Unanswered by Liza Mynx (books under 200 pages txt) 📕

I whispered, half scared and half relieved.
“You know them.”
“Know who?”
“The . . . killer . . . ”
“What?”
“Help . . . me . . . help . . . me . . . ”
He vanished, and along with him, all my sanity.


4. Messages

“SAMMY!” I screamed as I burst through the cafeteria doors.
Everyone looked at me, some with concerned looks, others had looks of amazement. They were amazed at the fact they heard my voice. Told you I stopped talking.
“Claire,” Sammy said, standing up from our usual table on the far side of the room next to the outside doors.
I ran over to her and sat down across from her. Some people were still starring at me, but mostly everyone turned back to their friends or their meal.
“I...I...” I panted.
“You . . . you what, Claire?”
“I saw him. At the stairs. He was there.”
“Who was there?”
I looked at her. She got it.
“Claire, that’s im-”
“Don’t say impossible. I don’t want to hurt you. Anyway, it’s possible. He was there, in front of me. He talked to me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
She looked at me like I was crazy. She probably thought that, too, but was too afraid to say it. She probably thought I was in a ‘delicate state’ as my over protective mother worded it.
“It’s possible, I swear I saw him.”
“Have you talked to your doctor lately?”
My doctor. That’s what her reply was.
When I told my mom that I saw Chris that day, she took me to a therapist the next. I’ve been seeing him for the past year every Wednesday. I hate walking into his office. He treats me like I’m an idiot.
“Is school going good?” he would ask me.
“Well, it’s school. How could it be going good?” I always answered.
“Have you talked to Chris lately?” he would ask me at other times.
“No. He hasn’t shown up.”
“Okay. So have you seen him lately?”
“No! He hasn’t shown up!”
I looked back at my friend.
“I talked to him last night. He said I’m fine. I always knew I was fine, and I don’t need anyone, especially a shrink, telling me I’m not!”

“I never said you weren’t fine, I simply asked you if you’d talked to your doctor lately.”
“So, I tell you that I talked to our best friend who we haven’t seen in a year, and you ask me if I talked to my doctor?” I asked her, my voice raising an octave or so as I was fighting back tears.
How could she think I’m crazy? She’s my best friend, and I tell her everything! How could she call me crazy?!
“Look, why don’t you call your mom to come pick you up? I don’t think you should go to the rest of your classes. I’ll come with you,” then she added, “If you like.”
I stood up. “No thanks. I read somewhere that crazy people don’t talk to anybody, not even their old best friends.”
I walked away after I waited for her to say something and didn’t. I went out the back door and off the school campus. I’m used to doing this. I play hookie almost every day. The teachers are so used to people skipping, especially me, that they don’t even care anymore! When they call roll and someone isn’t there the teacher will ask if that person skipped. If they did, the teacher just puts the person down as taken out early!
After I got off the campus, I walked around the corner of Maple Street, the street the school was named after. I walked down Lemon Avenue for a few blocks when I came to Chris’s old house.
After he . . . went away(I refuse to say what really happened to him) his parents packed up and moved out. I remember seeing the big moving van parked outside their house the last day I saw them. They hadn’t told me they were moving, so I got scared. I didn’t know what was going on. I went up to the door and asked them what they were doing, and if they were moving. Kim had her blond hair up in a bun, and her blue eyes were still blood shot from crying(she cried almost every night.) Rob’s brown hair was messed up and his brown eyes were black with exhaustion.
“Sweetie,” Kim said in a husky voice, the voice that now replaced her light, airy voice. “We love you and your mother, but we feel that we should move on with our lives by moving away.”
“But before we left, we wanted to give you something,” Rob said, reaching into the box he was carrying. He had pulled out a small, engraved box that I recognized. It was the box that used to sit on Chris’s night stand.

I took it from his hand, and he told me to look at the engraving. For the first time I realized what the message was. It said in a very fancy cursive penmanship, “Claire and Chris are friends forever.” Rob motioned for me to open the small box, and inside I saw the necklace that he always wore. The chain was silver, and in the center of it was the weird, little charm that he held in his hand whenever something bad happened. It was a gold rattle snake that had its body made into a circle. The rattle completed the circle and was made up of three small diamonds, and the head of the snake stood up and its mouth was open exposing its fangs. He never took it off and when I asked him if it was special he freaked out and said that it was one of the most important things ever to him. I guessed it was some family heirloom.
“I can’t take this,” I said, giving it back to him.
Kim sat the box she was carrying down, came over to me, and took the necklace out of my hand. She motioned for me to turn around, and I did. She clipped it to my neck, and said that they couldn’t keep it. She said that she knew he would have wanted me to have it.
It had felt weird to me. I was just his friend, well his best friend, and he had a box with his and my name engraved on it. His parents were giving me a necklace that he always wore, no matter what. It just felt weird to me. I didn’t know why they hadn’t given it to Sammy, his girlfriend.
Now, I looked at the house, and I couldn’t get that memory out of my head. It wasn’t the most painful I had, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t cripple me. I wanted to fall to my knees and cry like I did when I saw him on the floor, but the tears didn’t come. They never came, not even at his . . . funeral. I hated thinking about it because I couldn’t stand the way everyone looked, but somehow, that was the last thought in my head before I went to sleep every night.
The ceremony was absolutely gorgeous. It matched his amazing personality and kindness. There were flowers everywhere, and the pews of the church had stands with cards on top of them that said things like, “We will never forget him,” or, “May he find happiness in his next, everlasting life.” The priest talked about Chris’s life and all the good deeds he did like watching the Sunday school kids, working in the soup kitchen, being a supervisor on trips the church sent some of the children on, and so much more. When the priest asked if anyone wanted to say a few words about Chris, I stood up.
I walked up to the stand and said, “Hi. Most of you know who I am, but for those of you who don’t, I’m Claire Jason, and Chris was my best friend.” My voice was shamefully calm and it didn’t look like I had any emotion at all. I was embarrassed and disappointed in myself. Embarrassed because I was the only person not crying or just looking like I was crying, and disappointed because I couldn’t. “What can I say about Chris but . . . ” I froze. I didn’t know what to say. I did a silent prayer to myself, asking God to help me think of something to say.

It’s not like it was hard to say something about Chris. It was just hard to put everything into words. Then, inspiration hit me and the words came flowing out of my mouth. “He was an amazing person, son, and friend. He was kind and sweet to anyone. He was loved by everyone, and shed light into everybody’s life he touched. He never said anything mean to anyone, and was always there for anyone who needed help. I will be one of people who will always remember him as a great leader because he always thought things through. He was smart, talented, and well, an all around good person, and that will be the thing I will remember him most by. Thank you for listening to me, and I hope that wherever he is, Chris heard me say that. I really will and do already miss him.”
My head went back to now, not wanting to think of the pain and suffering on Kim and Rob’s faces.
I walked up and reached into my pocket for the key. They didn’t want to sell the house, so they gave me the key to the place. I put the key into the hole and opened the door. I didn’t want to walk inside, but I didn’t want to stay outside because I live across the street and my mom’s off today. I took a step into the doorway and closed the door behind me.
Whenever I was in this house, I felt a burning sensation in the back of my throat, and a tingle in my eyes, as if the tears were trying to break through the mental barricade my brain set up. I looked around and felt like it was one hundred years ago that I was last here. There was dust on the kitchen counters, fireplace mantle, and the windows. There were mildew stains on the walls, and cockroaches everywhere. I walked into Kim and Rob’s room, and it wasn’t much different in there. I tried to flip the switch, but me being me, I forgot that the electricity was turned off. I walked out of there, and went into the room that was the real reason on why I was here. It hadn’t changed in over a year, except for the dust and bugs. Kim and Rob never took anything out of his room, they didn’t want to take the memories with them. His bed was still messed up like it was that day. His clothes were still in a pile over in the corner. Pictures of me, Sammy, and Chris tapped on the mirror. They were the only pictures I ever see of him smiling anymore.
Pain and suffering. Is that all I can remember my friend by?
That thought just exploded into my head, and I didn’t want it to. I regretted forgetting everything about my dearest friend, but I didn’t want to remember him as a person I once knew, but was now away.
I looked at my face in the pictures, then at my face in the mirror. The present mingling with the past, comparing the differences of appearance and state of mind. I’ve changed so much. Other then my hair is shorter and darker, and my eyes are different. In the past they were florescent blue,