We Salute You In Your Grave
One.
Bret Cook's Point Of View.
Bring. Bring. Bring…
The phone continued to ring. I looked over at my alarm clock: 11:55pm.
Shit! I was supposed to be at work at 11:00...
Bring. Bring. Bring…
“Damn alarm clock...” I grumbled as I took the inexpensive piece of junk and tossed it at the wall, only splitting it into four pieces. To be honest, it’s more like "damn teenagers". The stupid, insolent little buggers kept me up with that shitty excuse for music they call “rock”. They have no idea what rock is!
Bring. Bring. Bring…
I finally picked up the phone. “Hello, Cook Residence,” I answered, trying to sound as polite and professional as possible.
“Where the hell are you, Cook?!” Mr. Talney, my boss, boomed through the speaker of the phone.
“I…I…My alarm clock was busted and didn’t wake me up,” I replied, not completely lying.
“Well get your ass down here, or you'll be looking for another job!” My boss ordered before he hung up. I got dressed in record time, rushed out of the door without eating a thing, and headed down to my office. I work for the Daily Bugle as a reporter/journalist. I hate my job. Well--in all honesty, I hate my boss and the assignments I keep getting stuck with. I'm always covering the cases with teenagers involved. Finally I arrived, and as soon I walked in the door, Mr. Talney started yelling at me regarding my frequent "tardiness", and how my stories were “lacking”, as he called it.
“Oh, and you have the Melody Doe case,” he added to his rant before walking off. “Now what has a stupid teenager done?” I thought as I grabbed a cup of coffee and the information sheet from my desk.
“Just another day in paradise...” I muttered, storming out of the Daily Bugle’s headquarters and heading to the damn case.
********************
As I pulled up to the house, the squad cars still had their lights flashing, and two of the officers were speaking to a pair of sobbing, inconsolable parents. Coffee and notepad in hand, walking up the steps, I stepped over the black and yellow tape blocking the front path, and showed my press pass to the officer standing guard by the door.
"What happened here, exactly?" I asked a clueless rookie who had been standing outside a room near the top of the stairs. (He was too naive, I figured, to know what he should and shouldn't release to the press. Perfect source for a tidbit of information.)
"Eh...a girl's gone and hung herself. She was 13."
"You don't say?" I removed the cap from my pen and began scribbling down notes.
"Yeah," the rookie laid an elbow on a nearby banister. "One of those weird kids, you know, with the makeup and all..."
"Really?" I prodded further, sensing there was more to this story than what met the eye.
"She's got a bunch of posters of one of them rock music groups on her walls in her room. it's where we found her, too, with some note apologizing to some blokes....Gee-rad, Fred, Red, Bab, and Mickey, something like that. Quite strange..." the rookie trailed off and fell silent.
"That is strange..." I muttered. "Mind if I take a look myself?" I asked eagerly.
"Uh, sure, go ahead..." he waved his hand towards the room we'd been standing by, camera flashes and officers both coming from inside.
I gulped. I never had been one for seeing dead bodies...
I walked in, and the first sight I was met with was the forensics department snapping photographs of the poor girl's body for the coroner.
The rookie had been right--there were quite a few posters. Rather odd-looking fellows...eye makeup, piercings, and all.
No doubt they were American.
Weaving my way around the detectives and police, I noticed a stack of CDs in the corner, atop some horrid-looking DVD case. (Life On The Murder Scene? I dare not even ask.)
Pocketing a CD or two for further research, I took a few more notes...and what seemed to be the girl's journal. You would think someone would've noticed me....hm. Odd.
Regardless, I had my work cut out for me.
After a rather long drive, I finally got to the paper's headquarters and let myself in, walking to my office. It was now 2:30 AM.
Taking one last drag of my cigarette, I plopped it into my now-cold coffee and sat down in front of my laptop without even bothering to take off my coat. After a few minutes of loading, I finally got to that confounded search engine I'd heard so many people rant on about. I took the CDs out of my pocket and squinted at the writing: My Chemical Romance.
...What on earth?
...children these days.
Getting over the initial shock, I typed the name in and hit 'search'. Sure enough, those five fellows who had been on the girl's posters came up in the search results, along with quite a few teenagers dressed in black t-shirts with that Chemical Romance thing on it in some awful scratchy lettering. They also looked a lot like the 13-year old in terms of appearance--horrifying. Blue, green, even purple hair, with lots of makeup around their eyes and piercings where they shouldn't have been.
"Emo?" I questioned out loud, seeing this word tossed about quite a bit.
I wasn't too surprised. Horrified, yes, but more surprised at the fact that I'd done an article on this strange phenomenon months ago. Very dangerous thing, that "emo" stuff is. Teddy bears with nooses, razorblades and things like that.
And the staff wonders why I make my 9-year-old stick to watching that purple Barney bloke...
Regardless, I published that article and a few of those emo people got their knickers in a twist. Surprising, I have to admit. I thought the most active thing teens did nowadays was run from the police. I didn't care, though; it wasn't like they could do anything other than whine in their stupid little comments about the online article. And even then, I'd delete them afterwards.
Fools. Following some odd American chaps with weird clothes, like some sort of cult...
Wait--a cult!
That was it--these Chemically Romanced people were taking ourwhiny little brats youth and forming them into some sort of death cult! I'd finally found the story's angle.
After a good five minutes or so of research on some reputable-looking sites (could someone please inform me--what in the Queen's name is a Buzznet?) I typed the article and sent it down to the editor. Not that he'd edit anything, though.
Bah. Accuracy. Who needs it?
Sure enough, there it was the next day in the paper:
'Parents, Beware of the Dangers of the Chemical Emo-Cult'.
The backlash ought to be amusing.
Bring. Bring. Bring…
The phone continued to ring. I looked over at my alarm clock: 11:55pm.
Shit! I was supposed to be at work at 11:00...
Bring. Bring. Bring…
“Damn alarm clock...” I grumbled as I took the inexpensive piece of junk and tossed it at the wall, only splitting it into four pieces. To be honest, it’s more like "damn teenagers". The stupid, insolent little buggers kept me up with that shitty excuse for music they call “rock”. They have no idea what rock is!
Bring. Bring. Bring…
I finally picked up the phone. “Hello, Cook Residence,” I answered, trying to sound as polite and professional as possible.
“Where the hell are you, Cook?!” Mr. Talney, my boss, boomed through the speaker of the phone.
“I…I…My alarm clock was busted and didn’t wake me up,” I replied, not completely lying.
“Well get your ass down here, or you'll be looking for another job!” My boss ordered before he hung up. I got dressed in record time, rushed out of the door without eating a thing, and headed down to my office. I work for the Daily Bugle as a reporter/journalist. I hate my job. Well--in all honesty, I hate my boss and the assignments I keep getting stuck with. I'm always covering the cases with teenagers involved. Finally I arrived, and as soon I walked in the door, Mr. Talney started yelling at me regarding my frequent "tardiness", and how my stories were “lacking”, as he called it.
“Oh, and you have the Melody Doe case,” he added to his rant before walking off. “Now what has a stupid teenager done?” I thought as I grabbed a cup of coffee and the information sheet from my desk.
“Just another day in paradise...” I muttered, storming out of the Daily Bugle’s headquarters and heading to the damn case.
********************
As I pulled up to the house, the squad cars still had their lights flashing, and two of the officers were speaking to a pair of sobbing, inconsolable parents. Coffee and notepad in hand, walking up the steps, I stepped over the black and yellow tape blocking the front path, and showed my press pass to the officer standing guard by the door.
"What happened here, exactly?" I asked a clueless rookie who had been standing outside a room near the top of the stairs. (He was too naive, I figured, to know what he should and shouldn't release to the press. Perfect source for a tidbit of information.)
"Eh...a girl's gone and hung herself. She was 13."
"You don't say?" I removed the cap from my pen and began scribbling down notes.
"Yeah," the rookie laid an elbow on a nearby banister. "One of those weird kids, you know, with the makeup and all..."
"Really?" I prodded further, sensing there was more to this story than what met the eye.
"She's got a bunch of posters of one of them rock music groups on her walls in her room. it's where we found her, too, with some note apologizing to some blokes....Gee-rad, Fred, Red, Bab, and Mickey, something like that. Quite strange..." the rookie trailed off and fell silent.
"That is strange..." I muttered. "Mind if I take a look myself?" I asked eagerly.
"Uh, sure, go ahead..." he waved his hand towards the room we'd been standing by, camera flashes and officers both coming from inside.
I gulped. I never had been one for seeing dead bodies...
I walked in, and the first sight I was met with was the forensics department snapping photographs of the poor girl's body for the coroner.
The rookie had been right--there were quite a few posters. Rather odd-looking fellows...eye makeup, piercings, and all.
No doubt they were American.
Weaving my way around the detectives and police, I noticed a stack of CDs in the corner, atop some horrid-looking DVD case. (Life On The Murder Scene? I dare not even ask.)
Pocketing a CD or two for further research, I took a few more notes...and what seemed to be the girl's journal. You would think someone would've noticed me....hm. Odd.
Regardless, I had my work cut out for me.
After a rather long drive, I finally got to the paper's headquarters and let myself in, walking to my office. It was now 2:30 AM.
Taking one last drag of my cigarette, I plopped it into my now-cold coffee and sat down in front of my laptop without even bothering to take off my coat. After a few minutes of loading, I finally got to that confounded search engine I'd heard so many people rant on about. I took the CDs out of my pocket and squinted at the writing: My Chemical Romance.
...What on earth?
...children these days.
Getting over the initial shock, I typed the name in and hit 'search'. Sure enough, those five fellows who had been on the girl's posters came up in the search results, along with quite a few teenagers dressed in black t-shirts with that Chemical Romance thing on it in some awful scratchy lettering. They also looked a lot like the 13-year old in terms of appearance--horrifying. Blue, green, even purple hair, with lots of makeup around their eyes and piercings where they shouldn't have been.
"Emo?" I questioned out loud, seeing this word tossed about quite a bit.
I wasn't too surprised. Horrified, yes, but more surprised at the fact that I'd done an article on this strange phenomenon months ago. Very dangerous thing, that "emo" stuff is. Teddy bears with nooses, razorblades and things like that.
And the staff wonders why I make my 9-year-old stick to watching that purple Barney bloke...
Regardless, I published that article and a few of those emo people got their knickers in a twist. Surprising, I have to admit. I thought the most active thing teens did nowadays was run from the police. I didn't care, though; it wasn't like they could do anything other than whine in their stupid little comments about the online article. And even then, I'd delete them afterwards.
Fools. Following some odd American chaps with weird clothes, like some sort of cult...
Wait--a cult!
That was it--these Chemically Romanced people were taking ourwhiny little brats youth and forming them into some sort of death cult! I'd finally found the story's angle.
After a good five minutes or so of research on some reputable-looking sites (could someone please inform me--what in the Queen's name is a Buzznet?) I typed the article and sent it down to the editor. Not that he'd edit anything, though.
Bah. Accuracy. Who needs it?
Sure enough, there it was the next day in the paper:
'Parents, Beware of the Dangers of the Chemical Emo-Cult'.
The backlash ought to be amusing.
♠ ♠ ♠
Thoughts?Also written by Madre_guerra aka Scout
<3