IV

July 15, 2013

1824 Hours

“Dan!” James yelled, hoping to find his brother somewhere in this crowd. The outside funeral was located at the local cemetery, and not that many people showed up. It was just close friends that were present. The brother’s family didn’t show up, and haven’t for years. Dan was used to it and it didn’t bother him anymore, but James took it personally every time. Even though Dan gave it up years ago trying to invite their family to things, James didn’t. He sent out an invitation to them every single time. And every single time, they just didn’t show up.

“Yo, James. Why are you yelling?” Jared yelled across the cemetery. A friend of the brothers ever since middle school, Jared was a tough and ripped man. He was fat back in the days, but turned all that fat into muscle after being bullied all through his teenager years. He then served in the military for three years before being honorably discharged due to a loss of his left arm. He crashed at the brother’s place before meeting Lorraine. He married and had four kids, settling down out in the country where there were no noises. Jared came down here by plane, wanting to be there for Dan at his lowest.

“I can’t find Dan anywhere, the service is going to start any minute,” James said. Jared came over, towering over James as he got closer and closer.

“Well I haven’t seen him since I arrived,” Jared said, sipping juice from a juice box. He drank it all in one sip, and brought another from his fanny pack. “Dude, these juice boxes are like heaven. Better than beer, that’s for damn sure. Try one.” Jared offered a juice box to James.

“No thanks… Please don’t cuss at a child’s funeral, and if you see Dan, contact me.” James commanded, and then walked off towards the parked cars. Jared waved his left knob in the air, while loudly sipping a juice box from his right hand.

If he’s sulking in the car, I swear. James thought as he made his way to their car. Halfway there, he noticed a couple walking down the road to the service. He never saw them before in his life, yet something didn’t feel right. James changed direction to meet with the couple.

“Hey there, my name is James,” he said, offering a handshake with the man. As soon as the guy put his hand in James’, James gripped it tightly and asked, “Who are you?” The man was a little short, and had messy hair that was covered by his bowler hat. He had a beat up tux, and shoes that were the same way. The woman looked like she was picked up off from the street, and was given a nice black dress. A very nice black dress actually. James noted that it was a Maximo design, very expensive.

“The name is Rogers,” the man said, his voice was deep and seemed to rumble, as he shook James’ hand. Rogers squeezed a little harder, and James winced from the sudden strength. He backed off, and Rogers assumed his position next to the woman. “And this here’s my wife, Ellen.” Ellen then shook hands with James, and James had a slight shiver. Her touch was cold.

“How do you know little Chelsea?” James asked, still curious about the couple. He had a suspicion something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“We barely know the child, to be honest. But, when we did meet her. Oh, she was the sweetest thing ever!” Ellen said. James’ lying radar peaked, and he furrowed his eyebrows.

“What about you Rogers?” James asked, wanting to hear his story.

“Well, I got to say the same. Although I had more time with her than the wife here, she was so sweet and so young… so young…” Rogers trailed off, reminiscing. James nodded his head slowly, trying to understand why he felt so uneasy. He then shrugged it off, thinking it had to do something with the funeral, and bid them farewell.

Walking a few more steps, he looked over to his left, and saw Dan sitting alone on a bench faced away from the funeral. James stopped in the street, and wondered if he should go up there and comfort his brother.

“I need to tell him the service is about to start anyway…” James convinced himself, making an excuse to go up there. He gathered his courage, and went up to sit next to Dan. There was no sound where they sat. No birds, no insects, no chatter, no nothing. Just them. It was perfectly serene.

“Hey there,” James said as he sat down, breaking the peaceful quiet. Dan was staring off into the distance, his mind almost blank except for one thought. James looked at Dan in the eyes, and noticed tears welling up, then going out, and then welling up again.

He’s trying to control himself. James thought.

“Dan,” James said,  but Dan held up a finger. James’ mouth shut, and the finger went down into Dan’s lap, and started twisting a ring Chelsea gave him for Father’s Day.

“Do you know what I’ve been through?” Dan asked, his voice as hollow as his eyes. James looked around to make sure no one else was there, and turned back to Dan.

“No. No, I… I can’t say I have,” James replied.

“I didn’t expect you to,” Dan said, this time with some emotion in his voice. “I realized something today.”

“Wh-What did you realize?” James asked, a little nervous at what Dan was going to say.

“An epiphany if you would call it.” Dan stated. James looked where Dan was staring, and noticed an empty swing connected to a tree. James lifted a corner of his mouth in reminiscent of the old days where he and Dan would play on that swing on the weekends.

“What was the epiphany?” James asked, still staring at the swing set. If only they were seven again.

“Chelsea’s dead.” Dan said, his voice wavering. James’ eyes brimmed with tears at the sound of his brother breaking, but he didn’t want to touch him to comfort him. He felt like Dan didn’t want that.

“Chelsea’s dead. She’ll never run up to me starting her sentences with ‘Daddy, daddy!’ She’ll never offer me random hugs. Those sweet little hugs that filled me with joy every time. She’ll never cuddle up to me, her head buried deep into my arms and chest. Her breathing would level with mine, and we would just sit there, simply existing. She’ll never burst through the door, excited to see me, or excited about saving some marine animals.” Dan chuckled lightly. “She always loved marine life. Dolphins especially.”

Dolphins rape. James thought in his head, but decided not to say it out loud.

“I’ll never hear her voice again. Her actual voice, not the voice of some recording I have. I’ll one day forget her laughter. The way her precious green eyes lit up whenever there was Rainbow Sherbet ice cream in the bag of groceries I brought home that day. I’ll never again see that smile on her face. That tiny, simple, contagious smile that could make me smile every time I looked at her. She is… She was my world.”

A single drop fell from Dan’s cheek, and he got up. James just sat there, dumbfounded.

Holy s**t. James thought. He never would’ve thought Dan could ever be that deep. Dan left, leaving James on the bench alone watching the rusty swing in the distance rock back and forth in the gentle wind.

James and Dan both sat down in the front. The perfect view to notice every detail about the coffin in front of them. The white marble was smooth, and had intricate designs in the material. The sun reflected off of it, and casted rays on the flowers surrounding it; giving the flowers a holy look to them. The flowers themselves were Orange Tulips, and were scented like the fruit orange.

The preacher went up and started talking, but Dan didn’t hear him. Dan looked down at his notecards where his speech was written. He clutched them tightly, knowing in a few minutes he had to go up and speak about his daughter’s death. He just wasn’t prepared for that.

Dan looked around to see who all was here. Jared was in the back taking up two seats, drinking two juice boxes at once with one hand. People gave him weird looks, but he didn’t care. Chelsea’s playdates and their parents were mixed in with the crowd, and the rest of the attendees were Dan’s close friends from work a couple years back. Dan then noticed a couple in the other corner. They were standing and looked like trash, except for the wife. She had on a very nice black dress that went down to her knees. That was the only nice thing about her. Dan looked at the man, and noticed he was fidgeting with his mud stained hands.

“Hey, James,” Dan whispered, turning to his brother. “Who’s the couple at 5 o’clock?” James put on his sunglasses, which happened to have mirrors on the side to look behind him, and noticed the odd couple he met earlier.

“Rogers and Ellen. Said they knew Chelsea, but they were vague about it,” James explained. Dan grunted, and turned back towards the preacher. Something poked him in the back of his brain, but he dismissed it as his loss for his child.

“And now, would Dan please come up and saw a few words,” the preacher said. Dan looked down at his cards, then looked up at the preacher. The preacher signaled for him to get up there, and he sighed slowly. He still wasn’t ready.

“Here goes nothing,” Dan whispered to himself as he got up and went to the podium. When he got there, he looked over at the crowd. Jared gave him a thumbs up with a juice box in his mouth, and James gave him a sincere smile. He then looked over at the odd couple again. Something about them wasn’t right. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, and looked down at his cards.

He fidgeted with them before saying, “Chelsea was the sweetest girl I’ve ever met.” He paused for a few seconds, and looked up again at the crowd. A few of his friends gave him more thumb ups to say “You’re doing great.” He gulped, and looked down at his cards again.

“You know what she has always wanted? Chelsea always wanted to save the marine life. She was probably more aware about the danger they were in than anyone else here,” Dan said with a slight smile. A few hollow chuckles ran through the crowd at the simple, yet complex wish of a young child. Dan was going to go on, but a car horn brought his attention to the street. His friend Chad almost got run over by a red Mercedes passing through. As Chad crossed the street, giving an unpleasant finger towards the driver, Dan noticed a big van in the background.

It was white, and didn’t have a license plate on it. Dan laid down his cards slowly, looked straight at the odd couple, and something clicked in his mind.

Anger swelled inside of Dan, and he screamed. The crowd gasped at the sudden burst of anger, and the preacher went straight for his cross around his neck. The odd couple frantically started to leave.

“YOU!” Dan yelled. James was startled more than everyone else. He noticed there was something more than anger in his voice. There was also hate. Unimaginable hate. James didn’t realize until later where this sudden feeling of hate came from.

Dan leapt off of the stand, and charged full speed towards them. Everyone stood up, and watched as Dan caught up to them, and tackled Rogers to the ground.

“IT’S YOUR FAULT!” Dan yelled as he started pounding Rogers in the face over and over again. James went to pull Dan off, but Dan pushed James, making him fall to the ground beside him.

“I didn’t mean to kill the child!” Rogers yelled over Dan’s screams. It was useless, as Dan didn’t hear him. Straddling Rogers, Dan covered him in punches from the stomach to the chest to the face for what seemed like eternity.

“Dan!” Someone yelled from the crowd, but Dan couldn’t hear them. He just kept throwing punches at Rogers, releasing his anger all at once. Two weeks full of rage were being displayed in front of everyone. Rogers started coughing blood in between punches. Dan’s knuckles were getting bloodier by the second, and everyone just stood there and watched in shock. Most people that attended the funeral were more astonished at the fact that the man wasn’t doing anything in retaliation. It was almost like he knew he deserved it.

James threw himself into Dan, toppling both of them to the ground right next to Rogers.

“Dan! Control yourself!” James yelled in Dan’s ear. In response, Dan twisted and writhed under James, trying to get free. Rogers got up and started limping to his wife, who was waiting in the car, when someone tackled him from behind. Jared pinned Rogers down, an empty juice box hanging from his mouth as he crushed the puny human under him.

“Dan! What in the world were you thinking?” A woman yelled. Dan stopped moving, this allowed James to stand up to catch his breath, and looked up to find a pissed off Jasmine. This didn’t help any, as Dan was fueled by more anger. He got a hold of one of James’ legs, gripped it hard, and pulled.

“Ah!” James yelped as he fell to the ground. Pain shot through James’ body as he made contact with the hard ground. Dan got up from underneath him, and saw Rogers was pinned under Jared. He looked up from Rogers to the crowd that formed around him. Shocked faces filled Dan’s visions along with disappointment and confusion.

Dan’s eyes were wild, and he was breathing hard when he turned his head towards the woods. He had only one thought on his mind.

Solitude.

Dan made a break for it, running into the woods to get as far away from the funeral as possible. Voices followed him, but he kept running as fast as he could. Away from the noise, away from the voices, away from everything. He kept running until his legs burned with fire, yet he still ran. The yelling voices were behind him, but they sounded faint. Soon, the yelling turned barely audible and the woods grew deeper and denser. Dan turned left, then right, then left, then left, the right, hoping to make sure no one knew where he was going.

A single root came out of nowhere and tripped Dan, causing him to fall and slide against the woods’ floor. Dan groaned with pain and sat up, holding his left arm with his right arm. He looked down to see if there were any visible marks of injury when he noticed his knuckles were bloody. Not just from Rogers’s blood, but his too.

Dan sat there, and curled up into a ball. Neatly tucking his left arm into a cradle made out of his right arm. He just sat there. Seconds turned into minutes that turned into almost an hour before Dan started crying. He didn’t know what he was feeling; there were too much emotions inside of him to pinpoint just one.

A few moments of silence were broken with the word, “Daddy?”

Dan snapped his head up, and gasped. Chelsea was standing there as clean as ever. She looked down at Dan on the ground, and smiled.

“Baby,” Dan said, breathless. He surged forward to hug her, and passed right through her, crashing on the other side of his dead daughter. He turned around suddenly, and looked at Chelsea’s backside. Fear rushing through him.

“Silly daddy,” Chelsea said, chuckling a light child’s laughter. She turned around quickly, not moving her feet. “I’m dead. You can’t touch me!”

Dan started welling up with tears again as he got on his knees to look at Chelsea in the eyes.

“What are you… Why…” Dan started to say, but Chelsea held up a finger to hush him.

“I’m dead.” She stated. The light green twinkle in her eyes died, as quickly as Dan’s heart, and they turned hollow and soulless. A cut slowly appeared on her forehead, and part of her hair turned a stained deep red. Dan just watched as he saw his living daughter transform into a walking corpse.

“No. Baby, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know,” Chelsea hushed him sharply, and Dan shut up promptly.

“It was all your fault daddy,” Chelsea echoed. Dan looked around at the trees as they seemed to lean in, and whisper to Dan, “It’s your fault. It’s your fault. Everything that happened, it’s your fault.” It was coming from everywhere.

“No! No, I didn’t mean to… It’s not my fault!’ Dan pleaded, tears covering his eyes as his sight became blurry.

“But daddy, it IS your fault!” Chelsea exclaimed. She smiled, then turned that smile into a frown.

“IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!” Chelsea yelled, her voice screamed raw energy. It was enough sound to make anyone’s ears bleed, yet Dan’s didn’t. That didn’t stop him from covering them up as the ghostly figure of his daughter hovered in front of him, screaming a pitch that would make a bird in a hundred miles fly away. A wave of energy seemed to go in all directions originating from Chelsea, yet nothing got affected by it except for the lone man. Dan heard heavy footsteps, then got knocked to the ground and passed out.

Dan came out of the woods two hours later, beat up and as white as a ghost. Cops were all around the place questioning witnesses and just relaxing with the locals. Dan looked over at the coffin, and saw it was already in the ground and buried. James looked over from the officer he was talking to, deciding it wasn’t an intelligent conversation about his missing brother, and saw Dan crumple to the ground. James ran towards his brother, and picked up Dan to bring him to the ambulance vehicle. The pale brother was shivering and cold as ice when James and a few ambulance men put him on a gurney. James got in the back of the van with Dan as it drove off to the hospital.

James looked down at Dan twitching and groaning on the gurney. He didn’t know what to do, he was helpless. Dan was broken.

He’ll never be the same.