Dead Wings

Chapter 5

If you can take away memories; does that mean you can add them? If you can be forgiven, does it mean you will go to heaven? What must we do to leave this plain? Once we do it, how sure can we be that it will be better? Kris thought by helping Kathryn that maybe he could leave. He didn’t leave, but if he did, where would he have gone? What must he do to make it to heaven now? Or is that infact where we go? To heaven or hell? Maybe Josh was erased from existance...

Kris said that we have to fix things that we left behind and we could leave. When I died I was informed of a secret. A secret between my friend Ben, and his father. A secret that if the police ever found out about, his father would go to prison. The thing is now there is only one person alive that knows this secret. So how can the secret be broken? So I have to wonder; if you can take away memories; does that mean you can add them?

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“So you think that if the police have memory of Ben dying… and have memory of his dad hiding Ben’s corpse. That Ben can leave because he will have justice, and I may leave because…”

”Because you did a good deed… two in fact. You said that this is how this whole limbo thing works. So do this, and we will see if you’re right or not.”

Kris hesitated for a long moment then he nodded.

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I went ahead and helped Kris to see how exactly he could mess with a living things memories. In case I needed to do the same thing. So when we wanted memories of Bens murder we went to his old house where his father still lived.

It was a mess! As we walked in I couldn’t take my eyes off of the floor; there were beer cans, cigarette remains, trash, and clothes and… other? As I left the front room I became aware of a horrible odor. It wasn’t exactly the same as smelling it but to know it was there. It was coming from the kitchen where there was a sink full of rotting dishes… “Does he really live here?” I asked Kris, he only nodded as he stared into the hall. He didn’t look at me as he nodded he just kept staring into the hall.

I looked over there and I saw him. It was a clean man, completely detached from the home he lived in… He had clean brown hair with a few gray patches and a few days old beard. Strangely he stared back at us; as if he knew we were there. “Ben? Is that you?” He asked as apparently he felt our presence somehow, that or he was very paranoid… That’s what happens though when you kill your only son though, isn't it?

Kris ran at him and I couldn’t help but follow Kris as he jumped at the man as if to tackle him and I tried to do the same and we smashed up against his spirit. We were partly inside the old mans body. Suddenly we gained access to his senses, thoughts and memories…

We were smothered in this old mans memories. Memories of his childhood, memories of the whores he slept with, memories of the one night stands, the drunken days of an ageing man, the birth of Ben, the days he spent in jail, prison, trials, Ben when he was a kid, even more memories of the mans only son… until finally…

Our vision was blurred and twisted; our speech was long and choked… “You stoooole my ga… gun… Wese want it… back!” We stumbled towards Ben.

”No I didn’t your just to drunk to find it!” Ben turned away from us and tried to walk off but we grabbed him by the shoulder. Suddenly Ben punched us right in the face. We felt the pain of that moment as if we were living again...

We threw him against the clean walls and he began to bleed on the clean twisted floors.

“Yooooooooou betta gets it! Na na na now! Or I'll...”

”I don’t have it… anymore.” Ben said as he looked into our eyes as he whimpered.

We grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him up. We stared into eachothers eyes for a moment... Then we shoved him back against the wall and his head bounced against it... We stumbled over to him and punched him in his stomach.

He started to cough up blood on the floor so we grabbed him by the hair and pulled his face up… “You betta geeeeeeeeeeeeeeet it back!” The hairs ripped out of his head partly and partly slipped out and he yelped and he scrambled to his room as we kicked him… Suddenly the memory faded away and we saw darkness…


“Where did it go?” I asked.

“I don’t know he…”

We were digging a hole underneath the bathroom floor… it was deep and wet. As we finished digging we clawed at the dirt to get out but the dirt was to wet and wouldn’t hold. So we grabbed a hold of a floor joint and slowly we pulled ourselves back up.

We went to the sink and washed our hands of the filth under the house. We looked into the mirror and saw that dirty face, saw those red eyes, red eyes of a killer. They stared back at us… slowly we washed the dirt off our face and then finally we saw what the hole was dug for. There lying in a black plastic bag was the body of Ben… It was a pale blue color and was stained in blood. We carefully picked the bag up and carried it over to the hole. Then we let go and dropped him down into the hole. “Goodbye… son.” We waved goodbye and then we picked the shovel back up and slowly we covered his blue face and brown blood and dead body…

“Is that enough?” I asked Kris.

”I think so.” Kris answered.


We left the mans body and the moment we got out I nearly lost Kris! He left the house with such speed and slammed his spirit into the body of an officer. The officer collapsed from the attack and soon there was a crowd of people circling the man laying unconscience on the ground…

“Murder!” He yelped as he sprung from the ground… “All units, all units! There’s been a… murder…” He screamed into the radio but then he trailed off as he thought about what he just saw and he thought it was real… but it could have been a dream… “It was real! I saw the murder through his eyes! Murder on 4539 North Gatswort Avenue! We need to pick this guy up immediately!”

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That afternoon the police came and they busted into the pit of the house. They covered their faces as they passed the kitchen watching their step so they didn’t fall. Bens father was yelling at them to get out so they arrested the man. The man Ben once called his father.

The police hacked open his bathroom floor and started digging underneath the floor boards…

“CUNK” the shovels hit bone… At that moment Kris slowly faded away…


Steve H.