Dont fear the reaper, p.1
Don't Fear the Reaper, page 1
Copyright © 2023 J.C. Murphey
Cover Art: Noah Zark and Kuro Ishi with Blackstone Cover Design
All rights reserved.
No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.
This book is dedicated to every author who thinks their story isn’t worth reading.
Keep going.
It’s worth reading.
Disclaimer
This story deals with subjects such as drug abuse and suicide ideation. For those who need it, below are some free resources pertaining to these.
988 Suicide and Crisis Hotline (call 988, text 988, website: https://988lifeline.org/)
SAMHSA National Helpline for drug abuse (1-800-622-4357, website: https://www.samhsa.gov/)
Just know you are stronger than you think. You got this. And it’s not weak or shameful to ask for help. We all need it.
Don't Fear the Reaper
J.C. Murphey
Part I
Prologue
The winter night was cold and dark, sharpened by a wind that chilled to the core. Its oppressive weight seemed to snuff out anything bright and alive. The tension was so intense even the bugs and birds were hushed. I clumsily dashed through the snow-covered forest to the lake, wearing my red flannel pajamas, puffy coat, and clunky boots, narrowly avoiding collisions with tree trunks and stumbling over snow banks. Grandma said to never wander these woods at night.
“There’s beasties out there,” she would croak ominously, before tickling me into a giggling mess. I never took her seriously. “There’s no such thing as monsters,” Mom would mutter under her breath every time she heard her mom’s wild stories of looming shadows in the forest.
Now, I believed her. There may be something out here.
“Jackson!” I yelled as loud as I would dare, hoping to avoid the attention of my family in the lodge, or whatever animals lurked out here, preying on anything dumb enough to be wandering around this late at night.
Jackson wasn’t in the bottom bunk when I climbed down to go get a drink of water. He wasn’t in the den playing one of the video games I brought. He wasn’t even in the kitchen, where I thought for sure he’d be stealing the fifth chocolate chip cookie of the night. I searched the entire house for him, growing more and more frantic with every empty room. Then, I noticed the flashlight missing.
Earlier that day, we were goofing off in the lake as best friends would, dunking each other’s heads under the frigid water and completely ignoring common sense. We were taking turns on the tire swing Grandpa had just put in at the water’s edge, trying to swing the highest and throw ourselves into the lake. I dared him to swim out to an island far out in the middle, overrun with trees and tangled bushes.
He said he was afraid of deep water.
I called him a baby, and said that I couldn’t believe I was friends with him since kindergarten. It’s no wonder he was always picked on in school. The reason why people thought they could bully him. I said some things I shouldn’t have. He laughed it off like usual, pushing his blue-rimmed glasses back up his nose with a shrug. It didn’t seem mean at the time, but now I regret making fun of him.
“I guess you’re right,” he had agreed. “But I’d rather be a baby than drown.”
I really hope he didn’t swim to the island after all.
“Jackson, where are you?” I yelled louder, now that I was further away from the house. “Come on! Let’s go back inside! It’s freezing out here!”
A few more steps, and I burst from the tree line to the lake’s shore by the dock Grandpa rebuilt a couple of years ago with Dad. The boat was still there, but Jackson’s clothes were thrown into a pile by the pole the rope was tied to. The flashlight was left on as if it had been hastily dropped on the dock.
“No…”
There’s no way he went swimming out there this late.
“Jackson!” My voice was shrill now, cracking as an eleven-year-old’s does in a moment of panic. “Jack, this isn’t funny anymore! Come back!”
I rushed to the end of the dock and shone my flashlight over the dark surface. The calmness of the lake made it appear like a sheet of glass reflecting the stars above. The wind itself had died in the few minutes it took to run to the lake, as if it were holding its breath in suspense. If Jackson were swimming out there, I would be able to see the disturbance of the water. I hoped the stillness meant he had made it to the island. I couldn’t consider the other reason for the water’s eerie calm.
He had to be out there somewhere. Cupping my hands around my mouth, I took a deep breath that filled my lungs and reached all the way down to my feet.
“Jackson!” I screamed across the lake, louder than I’ve screamed my whole life. I hoped my voice would reach him on the other side. Surely someone at the cabin heard me yelling at the top of my lungs. I could already hear the nagging voice of my mother.
I waited a minute for a response, then drew in another breath to yell again. The moment I opened my mouth, something on the water startled me, causing me to choke and cough until my eyes watered.
Someone was on the lake.
And I mean actually on the lake, walking on the water like Jesus towards the island. They seemed very short, much smaller than my Mom or Grandma. The clothes they wore were odd—black enough to blend in with the night, but shiny enough to reflect the dim moonlight and glimmer faintly. It looked like a cloak with a deep hood and long train that drifted across the water’s surface without a single ripple.
“Hey! Hey you! What are you doing out there?”
Ping ping.
The person stopped, turning slightly to face me on the pier, and with them the jingling sound of a small bell echoing across the still lake, the sound so clear and delicate it was out of place on such a brutally cold night. I couldn’t make out how they were staying above the water from where I stood. There’s no way they were using skis or a boat. Nothing moved that smoothly across the surface.
The person, or whatever they may have been, shifted their gaze back to the island. They were halfway between there and the dock and stooped to pull something out of the water.
Was it Jackson?
The person they brought up was a morbid representation of my best friend. The color had disappeared from his tan skin and his brown hair clung to his face. Even from here, I saw the blue tinge of his lips. His dull hazel eyes were lifeless and his glasses had disappeared, not on his face or in the pile of clothes he had left behind.
Even though Jackson was limp, the person on the water continued to pull him out without any help. Knocking myself out of my shock, I scrambled to the boat and began tugging on the ropes with numb fingers. I had to get out there. I had to help Jackson.
By the time I managed to untie the boat, the person had already pulled him to the shoreline. Abandoning the useless boat, I sprinted over the planks and tripped on the rocky shore, falling to the ground by his body.
“Jackson?” My voice cracked with tears. Worry for my friend overshadowed any curiosity I had for the person looming over us. Whoever it was gave me the serious creeps with how still they were. “Jackson, hey! Wake up!”
His chest wasn’t moving. He was so deathly cold. His eyes remained open and unblinking, a look of fear frozen in his features.
I glanced up at the dark figure. Their hood was so far over their face that only deep shadows were visible. The impression I had was that of a lady, somehow. Her presence had a softness to it that was almost soothing or empathetic. Despite nearly having a complete meltdown, I managed to find my voice in the midst of the growing panic. If she could walk on water, surely she could do other magical stuff. Jesus could come back from the dead, so it wasn’t too far of a stretch.
“Can you help him?”
There was a moment of silence, then she shook her head slowly.
“Is he… is he dead?”
Another pause. She nodded.
Something inside me shattered. The sharp cracking sensation behind my ribs stole my breath and made me curl in on myself. I held onto Jackson’s undershirt, scream-crying into his chest as I hunched over his stiff body.
How is he dead? We were just playing together this afternoon! He just ate some of Grandma’s beef stew. We made plans to go work on the treehouse we built last summer. He couldn’t be dead! Kids didn’t die on winter break!
“Victor…”
The touch of a soft whisper on my right shoulder caused me to shudder with greater intensity than exposure to the chill. The pressure moved down to my elbow, providing some comfort with its back and forth rubbing on my bicep. The effort seemed impossible, but I lifted my head up inch by inch. It weighed too much for my neck.
The woman knelt beside me, observing me from beneath her hood. This close, I could faintly see something white from those shadows. A pointed object extended from the hood, resembling a beak or nose. I felt a cool sensation on my skin as the hand from my arm drifted up to lightly touched my cheek.
Darkness enveloped me as my eyes drifted closed. I found a place where friends didn’t die and the cold didn’t bite.
Chapter 1
Victor
If variety is the spice of life, my life is the equivalent of a bowl of cold oatmeal. A sad, gloopy mess that no one wants to bother with. But people try their best to put up with me anyway, like I’m good for their social standing or something.
I sat in History of Law, in the second to back row by the window, abs ently twirling a pencil as my old-as-fossils professor droned on about some famous trial in the early nineteen hundreds. Since I was one of the few people who actually read the chapter, all of this information was not new to me. Some of the other students shared my glazed over appearance. Only a handful of people listened raptly and scribbled notes into their journals, hopeful the information Dr. Robin imparted to them would magically help them on his next test.
I didn’t want to ruin their optimism, but his lectures were almost pointless.
I was more interested in the snow collecting on the tree branches outside, bending them so low they threatened to snap off. Another day in Cambridge, Massachusetts was marked by biting winter weather. Utterly predictable, and utterly boring.
“Hey man.” Josh slid into the seat on my right, late as always. The chair protested with a creak from his bulky mass, drawing attention from the students around us. “Did I miss anything important?”
For you, probably.
Josh Campbell, big shit on campus, was above these menial academic games. He never read the assigned chapters and probably paid some freshman on scholarship to take all his tests. He heavily relied on his all-American appearance, with messy dark blond hair and brown eyes that crinkled when he smiled his trustworthy grin. I was genuinely afraid for the future of our country, given the number of lawyers like him who coasted through college by taking advantage of others.
“No, Robin’s just reviewing the reading from earlier this week,” I replied, holding my tongue from my internal judgment.
Josh scoffed. “Yeah, like I have time to read that shit anyway. Hey, are you busy this Friday? I have invites to a house party. They’ve got some pretty hot pieces of ass in their group!”
If there is a God, please save me from this predictable monotony. Only degenerates use the term “hot pieces of ass” to describe others.
One shoulder hitched in a non-committal way. “Maybe. Depends on who all is going.”
“Ryan said he’s going to visit his family this weekend, but the rest of the guys will be there. Come on, man, you need to get out and get laid! How long has it been since you broke up with Liz?”
Shortly after I found out she fell on your dick four times a week.
Again, I had to bite my tongue so hard, I was surprised to still find it intact to respond. Josh didn’t realize yet I’d known about him and my recent ex Elizabeth for three months now. I just couldn’t be bothered to address it until she started pestering me about moving in together a month ago. Nonetheless, Liz seemed shocked and appalled I knew she was cheating and promised to do better. I told her don’t bother. Their little arrangement made for the perfect exit to an otherwise bland relationship of “how are you” and “let’s fuck.”
I didn’t hold it against Josh or Elizabeth. They both had their generic roles to play. Josh was the trust fund baby, sliding through Harvard like a dog dragging its ass on his dad’s money, and Elizabeth ‘Liz’ Smith was a simpering former cheerleader studying communications at an Ivy League university. She hoped to marry a guy like Josh, so she didn’t actually need her degree. They were perfect for each other.
Apparently, Josh was still talking because he punched me hard on my right shoulder. That smarted. “Did you listen to anything I just said?”
“Not really,” I answered honestly, for once.
That was not the answer he wanted, I guess. “What crawled up your ass and died, Vic? For real, you need to come to the party with us. Your mood is depressing the fuck out of me.”
You should be nicer, my inner voice chimed in drolly. Josh helps with your façade of being a well-balanced rich boy, so your parents will stay off your ass.
I always struggled with being normal. My parents, Mom especially, worried that as an only child raised in a household of two powerhouse lawyers I never had an authentic childhood experience.
Or rather, they pretended I was an only child raised in the household. We didn’t talk about the nine years before that. The time when I had a twin brother, who I watched slowly waste away in a hospital bed. Vincent’s memory had essentially been swept under the rug by everyone but me.
I didn’t get out enough or have many friends to play with, insistent on spending all my time at Vincent’s side. Greedy for any chance to play with him, as few as those opportunities were. I was always the gloomy, dark-haired, pale-skinned child who sat in the playground’s corner, picking at something on the ground unless he was around. The world just seemed to pass me by, and I was a bystander watching it all.
And I was ok with that.
I didn’t need others to validate my existence. The only attention I needed was my brother’s. He was the only one who saw me. Vincent understood me without having to say a word. And then just a couple short years later, when I thought I had finally grown numb to the absence of Vince, Jackson drowned in the lake at my grandparents’ house over winter break. After he died, I was happier—or as happy as possible—as a ghost.
What was the point in making friends if they could die? There was no appeal for me to connect with other people. That’s how I felt, anyway. Whatever shitty karma I earned from my previous life seemed to take out its revenge on those I cared about.
College wasn’t really sitting well with me at the moment, since the tall and brooding type of guy vibe seems to be every college girl’s flavor of the month. I was getting more attention than ever before, and not appreciating it. Liz was a one-off situation; a mask to keep everyone else at bay until I could find a more permanent solution to my “little problem.”
Heaven forbid Lena and Tyrone Rexford admit it was more than that. That they had a less-than-perfect son.
At least they did, until my most recent suicide attempt over summer break. Not that I had anything to end my life over. Not really. That was the main issue. My life just dragged on from day to day, with no finish line in sight. Purely out of boredom, I downed a handful of morphine pills I found in Dad’s medicine cabinet with a bottle of Grey Goose. Mom walked in on me convulsing in my bathroom, foaming out the mouth and flopping like a dying fish. That was a first for getting my stomach pumped, not an experience I wanted to go through again.
Now my idealistic parents begrudgingly admitted something may be wrong with me, and I shuffled my way to a therapist on campus twice a week.
“Sure, man, I’ll see you at the party,” I finally confirmed, just to get this annoying baboon off my back. Dr. Robin was wrapping up his lecture and the surrounding students shifted around, packing their belongings.
Josh whooped loudly. “That’s what I’m talking about! See you tomorrow night! We taking your car, right?”
Sure, whenever you decide to use correct English.
“That’s fine. See you later.”
Through some kind of divine intervention, I worked my school schedule around to have Fridays off from class. I’ll admit, it was a saving grace. This way I knocked all my homework and studying out for the weekend to play pretend with my fake friends and not fall behind on schoolwork. Not that anyone in my circle cared much about school. Among our group, I was considered the nerd for having above a 2.0 GPA.
The fact they knew I was studying didn’t stop them from blowing up my phone in the group chat.
Josh: Oh man, this party is gonna be LIT
Josh: I just found out there will be dealers there
Liz: Like, drugs?
Josh: No, car dealers
Josh: FUCK YEAH DRUGS
Josh: The season is over, so I can get wrecked
Ryan: Have fun with that…
Liz: Are we taking Vic’s car?
Josh: Yeah, he was cool with it
Josh: Right Vic?
Josh:…… Hello?
Josh: VIC STOP STUDYING YOU LIMPDICK
Liz: lol leave him alone
Liz: hey Vic, can I talk to you later?
I’d rather stab my eyes out with this dull pencil. I had said, in no uncertain terms, that we were through over a month ago. Why she hadn’t gotten the memo yet that we’re done confused me, although she and Josh still banged it out on the weekends. Josh is hardly discrete about her and her “tight-ass pussy” in his drunken late-night conversations with Ryan, my suitemate whom Josh had latched onto. I doubt he even realizes I can hear their obnoxious noise through the paper-thin wall we share.
