Dead
By
Gennia and Alice
Chapter 5
Beaten to death. Mr. Carter was beaten to death. I felt myself wincing at those words once again. What kind of person would do something like that? A crack addict, Howie! No! Shut up! I screamed silently to the voice in my head. I can’t loose now, no way, no how! I have came this far and I’m not about to give it all up just because some foolish part of me decides to suddenly be responsible. "You have it all under control, Howard, everything’s going be fine." I whispered a few words of reassurance to myself before taking another drag of the cigarette. I gave them the right information, they’ll call Ray and he’ll back up all my answers. They’re not going to suspect a thing. I’ll make it just fine. Wait, what if that idiot changes his mind and wimp out when the police call? Shit. I cursed silently to myself and pulled the familiar black cell phone out off my pocket. After killing my cig butt, I quickly dailed Ray’s number and pressed the electronic up to my ear.
After 5 long rings, I heard a sleepy greeting in my ear and angrily replied, "Whatta hell do you think you’re doing? I paid you to answer the damn phone so you answer the damn phone!"
"Sor--"
The older man was cut short as I continued my spit feast, "I don’t remember saying you can sleep, you lazy bastard! What if the cops call and you forget what to say? What are you gonna do then? Huh? ‘Cause let me tell you one more time Ray, if ANYthing goes wrong, I’ll make sure that you won’t live to see your little girls ever again. Understood?"
"ye…yes" His quivering reply came a second later. I couldn’t help but to sigh at the useless man.
"Listen Ray, I’ll check up on ya again in bit ok? Remember what I said and use your brain." I didn’t wait for his answer before snapping the cell phone shut. I buried my head in my hands and allowed the events of the past week to wash over me.
You really fucked up this time Howie…
He called one of those stupid meetings today. God! I didn’t see what the point of the meeting was. All we did was state the obvious! Nick’s dead, tour’s canceled. Any idiot could have figured that out. What did he expect? Everyone to just get over Nick’s death and go on with the tour? How cruel we would seem. True that some of us still got wives to feed and bills to pay. But this is Nick we’re talking about. Besides, Kristin and Steph can stand on their own. They wouldn’t just sit around until they ran out of money. They’re smarter than that… Him and his stupid meetings. And the management and record companies don’t even give us breathing space! Yea, they’re upset about the few million dollars gone to waste. Like that was really our fault. Nick’s dead. How are we supposed to continue the tour? What did they want us to do? Bring Nick back from the dead? I guess they actually expected us to get over it or get him back… Stupid Nick. Why did he have to die? Bet he’s happy that we wasted so much money on him—that everyone is so messed up because of him… Everything would be fine if he hadn’t just decided to keel over one day… And you’d think he’d die and get over it. No—he comes back to haunt me, to attack me in my subconscious. It was a damn accident! Everyone makes mistakes! I just made a mistake. Damn it Nick! You’ve made a lot—and it was definitely a mistake to come to me when you did. If you had just walked away—if you had just listened!!! But you never listen do you? You’re just stubborn and stupid like that. Now look at the mess you made—but you’re happy about this aren’t you? Again you’re the center of attention and you’re absolutely ecstatic that you can do this to us—to me! That’s why you’re letting it go on like this. You’re waiting for me to break, for me to just snap and finally confess…well Nick, I’m not going to do it. That’s not happening. This is our secret and no one is ever going to find out—EVER.