*** Death

The fact of the matter is, there are millions of people right now who have it worse than you. And fact is, James Downey is probably the product of some weird witch craft African voodoo that they used for some Goosebumps episode. And fact is, they find Reggie Graves reduced to an ass buffet for worms and birds and forest critters alike.

It’s an all-you-can-eat stoner flesh gourmet. Free of charge at the forest behind your school, in the little ditch beside the pond with the snapping turtle.

Reggie would probably be pissed because who the fuck did they think they were, ruining his perfectly combed hair? Did they even know how long it took in the mirror to reach such perfection? Unappreciative little shits, he’d say.

And even though you’re probably better off than most of the world, all you can think about is fuck, your best friend is dead, and that really sucks.

But the thing about James Downey is that no one knew who he was, and no one really cared to either, but when you see him hug your best friend and whisper something in his ear and the next day good ol’ Reggie is dead then you start to recognize his existence. And you really start to get pissed off because who the fuck did he think he was killing Reggie? Especially when Reggie still owed you that twenty bucks you lent him for those two grams.

Because you’re out twenty bucks and here’s this little shit lurking in the background after he has the audacity to kill your best friend. And who does Reggie think he is, dying and leaving you and decomposing in the forest like he owns the place?

Don’t worry, though, because remember, most people have it worse than you.

But all I can think about is how Beatrice Landry isn’t wearing a bra. And she’s saying, “It wasn’t him time to go, y’know.” She says, “The spirits weren’t calling for him yet.”

All I can focus on is the weird pentagram necklace that’s dangling against the skin between her small, braless tits. She’s saying, “If they were I would’ve fucked him before they got the chance to steal him away.”

There’s a cigarette in my hand, and the ashes are building but I don’t flick them off just yet, and I want to tell her that Reggie probably wouldn’t have fucked her. He’s got this thing with big tits, and I think it’s some weird nursing complex, but you never really say those types of things to a person’s face.

If we’re being honest, I probably would’ve fucked her. Maybe get some street cred with the underworld while I was at it. I wondered if she’d try to use me as an offering. Her tits are small, but they’re still there, hiding beneath the loose black tank top.

She says, “I think he was murdered, y’know.”

And I can hear Reggie in the back of my mind, and he’s saying do you think she masturbates with a cross? And he’s combing his hair with that unlit cigarette perched between his lips, and he’s saying, Galen, dude, you’re wasting your smoke.

I tap the cigarette, watching the ashes fall, before bringing it up to my mouth.

“Murdered?”

She nods her head, and between the strands of her dark brown hair I can see the tracks of clip-in red and purple and blue. Her eyes are plain brown like mine, but they’re shining with something like excitement, and I don’t really know why.

I wonder if it weren’t for the maggots, if she’d fuck Reggie’s dead body. If she just so happened to stumble upon it, if she’d stumble onto his dick. Reggie would probably laugh at me and say even after death I’m getting more ass than you, Galen, you dumb fucker.

“They haven’t given out the autopsy reports yet, but I bet he was murdered. For now they say they don’t even know how he died. It’s gotta be murder. I heard some of the spirits whispering about it, y’know,” she says, and she looks to me like I might have the answer, and I want to tell her that just because she watches Law and Order that she’s not a fucking detective, but instead I just nod my head.

Of course he was fucking murdered.

I heard my bible-thumping neighbour Mrs. Mason tut and tsk about how it was probably some strange mix of drugs that got him where he was, some teenage blasphemy, some no-sense-of-direction sin.

Mrs. Mason, though, she’s not really a Mrs. anymore, if you know what I mean. And by that I mean her husband fucked the younger and skinnier and blonder dog-walker that used to come to our neighbourhood but not anymore that much.

And I think she didn’t like Reggie after he started to bark at her whenever he saw her, because he’s sort of a massive cock like that, sometimes.

It wasn’t drugs, though. Because everything he took I took and everything I took he took and somehow I have the time to talk to freaky Beatrice.

Beatrice, she says, “There’s a lot of pandemonium in the spirit world at the moment, there’s something really strange going on.”

Worse than other people, a lot of animals have quite shit lives too, a lot worse than you, of course. Histiostoma murchiei, a tiny parasitic mite, where the male’s entire life purpose is to be fucked by it’s mom. Before it can go and be it’s general scew-up self, it’s forced into a weird sex slave liaison and gets fucked to death. And then it’s all over. And the mom has hundreds of little girl babies that continue the cycle.

There’s always someone that has it worse than you.

“Who do you think did it?” I ask for general purposes.

Obviously I know who did it. The invisible little shit.

The thing about Beatrice is that she has these lips. And they’re really big and soft and plush-looking like a bee just stung them or something. And as she talks, sometimes I just stare at them, and I’m not really listening to the words that they’re forming around, just watching them.

Her face is giddy like a small child. “I don’t know, actually. The thing about sprits is that they’re not too useful for names, and who’d want to kill Reggie, y’know?”

“No,” I say, “I don’t know.”

That was the question though, why would anyone want to kill Reggie? He was a massive cock, true, but not enough to murder. Maybe break his nose or something, set his shoes on fire, sleep with his mom, but not enough to murder.

The thing about Beatrice is that I know she’s only talking to me because my best friend just died and she’s attracted to weird freaky shit like that. I figured that if she knew about James Downey that she’d probably have an orgasm and squirt on his face. It’s nice talking to her though, mostly because her name is Beatrice and that’s a really weird fucking name so it makes me feel a lot better about Galen.

Because someone thought that it was actually okay to name their son fucking Galen. And that person was my mom.

At least she didn’t fuck me to death.

It could always be a lot worse.

Beatrice, with her racoon eyes and chipped black nails, she says, “I don’t think that it’s the end.” With her burning incense and deep-seeded daddy issues, she says, “This is only the beginning.”

At least she isn’t sympathizing for me, she isn’t giving me that look, that your-best-friend-just-ditched-you-forever look that’s spreading like herpes in this town. They send me to the guidance counsellor a lot and she asks me how everything makes me feel and to be honest I’m just really pissed off because I don’t want any of James’ weird voodoo shit. I saw Goosebumps. I know what happens.

The thing about James Downey is that he’s always hovering in the background, and if you looked through a year book you’d probably laugh and say wow, I didn’t even know that kid went here. But he still does, and he’s probably in your class, too, but even the teacher tends to forget his existence. And then you’d go and call up your best friend and laugh about it because James Downey didn’t kill them.

But it’s different now. I notice him.

With Beatrice in front of me, sitting on the heels of her feet, and the pentagram dangling across her flat chest, I can see him slinking along. And Beatrice doesn’t, she’s talking again, but I see him. And he looks over and we lock eyes and both of us fucking know.

She says, “This entire town is going to go to fucking hell.”

I inhale the tobacco, looking at her, Beatrice who doesn’t wear a bra.

She says, “I can’t wait for everyone to get screwed over.”

And I think to myself that I think I might want to have sex with her.

She says, “I want all their perfect little lives to go to shit, like us, y’know?”

I don’t want to be offered to demons, though, but I nod my head. And I puff out the smoke. And I watch out of the corner of my eye as James Downey disappears, but not forever, never forever. Just for now.

With my back pressed up against the brick of my school, I look out to the forest in front of us, looming and dark and menacing now that everyone knows a body was found there. I think Reggie would be pissed, though, out of all places after he went missing no one thought that they'd find him at school.

I murder my cigarette against the asphalt.

It could be a lot worse, though. Just ask Reggie Graves. You could be a worm buffet, you and your perfectly combed hair. Decaying flesh gourmet.