The Wandering.

Chapter 3

The blood has been shed
The kids are dead
The demons run circles,
Round and round in my head

1

A bird would wake Rich Wheeler at 7.03AM that morning, pecking furiously at the wood in the window. Usually, Mr Wheeler was a morning person. But not today. Not today at all. In fact, Rich wasn't a life person these days. He'd wake up, go to work, deal with the mayhem and return home to nest in his bed.

And that was just fine, thanks very much. As long as he arrested the bad people and had a darling to pleasure him on an odd weekend, Rich was satisfied.

The bird, however, was not satisfying Rich at all.  He wiped the sleep-drool from his lips and staggered out of bed irritably, knocking into some furniture on his way to the window. His head hurt; his whole body hurt. He slapped the window sill loudly, aiming to startle the bird. But it didn't even blink. It just stared right into the eyes of Rich Wheeler, as if it knew him. The intellect reflected in the eyes of the bird sent chills scraping over his body, as if the room had suddenly dropped in temperature.

"Shoo!" Rich hissed at the bird. But it just continued to stare. With a sigh, Rich slid the window upwards and reached out and finally, the bird flew away into the promise that was a cold Monday morning.

Left behind, on the window ledge, was a handful of violet flowers, abandoned by the bird. The viola had wilted, and had begun to die.

Just like everything in this old shitty town.

***

Rich was late to work by about 40 minutes, but Sachem Bay was running on their own time these days, nobody paid attention. It was as if time had stopped completely after Conrad's death. A week had passed, though it felt like a year. Rich now had whiskey with his coffee every morning; it helped him get through the day, if it helped him at all.

Every morning, Jackie Cooper would come by the station with the same old same old.

"You pledged to protect this town. I want my son's killer to be brought to justice!" Jackie would plead. It would seem her tears never dried - they were a part of her face now, permanently.

And Rich would reply solemnly, "We're trying our damn best, Mrs Cooper. That's all we can do."

And Jackie would nod understandingly and accept the tissue offered to her. But then there she would be, the next day, her timid face leaning around the front door, washed of any life that previously lived there.

Samuel Tenner, Rich's deputy assistant kept himself busy. He would do his daily and nightly patrol of the woods and the town. Rich mostly did the paper work and the questionings and interviews. It seemed to work, for now.

Samuel could smell the whiskey on Rich's breath, the smell grew stronger each day. But he also understood, and that somehow was enough for him to not mention it.

He considered Rich Wheeler as a friend. He didn't know much about him, except he was born in Sachem Bay, grew up here and will most likely die here - as very few people get out - and he knew Rich had a family a good ten years ago. But they died in a house fire and Rich lost everything except his career. He used to drink a lot, but he stopped and recovered.

And now all he had was his career: even that was getting him down. And because of that, Samuel never questioned his drinking. He wouldn't even dream of it.

He knew everyone had their demons, damn well he knew that. And a man had no right to intrude on them.

Having said that, Samuel knew there were worse demons out there. And they weren't so shy about intruding at all.

2

Michelle Davenport placed the tray down on the table, and distributed the three hot chocolates between her three children.

"Thanks very much." Scotty Davenport said, taking a delicate sip of his hot drink.

"Thank you, Mommy." The two younger girl twins said in unison. Shari and Sadie were identical; they had dark red hair like their mother, green cat-like eyes and a gather of freckles around their five-year-old tiny noses. Scotty took after his Dad, dark brown hair, tall for the age of seven and the same green eyes as his mother.

As she watched her three children slurping their drinks enthusiastically, she felt a warm pain overcome her. The fear of loss, the terror for losing a child. She felt for the Coopers, she really did. But damn hell she was glad it wasn't her own child. She prayed every night in thanks for that.

But what Michelle Davenport would realise, prayers just aren't strong enough. Not when the devil is lurking at your front door. And despite the sayings, the devil doesn't knock - he intrudes.

Three weeks later, Michelle Davenport would be sat at that same, cute table where her three children sat sipping the hot cocoa she made them, her head would be resting in her palms, her eyes gazing mindlessly at the spotted table cloth. She would see Samuel Tenner's lips moving, but all she would hear is a ringing noise and nothing else.

She would hear dim shrieking song in the distance, an eerie ode telling the story of death, the hellish song of a siren. The message of the departure of one out of three of her children.

"Sadie..." Samuel Tenner would say. "... Sorry for your loss."

Sorry for your loss? What loss? Michelle couldn't have lost something - she's just too organised. A loss? Ha. Mr Tenner must have got it wrong. Michelle never lost anything. And if she did, she would simply find it in no time at all.

A loss? Bullshit.

Sadie is surely not lost - she's standing right there in the hallway, pale and timid. This officer was full of shit if he was full of anything!

But Sadie was not in the hallway. That was Shari. Three had become two but what Shari knew from that day onward - two had become one. Part of Shari died with Sadie. Twins no longer.

Michelle Davenport in fact experienced more than one loss that day, besides her daughter.

She lost herself.