be for her bouquet.

I didn't care that I was ruining people's gardens. It seemed like I didn't care about much these days. What I did care about was getting revenge, saving Ryan, and getting our lives back to normal. Well at least, as close to normal as possible. There would always be that constant reminder of what happened to Leslie though, that's the problem. I will never be able to forget her. What we experienced for that short time left a mark on me, like a tattoo. I could never get rid of it naturally.

Once I had a handful of elegant flowers, I wrapped a rubber band around the stems to keep them together. One whiff of the flowers was all I needed to to be reminded of Leslie's perfume. I couldn't help myself from crying, because I would never be able to hold her in my arms again.

As a kid of innocence, I had always feared entering a graveyard at night. I felt as if the dead would rise from their graves and eat my brains. Or I would see a ghost looking for their loved ones. Both thoughts scared me to death. But standing here tonight at the entrance, I felt no fear. I felt nothing at all. I stared at the gate, gaining the confidence to climb over it.

I put the flower stems in my mouth and climbed up the gate gently, making sure that I didn't make much noise. Once I got inside the graveyard, I proceeded to her final resting place.

I stood just to the side of her grave. Looking down, I imagined her in a bed with a gorgeous white dress on, hands over her chest as she breathed calmly, her stomach lifting up and down to her gentle breaths. I fantasized this because it was peaceful. She was no longer missing limbs, she was no longer dead. She was just her fascinating old self. When she would awake, I would be there to move the hair out of her eyes and feed her breakfast in bed...

What am I doing. She's gone. Brendon, she's dead. Christopher killed her, and you were going to kill Christopher for that. You were going to kill him for ruining everyone's lives. Yeah.

I laid the bouquet that I had made for her on the ground over her grave. I waited for a second, as if she would reach her hand up to grab it and smell it, smiling. But that wasn't going to happen either. My fantasies from my childhood would never come true, not even for this very moment that I needed it the most.

Where ever Leslie is now, I knew she was watching. I knew I had to continue living for her. She was free now, nobody would ever cause her pain or sadness anymore. But she was indefinitely pressed into my house of memories.

I just wanted to pretend that she was really here right now. So I began praying for it. "Leslie, please give me the strength to do what is right. And please protect me while I do so. I love you to the moon and back. I would do anything to have you here with me right now. I hope that where you are now, it makes you happy, because that's all I ever wanted for you." Then I placed a stone on top of her grave before turning my back to it. I would probably never be able to return without losing it at the sight of her grave. Something that shouldn't be there.

Tomorrow would be a whole new day, another heart wrenching, soul breaking nightmare. I wasn't prepared for what I had to do. Killing somebody, anybody, it would never come naturally to a wimpy nerd kid like me. I would train. But first I had to get a weapon.

I whipped off the hot tears that were streaming down my face, the tips of my mouth curled into a smile, and my eye might have twitched just a bit after imaging the death of somebody Christopher loves.