CRY FOR BLOOD

Part I

By Wesley Overhults

Gotham Heights

She wasn’t sure if she should have dressed up or not.  Rachel Roth wasn’t completely sure she wanted to be in the same room with most of her peers that were in attendance.  If you asked her what possessed her to do something like this, she couldn’t have given anyone a real answer.  It wasn’t as if Megan Waters had been especially kind to her in life and Rachel could count the number of reasons she had to be kind to her in death on one hand.  It was strange that she and Megan were once friends, strange that she would have dared to call such a snotty, selfish little brat her best friend.  Things were simple back then when she was a child.  These days, Rachel didn’t have any friends and she sometimes thought she preferred it that way.  It saved her the trouble of being stabbed in the back and it also saved her the trouble of dealing with the emotional attachments, something she was never very good at in the first place.

Rachel didn’t have to go out and buy a black dress for the occasion once she made the decision to go to Megan’s funeral.  She already had a closet full of black clothing of any and all seasons and occasions and her hair was naturally black so it even matched her wardrobe.  Rachel never went in for the whole “makeup thing” that most girls were crazy about.  She always preferred the approach of less is more because she learned long ago that anything that made you stand out also made you a target.  She preferred to blend in, to conceal herself in anonymity, to hide herself from everyone around her.

“I heard her father isn’t even coming.  They say he ran off to Cancun with his secretary.”

“Do you think that’s why she did it?  Because of her parents getting a divorce?”

Rachel learned to close her ears where gossip was concerned, not that anyone would tell her anything meaningful in the first place.  Where Megan’s suicide was concerned, everyone in Gotham Heights High knew.  There were some scandals and juicy bits of news that were too “important” to stay within the confines of cliques.  Megan Waters was found in her bathtub on a Monday morning lying in a very large pool of her own blood.  By lunch period on Tuesday, the whole school knew about it but Rachel still couldn’t decide if anyone really cared.

Rachel didn’t believe in God so she completely disregarded the notion that Megan was in Heaven.  She went to church when she was a child because her foster parents dragged her there but now that she was able to think for herself, she didn’t see any need for it.  It was a grand turnout for Megan’s funeral, even making the local news.  Rachel tried not to feel bitter about that, about the fact that even in death Megan still managed to become the center of attention.  Feeling contempt towards Megan Waters was an instinct burned into her through years of social programming and some personal lessons learned at a painful cost.

“Rachel Roth?”

Rachel’s eyes turned away from the standard, non-descript photo arrangement portraying Megan as a paragon of society and rested them upon the owner of the voice.  Meredith Hiller was Megan’s best friend, the one that replaced Rachel when her friendship with Megan hit rock bottom.  Rachel was under the impression that the reason Megan and Meredith were so close was that they possessed a similar level of bitchiness.  At least Rachel felt a bit of sympathy for Megan due to their past friendship and also to the fact that Rachel knew about parents who abandon their children.  However, she felt no such sympathy for Meredith whose particular brand of piety and condescension made Rachel’s teeth grind whenever the overly religious girl opened her mouth.

“Yes,” replied Rachel simply.  “Something you wanted, Meredith?”

“I just wanted to say that it’s nice to see you in church,” explained Meredith, her smile disgustingly sweet.  “You should think about making it a habit.”

“Yeah, sure,” promised Rachel in a tone that clearly indicated the opposite.  “You seem pretty chipper considering the circumstances.”

“I’m hurting on the inside,” assured Meredith.  “It was a terrible thing what Megan did.  I hope that God forgave her for it.”

Rachel wondered just how Meredith could call herself Megan’s best friend and still mean it.  Rachel was on the receiving end of Meredith’s “concern” for any number of reasons, one of them being the fact that her foster parents were Catholics and were most likely going to hell because of it, according to Meredith at least.

“I hear that’s his job,” said Rachel, her eyes wandering away from Meredith and settling on a face she knew once.

Rachel hadn’t spoken to Eric Andrews since middle school back when everything fell apart.  The last conversation she had with him was brief, barely even qualifying as a conversation at all.  Long before Eric decided to cash in on his all-American looks and athletic abilities, he and Rachel were a couple.  Rachel considered that time frame quite possibly the happiest in her young life but everything happy had to turn sad eventually.  Megan was the queen of the school and she wanted Eric.  Her feelings for Eric had caused some mild friction between her and Rachel but nothing that best friends couldn’t fix.  Rachel couldn’t believe she was so naive back then but she smartened up when Eric cheated on her with Megan.  Since the day she found that out, Rachel hadn’t spoken a word to either of them.  That was when everything changed for her, when she went into a darker emotional space than even she thought was possible.  Most people would have shrugged off the unfortunate event and continued on with their lives.  Rachel let that anger and resentment linger far too long, unsure of how exactly to dispose of it without physically hurting herself in the process.  She was never very good with emotions.  It was almost as if she didn’t even fully understand them.

“I heard Megan’s mom had a fight with Eric about something.”

“I heard she was pregnant with his kid and that’s why she did it.”

“She would’ve told me about it,” assured Meredith as Rachel finally returned her attention to the conversation taking place around her.  “I was her best friend.”

“Whatever that’s worth,” mumbled Rachel as she turned away from Meredith and the other girls, intent on leaving before she contracted their hypocrisy.

“You should think about making church a habit,” suggested Meredith again as Rachel left.

“I have enough bad habits,” muttered Rachel.

She looked around at the people milling about, most of them crying over Megan’s death.  Rachel couldn’t even fully process it.  Megan was a rich girl, a popular girl, a girl that could have everything she wanted.  It didn’t make any sense for her to bleed out in a bathtub.  Rachel understood depression but she had every reason to be depressed.  She had no friends, she had never been part of a real family since she was orphaned from birth, and she had no real emotional attachment to anyone or anything.  It would be more fitting for her to be the one lying in the bathtub, not that anyone aside from her foster parents would mourn her.  The fact that Megan was the one who had killed herself was something Rachel couldn’t wrap her head around.

“It’s not true, you know.”

“Were you actually talking to me?” asked Rachel as she realized that Eric Andrews might have actually been trying to have a conversation with her.

“It’s not true about Meg being pregnant,” explained Eric.  “She just told her mom that to get sympathy after I dumped her.”

“Well hooray for that then,” said Rachel sarcastically.  “It’s not like it really matters now anyway.  It’s not like anything you two did mattered to me.”

Back when the world was full of sunshine and rainbows, Rachel lost her virginity to Eric.  It was awkward, painful, and not very romantic.  Rachel couldn’t say she knew what good sex was because her first time was also her only time but she had a pretty good idea of what good sex was not.  She wondered if Megan was better in bed than she was.  If that fact was true, it wouldn’t have really surprised Rachel.

“You were always a terrible liar,” reminded Eric.  “You wouldn’t dress the way you do and act the way you do if you didn’t want people to think certain things about you.”

“And you wouldn’t go around tagging every hot piece of ass that comes your way if you didn’t want people thinking certain things about you,” countered Rachel, fully aware that he was getting dangerously close to the truth.

It occurred to Rachel maybe for the first time that everyone in the room was hiding something.  All of them were there to play various roles.  Mrs. Waters was the woman scorned, Eric was the grieving lover, and Meredith was the sympathetic best friend.  So what was Rachel supposed to be then?  What was she supposed to feel?  Megan was a heartless bitch but she didn’t deserve to have her funeral populated by hypocrites and fakes.

“Guilty then,” admits Eric.  “For the record, none of them were as good as you.”

“Gee, thanks for the compliment,” replied Rachel.  “If you were expecting that to keep me up at night then I’m sorry to disappoint you.  I stopped caring about you a long time ago, Eric.”

He retreated and left Rachel alone once again, the metaphor not lost on her.  Rachel watched everyone take their seats, realizing that the preliminaries were over and it was time for the main attraction.  The minister took the pulpit as she seated herself in the back, looking around at the gathering of mourners and realizing that the only thing people came to mourn over was how much of a “disappointment” Megan Waters turned out to be.  It was then that something happened inside Rachel.  Her vision got blurry for a split-second and suddenly shifted into some other gear.

Everyone had an aura around them, a glowing corona of color.  Some of them were blue, some violet, some yellow, and some even red.  Rachel saw them in a different light in that moment.  She couldn’t figure out how she knew it but she knew that the colors represented the various emotions of the people around her.  Some of them were angry for their loss, some were afraid for Megan and for themselves, some were consumed by grief and the love they had for her.  It was strange and surreal to see people for who they really were instead of who they pretended to be.  It was also frightening too, a terribly frightening thing to see people at their very core without any barriers holding their emotions in.  Seeing people like that wasn’t the worst part though.  Rachel looked down at herself and saw nothing but black.  She didn’t know what that meant but she knew she had to get out of there.

Rachel sat in her room, the noise of her music blaring into her ears and helping her escape from reality.  Something still didn’t settle in the pit of her stomach.  Her vision was normal now, the energy trails of emotions no longer painting her world in the bright colors of the rainbow.  Rachel liked it better that way.  When she had seen the world in a kaleidoscope of colors, it almost made the world seem happier than it really was.  Rachel had stopped expecting her world to be a happy place.  Seeing herself bathed in black light wasn’t very pleasant either though.  That thought unsettled her even more because even though she didn’t know what it meant, she knew it wasn’t anything good.

“You left the funeral early?”

Rachel looked at her foster mother quizzically and then pulled out one of her ear buds, putting one foot back in reality while the other one remained firmly in her own world.  Catherine Thorne was a nice woman and a good mother.  She and her husband Robert had adopted Rachel when she was a child and they quickly became her favorite foster parents.  The only reason Rachel didn’t take their last name was because when she was found on the steps of a Gotham orphanage, the only thing the note with her said was “This is my daughter Rachel Roth”.  She wanted to keep the last name of her biological parents since it was really the only link she had to them.  When she was a child, she tried to pursue that heritage and even had vain hopes of meeting one or both of her biological parents.  Rachel gave up those dreams when she became a teenager much like she gave up on a lot of other things.

“Yeah,” she admitted to her foster mother.  “I dunno, I think I was about to have a panic attack or something.  I just got really dizzy and needed to get out of there for some fresh air.”

“We can get you a therapist again if you want one,” reminded Mrs. Thorne.

Rachel inwardly shuddered at the thought of having to go through therapy again.  A few years ago when everything went to hell, Rachel’s foster parents paid for her to go to a therapist for a few sessions to help her deal with her feelings.  Rachel didn’t enjoy the experience in the slightest.  In fact, she faked getting better just so she wouldn’t have to talk to the therapist anymore.  Talking about her feelings wasn’t something Rachel enjoyed nor was it something she was especially good at.  She preferred to keep everything inside herself and deal with it internally.

“No, I’m okay,” promised Rachel, the memories of the dreaded therapist still fresh in her mind.  “It was just a one-time thing I think.  I guess being there just got to me or something.”

“I know you and Megan had a falling out and stopped being friends a few years ago but you still care for her,” said Mrs. Thorne.  “If you didn’t feel anything towards her, you wouldn’t be this broken up about it.”

“I’m not broken up about it,” lied Rachel, trying to push down the emotions that threatened to burst forth from their hiding places.  “Do I like the fact that she killed herself?  No, I don’t but I’m not going to lose any sleep over it.  She died and that’s that, Mom.”

“You told the grief counselor the same thing,” reminded Mrs. Thorne.

“Because it’s the truth,” said Rachel, trying not to think about how much the grief counselor at school mirrored her former therapist.  “I’ll be okay, Mom.  Just give me some space, okay?”

Catherine Thorne nodded quietly and put her hand on her foster daughter’s shoulder, squeezing it lightly in a gesture of comfort.  Rachel nodded and gave her adopted mother a weak smile before slipping her other headphone back in and once again losing herself in her own world.  The music helped deaden her emotions but what her foster mother said was true.  Whatever had happened at the funeral, panic attack or not, meant that on some level Rachel still cared about what happened to Megan.  She realized that these feelings weren’t going to go away if she just stopped thinking about her former friend.  Megan was never the type to kill herself no matter what kind of emotional pain she was in.  Maybe there was something else going on that no one knew about.  Rachel wasn’t completely sure about it but she decided that she was going to pay Megan’s mother a visit.  She knew she wasn’t going to be satisfied until she knew the truth about why Megan chose to kill herself.

Rachel muttered to herself as she pulled her purple jacket tighter around herself and then rang the doorbell.  She told her parents she was going to visit Megan’s mother, a simple truth really.  She didn’t tell them that there was another purpose to the visit.  Rachel didn’t even know what exactly the other purpose was.  Even when she was a child, she would get these feelings of certainty about things.  She would just know when something was or wasn’t right and that talent persisted even to this very moment.  A few years ago, she had even read books on the subject of paranormal phenomena, mostly dealing with mediums and psychics.  That was something else she couldn’t tell her therapist, that the abilities described in those books closely mirrored the ones she seemed to show signs of.  Rachel discarded that notion though, perhaps because it scared her on some level to think that she really was a freak.  Her life was already abnormal enough as it was without bringing any other weird crap into it.  Still, she just knew something was wrong with this whole situation and she wanted answers.

“Hey,” said Rachel when the housekeeper finally answered the door.  “I don’t know if you remember me or not but my name is . . .”

“Rachel,” replied the woman with a smile.  “I haven’t seen you in years.  You’ve really grown up since then.”

“Can I maybe come in and talk to Megan’s mom?” asked Rachel, willing the hopefulness into her voice to make her performance more convincing.

“Miss Madeline’s pretty shook up about the whole thing,” admitted the housekeeper.  “You did come all this way out though and it’s been a few years.  Come on in and I’ll see if she can spare a few minutes.  You were like a second daughter to her, you know.”

“Yeah,” agreed Rachel and she didn’t have to fake the sadness in her voice.

The house was still the way she remembered it when she and Megan were kids.  Things looked so much better back then, so much bigger and more fantastical.  Rachel never could figure out why Megan liked hanging out with her.  In the past, she just thought they were friends and that friends didn’t need to have a reason to hang out with each other.  After they stopped being friends, Rachel then assumed Megan had only hung out with her to make herself feel better.  Rachel didn’t want anyone’s pity or sympathy.  She was a big girl and had been taking care of herself for her whole life.

“Miss Madeline says she can’t come talk to you,” explained the housekeeper, having gone up the stairs to fetch Megan’s mother from her bedroom.  “She just wants to be alone.  She’s been that way ever since everything happened.”

“Is what they’re saying true about Megan’s dad?” asked Rachel.  “Did he really leave?”

“Mr. Winston did leave,” confirmed the housekeeper.  “He left everybody a note but didn’t say where he was going.  One night he was here and the next morning he was gone.”

“Could I maybe see Megan’s room?” inquired Rachel.  “There might be some pictures or something that I’d like to keep if that’s okay.”

“Don’t see why not,” decided the housekeeper.  “You two were like sisters and I’m sure this has been real hard.  You go on up and take whatever time you need.”

“Thanks,” said Rachel as she ascended the staircase and let her memory lead her to Megan’s room.

She marveled that the disgustingly cute wooden letters that spelled out Megan’s name were still hanging on the door.  Rachel would’ve thought that Megan had grown out of something like that but then again Megan wasn’t exactly known for her maturity.  Rachel turned the handle on the door and let herself in.  The walls were still the same bright colors they were when she was a kid though the brightness had faded with time.  Rachel moved towards the bed and smoothed out the sheets on impulse.  She knew that Megan always kept her most important stuff underneath her bed.  A few seconds of rummaging yielded exactly what Rachel thought it would.  She pulled out the shoebox and opened the lid, coughing at the dust she stirred as she did so.

What Rachel found in the shoebox could have been the biggest shock of her life.  It was pictures of when she and Megan were kids.  She didn’t think Megan would bother to keep anything related to their friendship.  Rachel knew for a fact that she didn’t keep anything that reminded her of Megan.  She scrubbed her life clean of her the day that she realized she didn’t have any real friends.  Was it actually possible that Megan felt sorry for what she had done to Rachel?  Was that part of the reason she killed herself?

“Well, guilt’s something new to feel,” muttered Rachel to herself as she decided that she was going to take the whole shoebox back home with her and sort it out in the privacy of her room.

She moved over to Megan’s computer and decided maybe there was some more information on there.  After booting it up, Rachel stared at the password screen and thought for a moment.  Having not spoken a word to Megan in years, Rachel could only go by what she remembered from their time as friends.  She typed in a password Megan had used in the past and silently hoped that it would work.  It seemed that she was in luck as the screen came to life.  Rachel logged into Megan’s email and scrolled through some of the messages.  She didn’t see anything special until her eyes hit on an email from an unregistered user that was saved in a special folder.  She opened it and saw that it only consisted of one sentence.

You know what you must do to protect her.

Rachel stared at the cryptic statement and realized it was sent only a day or two before she and Megan stopped being friends.  The email didn’t have a signature, at least not a name anyway.  The only thing that could be considered a signature was a weird mark that looked like a fiery letter “S”, the mark giving the visual impression that it had been burned into the page rather than written by someone.  Rachel tried to decipher the meaning in the email but failed to do so.  Someone had basically ordered Megan to screw up her friendship with Rachel?  It didn’t make any sense.

Rachel shook her head in disbelief and then saw Megan’s cell phone lying on the desk.  She scrolled through Megan’s recent texts and discovered one that was sent to her the day before she killed herself.  It didn’t say anything but it had the same weird mark that the email had.  There was a call in her recent calls from the same number, also on the day before she killed herself.  A check of the timestamp on the call revealed that it came just after the text had. Her head now spinning with questions, Rachel left the phone on the desk and picked up the shoebox.  She fished her own phone out of her pocket and then put it on the floor to give someone the impression that she had dropped it there by accident.  When she arrived home, she would later realize that she had “left it behind” and would return to retrieve it.  It would give her an excuse to come back later and maybe look for more clues or perhaps catch Megan’s mother at a rare moment of activity.  Something weird was going on and Rachel wanted to know what it was.  She had a sense of dread about this whole thing now and it only intensified when she saw that symbol.  There was something about it that made her extremely nervous and she wanted to know exactly what that symbol meant.

“All done,” she said to the housekeeper as she gestured to the shoebox in her hands.  “It’s mostly just pics and stuff, little things.  I don’t think anyone’s going to miss it.”

“No, I suspect everybody around here has more to worry about,” said the housekeeper.  “Don’t be a stranger around here, Miss Rachel.  Poor Miss Madeline’s gonna need all the company she can get these days.”

“I’ll think about it,” admitted Rachel and again it wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the whole truth either.

She told her foster parents that she had lost her phone at Megan’s house when she went there earlier in the day.  It was an easy enough lie but guilt was an emotion Rachel was newly acquainted with and it didn’t sit completely well with her.  She didn’t lie to her foster parents about most things, at least not these foster parents.  Sure there were a few harmless, white lies but nothing serious.  The Thornes were kind and decent enough to take her into their home and treat her like their own daughter.  Rachel repaid that kindness by trying to treat them with respect.  If she loved anyone, she loved her foster parents.  She had this need though, this insatiable curiosity where Megan’s death was concerned.  It had been a nagging feeling before but seeing that symbol made it even worse.  She didn’t know why but something about that symbol was wrong.

“I just came to get my phone,” she explained to the housekeeper.  “I think it fell out of my pocket while I was here.”

“Come on in and check,” suggested the woman.

Rachel entered the house once again and waited until the housekeeper was out of sight before moving up the stairs to Megan’s room.  The phone was exactly where she had put it earlier that day and she swiftly put it in her pocket before scanning the room once more.  She hadn’t seen anything weird with the pictures.  If anything, looking at them actually made her feel sorry for Megan.  They had been such good friends until something tore them apart.  For the longest time, Rachel assumed the force that killed their friendship was Megan’s own stupidity and selfishness but now she wasn’t so sure about that.

“The police didn’t take anything,” explained the housekeeper and the surprise would’ve startled Rachel except that she didn’t scare easily.  “It was pretty easy to tell how she died.”

“Yeah, pretty easy,” agreed Rachel though inwardly she doubted that now.  “Well, I guess I should get going.  It’s a school night and I need to do some stuff at home.”

With that, Rachel left the room and closed the door on the way out.  She stared at the silly wooden letters on the door and felt like crying.  Maybe she was the one who had been stupid all these years.  Maybe if she had just gotten over her anger and reached out to Megan then she could’ve saved her.  Rachel choked down that emotion like she did with everything else and then came down the steps and went out of the house once more.  She walked up the driveway and stood at the end, contemplating her options.  She would have to start looking on the internet to find out what that symbol was and then she would have to come up with another excuse to return to this house and do more digging.  Talking to Megan’s mother was pretty much out of the question considering the woman didn’t even get out of bed much these days.

Rachel was about to step off the curb when a flicker of movement caught her attention.  She turned and saw someone dressed in red standing across the street.  That figure noticed that he had been spotted and darted down the sidewalk.  Rachel ran after him without pause, crossing the street and sprinting to catch up with him.  As she got closer, she could see what exactly he was wearing and it looked like the robes of a priest or some other church official.  The robes must have been a little heavy because the man wasn’t moving as fast as Rachel was.  She overtook him and clutched his arm, whirling him around so she could get a good look at his face.  Something silver flashed in the streetlights as the man brought the blade of the knife towards her throat.  Rachel immediately let go of his arm to back up and avoid the slash.

“Funny, I don’t remember hearing about the part of the Bible that tells the priests to carry weapons,” noted Rachel as she glared at her attacker.  “Why were you watching Megan’s house?”

“The hour of the end is nigh,” stated the priest.  “You will know the truth when the time is right.”

“That mark on the blade,” realized Rachel as she stared at the weapon in the man’s hand.  “What’s the S stand for anyway?  Sewing circle?  Soccer team?  Sadistic bastards club?”

It was clear the priest wasn’t going to talk so Rachel moved to disarm him of his weapon.  She had taken martial arts lessons when she was a child but she was completely out of practice.  Both of them struggled with the weapon and ended up rolling around on the ground.  When they broke apart, Rachel realized that blade of the knife had found a new home deep within the man’s chest.

“You are the daughter of the demon,” gasped the priest as blood poured from the wound in his chest.  “Yours is the hand that shall deliver Armageddon.”

“Jesus, just shut up and let me try to save your life,” snapped Rachel as she began to panic.  She had to figure out a way to bandage up that wound and get the man to a hospital.  She reasoned that the police could question him about his bad fashion taste once he was still alive to give them the answers.

“No, it is an honor to die by Your hand,” railed the priest.  “All members of my order would gladly wish to have their lives ended by You.  You are His only daughter, sire to the Dark Lord of all.”

“I’m about to stick this in your mouth instead of here,” said Rachel while tearing off some of the priest’s robe and using it to stop the bleeding after she pulled the knife out.  “One of your holes will get filled either way but I think you’d rather it be this one.”

The priest continued to babble while Rachel pressed her hand harder against the wound.  Inwardly she was a complete wreck.  She may not have any real love for most people but that didn’t make her a murderer.  Plus there were all the priest’s ramblings about her.  She wasn’t some sort of monster or sire to any dark lord.  She was just a normal teenager who . . .

“Why the hell is my hand glowing?” she asked out loud as she looked at her hand.

Rachel Roth stared in horror as the wound in the priest’s chest began to close up and heal itself at an alarmingly fast rate.  In only a few seconds, it was as if nothing had happened.  Something had happened though.  Rachel felt blood trickling out of her body and looked down at herself.  In exactly the same spot as the priest had, an open wound leaked fresh blood onto her shirt.  It was the last thing she saw before she collapsed onto the pavement and looked up at the sky.  Everything began to swirl and the darkness closed in on her, embracing her as part of itself.  Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rachel felt like she belonged there in the darkness.  It was the last thought she had before the world went completely black.

Next Issue: Rachel’s search for the truth continues as she discovers the Church of Blood.