Ask & You Shall Bereave

He dragged his backpack behind him as he pushed one foot in front of the other. Often, walking home was his only moment of peace. Abruptly, something wet and squishy smacked the back of his head. He stopped and looked around just in time to see two boys from his class running away laughing.

“Loser!” they screamed back at him. He did his best to stiffen up his lip and willed the tears to stay behind his eyes. Momentarily, he thought about going to the library to complete his homework before finally heading home, but he could still feel the burn on his butt that his mother gave him from the last time he tried that. Instead, he kept his head low and walked on along the neighborhood road. He wondered if life would always be like this or if he would ever find a friend. He wished just once for someone to notice him and try to protect him from all the trouble in his life.

“Hey kid, you look down, are you doing alright?” said a voice from behind the bushes of the upcoming house. The boy jumped a little at the unexpected sound and gasped under his breath at the sight of the man in front of him. He was sitting in a lawn chair, but it was still obvious he was tall; he was a burly man with more hair on his arms than his head. The man was lighting up a cigar, but kept his expression on the boy. The boy could feel the man’s sharp blue eyes piercing through him. They reminded him of the hottest part of the flame - the part that burned the deepest.

“I’m alright, Sir. Just kids from school playing around,” the boy whispered.

“That doesn’t look like playing around. That looks like a soggy sack of papers, those little shits just threw at your head. Does that happen often?” the man asked before taking a long drag of his cigar. The tears were fighting hard now to fall from the boy's eyes, so he simply nodded.

“I’ll tell you what, I’m here almost every day, if you see them again on your way home, you just holler, and I’ll poke my head out and scare them off, got it?” Another large puff of smoke.

The boy nodded with a smile.

“You run along home now before anyone else finds you,” the man added.

The boy propped up his backpack on his shoulders, now feeling a momentary sense of delight to have someone on his side.

As he walked in the door of his home, the familiar smell of cigarettes and burnt meat flooded his senses, and he tried not to gag.

“Asher! Get in here!” screamed a voice from the kitchen. Any positivity he had felt from his conversation with the stranger quickly faded as he made his way to the kitchen.

He pushed open the swinging door to see his mother still in her “workout” outfit, which was basically a sports bra and gym shorts. Her messy bun and droopy make-up suggested it was either a longer workout or she had found a secondary form of “exercise”. She leaned over the boiling pot and stirred.

“You’re late! I need you to clean these dishes and change your brother. He’s been stinky all afternoon!” As she screamed, ashes from her cigarette dropped into the pot. Asher shuddered a little with disgust.

He turned around, dragging his feet, but before he could reach the kitchen door, his mother pulled him back by the collar of his shirt. Asher coughed a little from the sudden tightness.

“Where are you going? Your brother is napping now, clean these dishes first!” she barked, letting ash fly around off the end of her cigarette.

Without a word, Asher turned on the faucet and started on the dishes in the sink. He watched as his mother took selfies to send to some mysterious man on the other end of the phone, letting whatever was in the pot burn and boil over a little bit. Asher did his best to simply focus on cleaning the dishes.

***

As Asher walked to school the next day, he held hopes that his defender might still be sitting in the lawn chair, just in case his classmates were on the street at the same time as him. He walked slowly with his head down, but his eyes darted around for anyone seeking to sneak up on him.

He jolted his head around quickly at the sound of a loud popping noise behind him and across the street. A momentary fight or flight response rose in him, but died down when he noticed it was just an old car doing its best to refuse to drive properly.

“Good morning, sport,” said a familiar voice in front of him, catching him off guard. He turned to see the same burly man sitting exactly as he had the day before, with a lit cigar already in hand. “You don’t look like you got a lot of sleep last night.”

“No, Sir, I have to help my mom around the house and with my brother when I get home, and then I usually have several hours of homework.”

“That’s nice of you to help your mom out. She’s mighty lucky to have a boy like you,” the man answered. Asher shrugged. “You don’t think so?”

“I don’t know, she’s always yelling at me, I don’t clean the dishes well enough, or I’m late coming home. She’s always upset if my brother is crying,” Asher answered. The man nodded, digesting the information.

“So you get picked on at home and picked on at school, rough life kid,” the man replied, releasing a puff of smoke. “I bet sometimes you wish they’d all just die, don’t you?”

Asher looked at the man with confusion in his eyes. He did find himself often wishing they would all just disappear, but it seemed cruel and selfish to even have such thoughts.

“Sometimes, sometimes I wish someone could just take them away, just away from me so I wasn’t always hurting or in trouble,” Asher whispered under his breath. The man smiled a wide, crooked smile.

“What’s your name, son?” He asked.

“Asher Jones,” the boy said quietly.

“Well, look up, Asher Jones, fate may still be kind to you yet,” the man said with a wink, taking another final drag of his cigar. He stood up now and stomped the cigar on the ground. Asher wasn’t a short kid; in fact, he was one of the tallest in the freshman class, but this man stood an entire head above him. “Run along now to school, don’t want to be late.”

Asher smiled and nodded before moving along quickly down the road. He wasn’t sure what the man meant about fate and things, but it sounded positive.

When Asher arrived at school, he noticed none of the four popular kids were there. It was ten to 9 am, not that they were known for punctuality, but Principal Johnson didn’t give a lot of second chances for tardiness. Asher decided just to enjoy the peace and moseyed on over to his first class.

It was the most peaceful day he had had in a long time, and as he was walking home, he found himself smiling more than a lot to himself. He was able to listen in class and follow along without worrying who might throw something at him, trip him, or steal his books.

He was so excited to tell his new friend about the day, but when he walked up to the house, the lawn chair was empty. Asher's shoulders dropped as he sighed. Begrudgingly, he kept walking.

When he walked in the door, his brother was crying in his playpen in the living room. The place smelled a little like burnt herbs.

“Mom? I’m home,” Asher called out, but the only reply was his brother crying and reaching his arms out to be held. Asher dropped his backpack to the ground and went to pick up his brother. “What’s wrong, Hunter? Are you hungry?”

Asher walked into the kitchen, aiming to make a bottle for his brother, and was surprised to find it empty. Nothing cooking on the stove, no dishes in the sink, and no mother.

“Mom?” he called out again, but again no answer. It was not unusual for his mother to be out late, but it was strange that not even the neighbor lady was over to watch his brother. Asher busied himself making a bottle and enjoyed the otherwise quiet house. He pulled a frozen pizza out of the freezer and set the oven to heat up. When the bottle was ready, he took it and his brother back to the playpen and set him down to drink happily.

Abruptly, there was a knock on the door. Asher hesitantly went to open it. He opened it only enough to poke his face out until he noticed the caller was two police officers, who looked mighty concerned.

“Asher Jones?” asked one of the officers. Asher nodded while swallowing the rather large lump that had built up in his throat. “I'm Officer Beck, and this is Officer Spears. May we please come in?” Asher nodded again, stepping back from the door and allowing the officers through the threshold.

“Where are your parents?” the second officer inquired as they took their seats at the dining table.

“I don’t know my Dad, never met him. I don’t know where my mom is; she’s usually home by now, but she might just be out with friends or on a date. Would you two like anything to drink?” Asher replied, taking half a step towards the kitchen.

“No, thank you, son. We just have some questions if you’d like to take a seat,” Officer Beck answered. “Does your mom often leave you alone to take care of your brother?”

Asher glanced at his brother, who was lazily sipping the last of the milk in the bottle, rocking himself side to side in his milk-drunk daze.

“Sometimes, is that what you’re here about? My Mom?”

“No, we are here because an older couple in the neighborhood and four boys from your school were found murdered this afternoon. Jackson Brown, Bobby Thersher, Quinn Archer, and Kyle Zonkin. Their bodies were found by the river. We were told they often bullied you.”

“You wanted to know if I killed them for bullying me? I was in school all day! I only just got home!” Asher panicked and let the fear rise into his face. Tears flew up into his eyes faster than he could adjust, and his arms started to shake. Officer Spears reached out a hand to calm him.

“No, no, Asher. We are not here to ask you if you killed them; we don’t think that. Your teachers can confirm you were in class during the time of their deaths. No, we are here because we want to know when you might have last seen them or if you know of anyone who might have harmed them?”

Asher shook his head slowly. Other than him and all the other kids in school whom they bullied, he didn’t know anyone who would want to harm them, and no one who would go so far as to murder children.

“When did you last see them, Asher?” Officer Spears asked, keeping her hand on Asher’s arm. She had a soothing touch, the kind of touch he always wished his mother would have.

“Yesterday afternoon, I was walking home from school. They… they threw a sack of wet paper at my head, then -” Asher paused for a moment, thinking about his strange conversation with the man he met in the neighborhood.

“Then what, Asher?”

“Then they left, laughing at me. That was it,” he answered. He wasn’t sure why he didn’t tell the officers about his friend, but he sat still, suddenly finding himself wishing his friend were there.

“Thank you, this is helpful. Your mother still isn’t home? Would you like us to wait with you or send an officer to look for her?” The first officer questioned. Asher hesitated; he was starting to worry a bit, but he knew that if an officer found her at his behest, she’d be furious. Asher shrugged, unsure what to do.

“We’ll just have a call around and check, we won’t tell her you sent us looking, how about that?” the officer suggested. Asher nodded. Officer Beck then stood up and pulled out a business card.

“If you have any more information about the boys, are worried about your mom, or have any issues at all, you can call me, okay?”

Again, Asher nodded. He walked with the police back to the door and shut it behind them. He took a deep sigh and started to move towards the kitchen.

“Don’t worry, Hunter, Mom will be home soon,” Asher said to his sleeping brother, trying to reassure himself. He put the frozen pizza on the rack in the oven and then walked back to the living room to start his homework.

* * *

Asher woke up with his head on his textbook, still sitting at the dining room table. His brother was playing happily in his playpen. Asher rubbed the sleep from his eyes.

“Mom?” he called out, but was greeted only with silence. He went to open the front door and gather up the paper. He panicked when he saw the familiar face on the cover. His friend, the man who had talked to him, was staring back at him. He read the title above the picture over ten times before the words registered in his mind.

TED ZEPEDA. ESCAPED CONVICT. WANTED FOR MURDER.

Asher ran back inside and searched on the counter for the business card of the police officer. When he found it, he did his best with shaky fingers to dial the number on the card.

“Hello, this is Officer Beck,” answered from the other end of the phone.

“Officer Beck? This is Asher Jones, we talked last night,” Asher answered, unable to hide the shaking in his voice.

“Asher, is everything alright?”

“No, my mom still isn't home. I think … I think she’s dead. I think he killed her,” Asher replied.

“Why do you think she’s dead? Who do you think killed her?”

Asher paused. He wasn’t sure how to answer. He didn’t want to admit to a police officer that he had befriended an escaped convict, but he had to explain somehow.

“Who do you think killed her, Asher?” Office Beck demanded again.

“My friend… my only friend,” he answered with some sad realization.