Marco left. He walked out of the bedroom, through the hall, and out of the door that was now crammed full of cops trying to enter all at once. They poured in as he shoved his way out, back into the breezy night air, back into the calm and peace. Back across the short yard and past the line of police cars, and into the Captain’s truck, where he waited by himself. In solitude.
It wasn’t long before other cars started showing up. The medical examiner’s truck showed up, the lab geeks showed up in their car, and a news truck even followed shortly after. Out from there stepped Cassandra Johnson, a girl he had seen earlier that day interviewing Captain Cole. She was back again for an even tastier story.
He was safe from it all though in the back seat of that pickup truck, alone. No one would bother him here. No officers would pat his back and congratulate him for killing a man that should have been stopped sooner; no one would interview him, wanting every gory detail of the atrocities.
Marco looked away from the window and lied down in the back seat.
---
They were the last to leave, finally after it was all over. Marco waited in the back seat for at least another hour and a half while the Captain wrapped everything up. He gave a detailed statement of everything that happened, and the crime scene guys wrapped everything up in yellow tape. As they finally pulled out, all that remained was the bloody spot in the grass where Jacobs used to lie dead, along with several strings of yellow tape, sectioning areas off.
Marco just wanted to go home and be alone. Actually, he wanted to recap with Gene; he wanted to let himself be the hero. But Gene wasn’t around anymore, and never would be again. Never to listen to Marco’s stories, or tell one of his own from back in the day. So alone would have to do, and so alone would do.
After they all arrived at the station, Marco grabbed his things and went home, not saying a word to anyone else. He didn’t accept any congratulatory handshakes and he did not share laughs or smiles with the officers that felt so victorious, even though they lost a fellow man. He just went home.
---
Marco rounded the corner inside of his apartment building, looking down and fumbling for his keys to unlock the door.
When he looked up, Delilah was there, bag in hand, crying.
TWELVE
FRIDAY, JANUARY 22ND
7:45 a.m.
“I’m going to call into work. I can’t go in today. Not after that.”
Marco was sitting at the edge of his bed with Delilah, who had spent the night with him. It was rather sudden, dramatic, and confusing. But passionate was the most accurate description.
“I’m sorry I didn’t go home last night. I couldn’t be in that house knowing what happened there,” Delilah said, with tears forming in her eyes again. Just speaking of it made her sick, and Marco was her only comfort.
“I’m glad you stayed. I didn’t want to be alone. And I don’t want to be alone now. Will you stay with me today?”
“Of course. Do you mind helping me start with funeral arrangements? As weird as it sounds, I think you were the only person in the world close to him.”
Marco nodded and they didn’t speak again for a while, although they occupied the same space. Silence seemed appropriate.
---
The next several hours were more eventful than either of them had anticipated. They began making calls for funeral arrangements, but shortly into it, Delilah received a call from Gene’s attorney, inviting her in for a will reading. He also mentioned that Marco was the only other person named in Gene’s estate, and asked if she knew his phone number or whereabouts. Delilah just brought Marco with her.
They arrived at the attorney's office shortly after eleven a.m. The office was basic, just like any average law office would look. Nice, but not too nice, and small, but not too small. Lots of wood, et cetera. They were greeted by a burly chunk of a man for a lawyer, smiling ear to ear, far too happy for the occasion. They sat in his office, while he pulled out the Last Will and Testament of Eugene Maxwell.
“To Marco, wherever he may be at my passing, I leave my 2015 Mercedes-Benz. Friend, if we’ve been out of touch for some time, then take this as a gesture of how much I appreciated you as a friend, and know that if we lost touch, that I dearly missed you in that time. However, if you knew me until the end, then you knew how much I cared for you. As a student, as a friend, and as a son, I loved you. Hopefully this gesture will give that some meaning, and you can take it with you forever.”
As disbelief took residence within Marco, the lawyer panned down the page to the only other words that were written.
“And to my dear daughter Delilah, I leave every other earthly possession. Writing anything further wouldn’t do you fair justice for how much you mean to me, so take my world and keep it. I love you, baby.”
Delilah cried, and Marco held her.
THIRTEEN
WEDNESDAY, JULY 20TH
The sweltering Texas summer bit angrily at Marco as he walked along a paved walkway that ran through a small garden. Each side of the walkway harbored beautiful life in the form of blooming flowers. Lilies, daisies, blue bonnets, and such blew ever-so-slightly with the mellow breeze.
He admired the flowers on this short walk through the entryway, respecting the attention to detail that was provided for this garden. He noted how poetic it all was: the city provided life to a place that desperately needed it. Without the garden, life was absent from this place. Death, discomfort, and dread were the only themes.
He stood just outside the gate for a moment, not wanting to cross the threshold just yet. He stood still there briefly, leaning against the black metal bars that were hot from baking in the sun. He prayed a silent prayer, then continued on to where he knew he would find her.
The path continued from the garden and through the gate, splitting off in two separate directions. He went to the right.
The path wound down some more, curving and looping for what felt like a mile, every once in a while splitting off in a new direction, creating a new path. Marco never trailed off onto a separate path, because he knew exactly where to find her.
In the distance, he saw her. She was knelt down on the dirt, flowers placed in front of her, her head down. She wasn’t moving, wasn’t acknowledging the moving world around her. She just sat still alone, taking it in and letting none of it out. But she was singing, and quite beautifully.
“Amazing Grace… how sweet the sound… that saved a wretch… like me.”
She quivered as she sang the tune. The song touched her emotionally as it always had, but deeper now. In this time, she needed Grace. She needed lots of things. She needed a father to lean on, a God to count on, and Grace to save her.
“I once was lost… but now am found… was blind but now… I see.”
This part wasn’t entirely accurate for her situation. Because she was still entirely lost. She was lost in this great big world with aspiring dreams, without any sort of reassurance from the man she needed it from the most. She couldn’t see; she was still entirely blind, uncured from the ailment called grief.
As Marco approached, she still reacted to nothing. Perhaps she hadn’t noticed; perhaps she didn’t care.
She smelled and looked delightful, but delightful she did not feel. Marco stopped just behind her, and placed his hand on her shoulder. She did not react, and he did not want her to. He just wanted to let her know that he was there, that she was not alone in this.
She was tough and composed for only a couple of seconds before she broke. She exploded into a display of raw emotion. Tears wet the dry dirt and soaked into it. She stretched out her tanned arms to touch the headstone, and wept harder.
Delilah had incredible difficulty recovering from the loss of her father. Gene was an inspirational man, the only role model any child would need. Even as an adult, she leaned on him for support and encouragement. She looked to him for guidance, advice, and comfort, and now he was not available to give it. Her rock was gone, her home base unreachable
. Time had yet to make it less devastating.
As she cried to her father, Marco stood behind her. He thought quietly to himself about many things, all of which involved Gene.
First, he thought of the Gene he knew. He fondly remembered every aspect of him: his low motivation for anything other than sleep, his knack for making lame jokes funny with his own laugh, his contagious laugh itself, and all the pleasant conversations they had the opportunity to have.
Second, he thought of the Gene that existed before he’d had the pleasure of meeting him. He thought of the brilliant detective snubbed out of a promotion he’d deserved time and time again, simply because he refused to play in the politics of it. He thought of the loyal husband and dedicated father that devoted every bit of love and spare time to his family. He thought of the man with the unbelievably large heart, the man that loved his late wife too much to remarry.
Third, he thought of the Gene that lies six feet deep underneath his feet. This Gene was lifeless. This Gene was void of the soul that he knew. This Gene felt no love or emotion, no happiness or sadness, had no sense of humor, and lacked the ability to tell jokes. This Gene was likely mostly decomposed after six months in the coffin, and probably unrecognizable.
Marco knelt next to Delilah, and took her hand. He brought it up to his lips and kissed, hoping to ease her pain even slightly. She only cried harder.
He brought her in and embraced her, then she buried her head in his chest. It took every bit of his willpower not to join her in her sobbing, but he held out.
After her crying had run its course, they continued sitting next to each other for a time, still in silence. She felt his chest rise and fall with every breath, and could hear his heartbeat thump along rhythmically. At least Marco was still alive. At least she had Marco.
Marco took the lead, and stood her up.
“Come on, baby. Let’s go home,” he said.
They walked along that same path on the way out, hand in hand. They didn’t talk about Gene at all. Neither of them mentioned it being the six-month anniversary since his death, but both of them knew the significance of the date. Neither of them discussed how much they missed him, but they both did. Instead, they only thought to themselves.
As they passed through the gate on the way out of the graveyard, Marco once again admired the garden. Then, he thought of decay.
He thought of how every living thing - whether that be a human, some sort of other animal, or any plant - eventually dies and decays. Over the course of a human life, they grow. They grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and, for some, spiritually. They grow as children into the adults they finally end up as, then eventually they all die. That death could be a tragic one, an untimely one, an inconvenient one, a justified one, or an expected one. But every death has something in common: they all happen.
Some humans choose to surround themselves with other living things, like pets. They may get a dog or cat, and raise them through their own lives, until their deaths. Those cats and dogs go through the same decomposition and decay as humans, but the effect is much different.
Even flowers die. When a flower has lived its life, it will shrivel and fall apart. Its shade will darken and brown; it will crust into something easily breakable.
Marco noted the common theme with death. Decay. Decay is quiet and relatively uneventful. It’s a simple and scientific process that never changes, but can vary slightly depending on several variables. Decay is the final process that strips a life from the Earth, making whatever it affected into an entirely different form. Decay turns a human man into dried bones, stripped of a name or title. Decay turns an animal into an afterthought. Decay eats beauty away from plants, voiding flowers of color, and so on.
Marco was unable to get decay out of his mind.
There’s something peaceful about decay.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zachary Tyler Stockwell was born on May 26, 1997. As of this publication, he resides in Lake Kiowa, Texas, a gated community situated around a lake, located 80 miles north of Dallas, Texas. He wrote his debut novel, DECAY, at the age of 19, in between a full-time semester load of college courses and a full-time job.
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