I Will Follow You Into the Dark

Brendon hadn’t come home since yesterday.

Joshua tried calling and texting him a few times, but to no avail. He had promised himself late on that first night, waiting up for his boyfriend in the living room they shared, that he would not panic. Brendon is a big boy, he told himself. He’ll call or something.

Josh’s composure was on the verge of cracking, however, by the afternoon of the second day. He was just reaching for the phone to call the police when a sharp knock on the front door nearly startled him out of his seat. Something told him this wasn’t Brendon – besides the obvious not just using a house key to get inside. This particular something, in fact, gave Joshua a very bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. He approached the door warily and turned the knob, pulling the door wide to reveal a grim-faced police officer looking back at him. His cap, Joshua noticed, was clutched in both hands.

A stream of expletives had invaded his brain by this point.

“Are you the boyfriend of Brendon Urie?” the officer asked. Joshua nodded numbly, his knuckles white on the door knob. “Son, I’m afraid Brendon was killed late last night. His car was trapped between two railroad crossing bars coming down. Apparently, he couldn’t escape before the train came through. I’m sorry.” The officer released one hand from its iron grip on his cap and fished in his pocket, withdrawing a small velvet box from inside. He pressed it into Josh’s outstretched hand, which the latter barely remembered extending. “This was found in one of his pockets. I thought it might have been meant for you.”

Joshua only stared down at the slightly battered box in something like wonder.

The officer shifted uncomfortably. “I’ll leave you alone now. I’m sorry.” The man apologized again as he nodded and placed his cap over his head again before stepping off the front porch and traveling back to his squad car.

Still standing in the open doorway, Joshua pried open the box and stared down at the engagement ring nestled inside in shock. His eyes shone with tears and his heart tore in two and he honestly thought he’d throw up right then and there. He tightened his fist around the box, snapping it shut, and began to sob.

Joshua cried loudly enough to wake up the neighbours’ dog. He cried hard enough to bring himself to his knees, clutching at his stomach. He cried himself sick and retched violently in the doorway, dry-heaving and choking painfully enough to redouble the tears.

For three days, Joshua prowled about the house, a complete wreck. He hadn’t eaten that whole time, but hardly registered the stabbing pangs of hunger. He badly needed a shower and a fresh set of clothes, but he could care less. Whenever he managed to fall asleep, terrible nightmares about Brendon’s death invaded his dreams and woke him up, screaming and in a cold sweat. The phone rang off the hook at first, but Joshua eventually ripped it out of the wall and flung it across the kitchen, silencing the calls of friends, family, and the coroner.

While pacing twitchily through the house on the fourth day, ring box clamped in both hands at chest level, Josh caught a glimpse of himself in the bathroom mirror. He stopped and backtracked into the linoleum room, staring at his reflection in the full-length mirror. Brendon had bought this mirror just a week before, Joshua remembered as he took in the gaunt figure before him. His normally bright, pleasantly curious hazel eyes were dull and sunken in. His hair was greasy and stuck out at odd angles from Joshua tugging compulsively at it. His lips were dry and cracked. He smacked his parched tongue against the roof of his mouth. I’m thirsty, he noted with dawning realization. Suddenly his face broke into a wide, almost insane grin as he addressed the shell of a man in front of him. “I think I’ll have a drink.”

Joshua turned on his heel and knelt down under the sink. His fingers wrapped around the handle of the jug of Clorox and he tugged it out, setting the bleach in front of him. Joshua opened the ring box that he still clutched in one hand. He slipped the gold band over his ring finger, then pressed his lips to it gently before unscrewing the cap on the bleach bottle.

With that, Joshua Hayward drank from it like a dying man.