Chapter Text
September 1999
Veronica Sawyer spun around in her desk chair, long after school had gotten out for the day. Schools were strange with the absence of children and only staff inside. She was grateful her office had a view. It was of the parking lot, yes, but a window was a window and if you squinted just right on a clear day… you could also see the interstate highway. But she loved the natural light. It was dark now, daylight savings had begun not long ago, and she loathed how early it was dark, but she wasn’t quite ready to go home yet.
She’d taken this job not long after getting her master’s degree-- Ms. Fleming’s old job. She had left the school following a conversion and decided to join a ministry. No one was quite clear on what religion or what ministry to be honest, but the job was open. The pay sucked but the benefits were good. She had just bought a condo in a new development in Sherwood and it was enough to make her payments. Veronica now had Ms. Fleming’s old office and laughed on day one when she found the trick drawer with her emergency dime bag and incense. And no, she didn’t throw it out.
Today was Thursday and she was there late. Thursdays were for staff meetings and development seminars and this last one had been a real doozy. She closed her eyes processing all they had discussed as well as the contents of her email which had just been sent.
Don Lippencot, the newest addition to Westerberg and Vice Principal, entered her office and opened up his bag and showed her the bottle of whisky. She nodded yes in solidarity as she got two disposable cups from her water cooler out. He poured a shot in each.
“You’re an angel,” she told him.
“I try,” he agreed, taking a seat in a chair previously occupied by a crying cheerleader earlier that day. Her boyfriend had left her for the bottom of the pyramid. She was the top. She didn’t understand.
“But I’m the top!” She had told her. Veronica handed her the box of tissues. Veronica was not without empathy. She told the girl it would get better, did her best and scheduled a follow up for tomorrow. Breakups were hard in high school. She should know. Her high school boyfriend tried to blow up the gym when she broke up with him. Don’t think about JD. Of course it would bring thoughts of him back.
“Your wife knows how lucky she is, I’m sure,” she said teasing him.
“Hopefully. I moved us out here from Chicago for her and the little whipper snapper after all.” They laughed. Veronica stared at her cup and swirled the brown liquid around in it.
What was distressing her was not her students, but rather the meeting they just had and the e-mail she had just re-read five times in complete shock. She turned to her friend and clinked their glasses-- the disposable plastics not giving them quite the satisfying clink glass would-- in solidarity before taking a drink. She leaned back in her desk chair, gently pushing it back and forth, letting her head lounge back in stressful defeat.
“That meeting was insane,” he told her. “What to do in case of a bomb threat? Debating metal detectors? The possibility of lock down drills? I thought when I came to the suburbs I was getting away from all that.” He took a sip. Veronica sighed, defeated.
“Do you even want to know what the email from the school board I got today was about?”
“Do I?” He asked, not wanting to know, but clearly wanting to. She sipped her whisky and turned her clunky monitor around so he could see. He read it and sat back in shock. “Fuuuuck.”
“Yep,” Veronica agreed, saluting her whisky, gulping it, and pouring them both more. “I’ve got to compile a list of any student displaying the following behaviors: anti-establishment talk from their mouths, love of goth/punk music, violent video game addiction, clothing that doesn’t conform, non-traditional home life--”
“Jesus Christ, that has to be more than half the student population.”
“Yup,” she said, unsure what to think right now. “‘Red-flagged’ as they put it.”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and hope it’s so you can properly counsel them, see how they’re family life is, get them help if they need it and-” Veronica gaped at him.
“You think we have the budget for that? I have no idea what I’m supposed to do with this list I’m making.” He closed his eyes surprised, but not surprised. “God, by some of this criteria I would have been on the list when I was 17.” Maybe I should have been. My boyfriend too. Stop thinking about JD.
“Me too. Fuck, how many kids wouldn’t?”
She shook her head loose and her anger turned to despair. “When did the kids become the enemy?”
“You know when,” he said, equally as sad. She nodded. Last April two kids in Colorado walked into their high school and fifteen people died. It was a tragedy. And in an instant every small town high school changed. Any pundit looking to get airtime on the twenty-four hour news cycle needed to weigh in. It was because of Marilyn Manson music. It was because of movies like Basketball Diaries and Natural Born Killers. It was because of video games. It was because of- there were so many outside "because of's" it didn't make sense. And listening to people her own age agree was maddening. Did they not remember how many things were blamed on MTV and video games when they were teens?
She closed her eyes, remembering her own high school tragedy. Drain-O in a coffee cup. Two boys: dead in a graveyard. A flash of a bomb in a football field blowing up in front of her flashed in her mind. The whiskey trickled down her throat uncomfortably. “They act like this place has never seen true tragedy before,” she said without thinking. Don’s face lit up in macabre memory.
“Oh, that’s right. I’ve heard about that one year. What do the kids call it? The ‘Year of Death!’ 1992 was it?”
“‘89,” Veronica said somberly, refilling her glass. “I was a senior here.” His eyes widened.
“Shit. I knew you graduated here, but I didn’t realize you were a part of that class. Four suicides in less than a month?! That’s insanity.”
Veronica shifted in her seat. “Four kids in less than a month, yup. Insanity.” She took a hearty sip.
“Geez. I’m sorry. Were you close to any of them?” He asked, realizing how ghoulish he must have sounded.
“The first was a kind of friend of mine and the last was my boyfriend.” And she was present and involved with the deaths of all four of them. We should get off this topic. Now.
“Fuck me Sawyer. Why is this the first time I’ve heard about this?” He leaned back in his chair, amazed. He’d heard all the wild rumors about it ever since he asked about the small plaque in front of his office. He had been surprised-- usually suicides at high schools don’t get memorialized in fear of making it look celebrated-- but he was told these four were unique. The first was the most beloved girl in the history of the school-- and her parents had considerable money and influence-- two of them had been because they were gay and too scared to come out and the last… well, he guessed if you were going to put the others up you couldn’t leave off the fourth. Rumors on his death were wild. He had strapped a bomb to his chest in the football field?! He had been new and no one knew why. The plaque was small though, with little frills. It just said:
In memory of: Heather Chandler, Kurt Kelly, Ram Sweeney, Jason Dean. 1972-1989
Veronica’s eyes looked gaunt. “You never asked.” She shrugged.
“The first girl. Heather? Right?” Veronica nodded. “She was a friend?”
“We were in the same clique. Briefly,” she explained. “A very ‘rule the school’ kind of thing. I had just been promoted from dweeb to deb the first week of school.” She shrugged. “Her life seemed exciting and fun. Parties, boys, being loved… all that seemed really important at seventeen, you know?” He nodded. She tried not to recall the look on Heather’s face after she swallowed the drain cleaner.
“And the second two… Kurt and Ram? They were gay? Scared to come out?” She bristled.
“Count of three, okay?” She said, internally laughing at the joke about to be played on those two pricks. They would pay dearly for the nasty rumor they created about her. “One… Two…”
“Three,” JD said coldly, stepping out of the shadows.
Bang. Bang.
“Yeah, tragedy,” she said, still mulling with her real feelings about that day, her own knowledge of the events.
“And the last boy- god. Your boyfriend? I’m sorry Veronica. Jason Dean? Right?” Veronica looked down.
“JD. We called him JD.” A combination of misery and pain started to find its way into her heart.
“I’m Veronica Sawyer by the way. Were you ever gonna tell me your name?” She asked, her eyes already in awe of the handsome boy with messy brown hair and a sexy crooked smile.
“I’ll end the suspense. Jason Dean. JD for short,” he replied, taking her hand to shake in greeting. The contact made her body hum and he raked his eyes over her approvingly, making her whole body tense pleasantly at their instant attraction.
Don knocked her out of the memory. “He, like, somehow got ahold of explosives and-” He stopped, looking down. “I’m sorry. He was your boyfriend.” He felt ashamed. In one instant one of the names on the plaque outside his door became a real person. A real person who had gone out with a friend of his. She nodded.
“Yes. It was a bomb.” She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t want to. “We had technically broken up not long before but-” Don cut her off, having had a revelation.
“Wait, that was nearly ten years ago. Boyfriend? Wait-” He did some math in his head. “Does that mean-”
Betty Finn-- 10th grade English teacher and oldest of friends-- knocked on her door just in time to end Don’s line of questioning. A dangerous line of questioning.
“Hey Betty,” Veronica said, glad that line of questioning had been broken. She had no idea where this mood of confession with her co-worker had come from.
“Sorry, am I interrupting boozy teacher happy hour? If so, I have to say I’m a little hurt I wasn’t invited.” Veronica poured a half shot into a cup for Betty. Betty was never much of a drinker, but she enjoyed a small nibble at these teaching bitch and drink sessions. “God, that meeting. Can you believe that’s the world we live in now? Locking the doors and telling the kids to get under the desks in case someone-” She shook her head, scared. “What were you two talking about?”
“How I am now in charge of profiling the student body for possible ‘red-flags.’ IE any kid that matches up with some clueless pundit’s version of an ‘at risk teen.’” Betty’s eyes turned to saucers. She always had her heart on her sleeve.
“You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Read the email.” Betty did.
“Fuck, that’s awful but… I don’t know, maybe it’s good to figure out which kids might be ticking bombs?” She was just as scared by the idea of kids turning to violence in a “nice” town like Sherwood as the administration was. Veronica looked at her, realistically.
“Any kid could be a ticking bomb, Betty. You know how many stories I hear at conferences about perfect kids in perfect schools who end up cutting themselves when something doesn’t go perfect? It doesn’t take Marilyn Manson music and Playstation games to mess with the mental state of a teenager.” Betty shivered. Out of anyone living in the world, Betty knew more about Veronica’s past than anyone else. She was a sworn friend and confidant. She wasn’t going to spill those secrets.
“That wasn’t all we were talking about,” Don said, turning to Betty. “I was particularly fascinated to hear that Jason Dean-- one of the names on the plaque outside my office-- was our Ms. Sawyer’s boyfriend.” Betty went white and looked at Veronica like she was crazy. Veronica gulped down and finished her whisky. It was already far more than she should have drunk on a Thursday night.
“Ex,” Betty corrected. “They broke up before-”
“Can I get a ride home from you Betty? I think I may have accidentally had a touch too much whiskey to be driving tonight.” She nodded, polishing off her own nip.
“Yeah, we better go, right?” Veronica nodded as they all got up. She grabbed her purse and coat and said goodnight to Don.
“How the hell did Jason Dean come up in a conversation with Don Lippencot?” Betty asked when they got into her Mazda, very spooked.
“He was asking about The Year of Death.” Betty sighed as she started up the car and started driving.
“I hate that that name stuck for it. Three kids died that year. It’s so… disrespectful.”
“Four,” Veronica corrected purposefully. “Four kids Betty.” Betty never liked acknowledging the last death their senior year had. He had hurt Veronica. Just because he hadn’t let her die too- It didn’t make up for anything else he did. Even in the slightest, in her opinion. He left her to clean up the mess. And the “mess” was far bigger than he could imagine.
“Four,” she agreed, not really meaning it. “How do you of all people manage to call it that too?”
“It’s not untrue,” Veronica said, sobering up and being honest. “It was a year and people died.” Betty Finn knew the most of the truth of that year than anyone else still alive. She knew about the forged suicide notes and Jason Dean’s blow out finale. She knew Veronica’s part in it… and for some reason she was able to forgive her for a lot of it. Well, not forgive precisely, but move on.
“I wish we could never talk about him again,” she said for the millionth time in her life. Betty could never quite get past her hate of JD. She refused to believe Veronica was nothing more than a girl tricked into going along with his psycho plans. In Betty’s mind JD was a psychopath who charmed her best friend into a string of murders and Veronica was at least virtuous for beating him in the end.
Veronica tried to tell her many times it was a lot more complicated than that. She wasn’t the simple hero, and he the villain and that there were many reasons for why JD was the way he was and that no matter what he did she still had loved him but Betty Finn was more black and white about it than she was. In many ways Veronica loved Betty for it, but it was impossible to agree with her and it was too hard for her to explain that in many ways she’d always be the seventeen year old girl in love with wild and crazy Jason Dean. As much as she hated herself for it.
“You know I’ll never be able to forget his eyes,” Veronica said quietly, the whisky really having hit her maudlin side a bit harder than usual.
“I know,” Betty said as she pulled up to drop Veronica off. After putting the car in park she gently put her hand over Veronica’s and squeezed it. Veronica squeezed it back. “Say hi to Theo for me.” Veronica nodded and got out of the car and headed to her parents house.
“I will. Thanks for the lift Betty. I think- I think the realization that it's been ten years-” Betty nodded.
“I know. Look, why don’t we figure out a time this weekend? You, Theo, me and Rob. We can do something fun, right? Take our minds off it all.” Veronica smiled.
“I’d like that.” She bid her goodnight and she drove off.
She opened the door and took her coat off and put her purse on the side, “Mom? Dad? It’s me. Is it okay to spend the night?” She answered her own question when she saw her mom on the couch asleep during Must See TV. She got the afghan from the couch and put it over her.
“She fell asleep during Friends,” a voice said. “But you're back before Frasier and ER!” Veronica laughed and cuddled up on the big recliner that had been a favorite of her dad’s since she could remember. Theo was now the owner of it especially for her primetime TV binges. She loved network prime time. She liked reruns during the day. She also finished all of her homework though so it was hard for her to see it as the worst problem ever.
Veronica pushed the nine year old to the side and slid into the chair beside her, cuddling her onto her lap. “Do you even get the jokes on Frasier?” She asked Theodora Sawyer, her daughter.
“Sometimes. I like looking up the ones I don’t though. Mom? Are we spending the night?” She kissed her daughter’s head and laughed nodding. She hated the idea of driving home in the middle of her show. Theodora had the deep brown hair of her at that age and the same coloring, but she was tall, wickedly funny, whip smart, and had deep brown eyes and a dusting of freckles across her face just like…
Well, just like her father. Betty Finn knew the reason Veronica would never forget JD’s eyes: his daughter stared back at Veronica Sawyer with them every day since she was born.
Veronica was standing on the beach somewhere tropical and warm. The Keys. The Florida Keys. She had been wanting to save up for a trip for a while. She had on her favorite blue two piece and sarong, with her large oval sunglasses. The sun felt warm and electric on her skin. She smiled as she watched her baby daughter frolic in the waves. “Your cherry slushie my love,” JD said, handing her the cold sugary beverage. She should think it strange. He was wearing his usual outfit: boots, black pants, band shirt, flannel, and trench coat. It seemed perfectly natural though. Very him.
“God, that is exactly what I needed. How did you know?” She took a grateful sip. He wrapped his arms around her, his whole body holding her from behind enveloping her in his hug. He kissed her head, causing her eyes to flutter shut as she accepted the bliss of his embrace.
“Don’t I always know my love?” He kissed her neck causing her body to hum. “She’s beautiful.”
“She’s perfect,” she sighed. “She has your eyes, and your brains.”
“She got her brains from you, let’s be frank,” he said with a chuckle.
“No, not just book smart, but wily and clever like you were.”
“I hope she’s nothing like me,” he said, seriously.
“There was good in you.” He turned her around in his arms and kissed her. He laid her down on the sand. Suddenly they weren’t on the beach anymore.
She was in a lavish room with white billowy curtains. She was underneath him, no longer in a bathing suit, but a blue negligee. He was on top of her kissing her fiercely. She groaned in lust and want as the two rolled back and forth on the king sized bed struggling for the right to be on top. His hands were everywhere, his mouth was everywhere. And she was giving as much as she took, wanting him ounce for ounce as he wanted her. Just as quickly as it had begun she was on her back and he was parting her thighs staring up at her.
“Oh JD… don’t stop. Don’t stop. I want you so much…” He looked up at her sweetly.
“I love you Veronica. I’ll always love you.” She looked down at him tenderly, slipping her hands in his hair, petting him gently before moving down to hold his cheek, her eyes shining with love.
“I’ll always love you too,” she whispered back. He turned his head, gently kissing her wrist lingeringly. Only in her dreams could she ever admit such a thing. Only in her dreams could the two freely be together the way they should have been, without anger, fear, or violence.
Suddenly his hands on her thighs felt like iron. Out of nowhere chains on the bed flew out and clasped her arms, then her legs. Slowly a black vine grew from the bed and wrapped around her body. She thrashed her body trying to free herself but she felt pinned, trapped underneath them. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak but to whimper. She glanced down at him, his eyes turned red and his grin grew wide. “We were meant to be. Our love is God.” And then a bomb exploded in front of her, blinding her.
Veronica woke with a start and a headache. The whiskey after work. Fuck. JD and the “suicides” were brought up with Don after work and Betty… that’s why. That’s why she would dream of him. Alcohol and wallowing in your past are a really shitty combination. Quietly, she awoke in her teenage bedroom and got dressed before heading downstairs, in search of breakfast and coffee. It was still early-- only 6:00 in the morning. She had to pull herself together before it was time to physically force her daughter up for school, drop her off at Sherwood Elementary and then head in for her own day at Westerberg.
God… why was it so hard to forget him? His touch? His mouth on my skin? It’s been ten fucking years.
She hit the start button on her parent’s Mr. Coffee. “You’re up early Veronica,” her mother said as she saw her putting a sandwich together and packing it up with an apple, a small bag of crackers, and three Oreos.
“Oh Mom, you don’t have to do that for her. I can pack her lunch.” Her mother shook her head.
“I like doing it. Reminds me of when you were little.” She smiled. “Besides, you have to get ready for work. I’ve been part-time in the afternoons at the library for the last year. I’m getting bored and I strangely miss doing things like this.” She smiled at her mother and kissed her cheek. “I’m just saying, I don’t mind helping out more if you need it.”
“You know she appreciates it. And that I do too. Thank you for taking her on Thursdays when I work late.” Veronica took her mug down from the cupboard.
“You know,” she said, broaching the subject for the hundredth time, “if you two would just move back in…” Veronica sighed as she stepped away and filled her cup with coffee and topped it with a splash of milk.
“Mom, we’ve been through this.” It wasn’t that she disliked her parents or that the idea of living with them… but she liked her condo. She liked having a space for just her and Theo.
“Honey, you two aren’t a burden to us. You’re our daughter and granddaughter. There’s nothing wrong with all of us living together. You work and you need help and shouldn’t pay a fortune for your mortgage and child care when there’s enough space here. We’re family. Self-sufficiency is highly overrated.”
“You know I love the help you two give us, but we like our unit. It’s cozy for us and has storage and garage…” Her mother relented.
“Okay, okay. We’ve been over this. I know.” She couldn’t drop it though. “But you got that place,” Veronica sighed, “five years ago after grad school when you thought-” She shut up, knowing she overstepped.
When I thought Tim and I were going to get married, Veronica finished internally . Tim had been nice. Tim would have made a great dad and have made them a family. “It didn’t work out between us,” Veronica said, not wanting to discuss the dissolution of her engagement.
“And I’ve never asked you about that,” her mother said, pointedly. “Your whole life was always your own decision. Ever since we found out that you, well, you were going to have Theodora.” She was right. Her mother and father weren’t thrilled with their seventeen year old daughter finding herself pregnant-- and that the father had just committed suicide by strapping a bomb to his chest in the football field-- but there was no crazy show or argument over it.
They had just asked her what she wanted to do. She weighed all her options and even though she wasn’t fundamentally opposed to-- or to anyone else choosing differently-- any of the other ones, she decided to keep her so they all made it work. And they pitched in to help her. She still went to college, worked part time, and took care of her baby and mom and dad had been there to help her every step of the way without complaint. Her mother was right: it was her decision and they didn’t pressure her at all.
“I just mean that there’s no reason to live away from us that I can think of,” her mother conceded. Veronica eyed her mother. She would always be eternally grateful for not just their financial support during the beginning years, but the emotional ones as well.
“I know mom. You’ve always been supportive. I love you two. I do.” She gave her a small side hug.
“It’s just-- The four of us would be very cozy here. That’s all.” It wasn’t that it wasn’t tempting. It was a house. A proper one with a swing in the backyard and a sidewalk to bike down with no fear of getting in anyone’s way. She could live in her old teenage bedroom. Theo would have the spare room. But she was proud of her little condo. Their home.
“You’ll be the first to know if we change our mind. Okay?” Her mother relented as she finished packing up the Toy Story 2 lunchbox. She turned to her daughter and gently patted her hair back, looking at her sunken eyes. Concerned, she stroked her head.
“Have you been having nightmares again?” She asked seriously. Her mother knew a bit about the dreams. Just like she knew a bit about JD and the events of her senior year.
Oh, and that the father of her baby-- her boyfriend, that she hadn’t even introduced-- had killed himself by detonating a bomb on his chest in the football field in front of her. They knew that. Not the rest of their relationship, but they knew that.
Jason Dean was not a name uttered from the lips of Mr. and Mrs. Sawyer if they could help it. Jason Dean was just, “him” to them or “he” if he was ever brought up at all. As far as they were concerned it would have been better if Theo had miraculously formed inside of Veronica. They loved their daughter, and adored their granddaughter… but “he” was someone they pitied, yes, but did not bring up.
Veronica remembered her mother and father asking her to talk to someone following the events of that month, particularly when they found out she was pregnant. It had been helpful, and confidential-- even if she hadn’t been totally truthful in fear of jail time. Doctor/patient privilege didn’t extend that far and there was no statute of limitations on murder. Betty had been the only one to know a lot of the story and even then… Veronica Sawyer had some secrets she’d take to the grave.
But the dreams. Her mother knew there were bad dreams that that day on the football field left her with. How could it not have? And approaching a ten year anniversary? “If you need to talk to someone again you should. If it’s the money-”
“Mom, my insurance covers it. I know. I’m looking for someone in my network, okay?” Her mother was relieved. If only she knew they weren’t all nightmares. If only she knew that for some reason she still pined for her dead mentally ill boyfriend that murdered in her name before killing himself. Veronica Sawyer always knew she was damaged, now she knew she was very damaged.
“Okay.” Her mother took the cereal bowls and Kix down. “Not to change the subject completely but you’ll never believe who I ran into in the A&P.”
“Who?” She asked, not wanting to guess.
“Your old friend Heather McNamara! It was so good to see her.” Veronica nodded. She should call her if she’s back in town. “She told me she was getting married and they bought a house here! Isn’t that fantastic!” Veronica was surprised.
“Oh wow! I should call her.” Mac and her had drifted apart a bit in the last ten years. She had a daughter to raise, school, and eventually a job. McNamara went to school in upstate NY and floated in other circles in her adult years. She had only drifted back occasionally since high school.
“She-” Her mother paused.
“What? Tell me.”
“She wanted me to tell you.” She looked down. “I know it all still upsets you but-”
“Tell me mom.”
“She wants to do some kind of a memorial. For Heather Chandler. It’s been ten years since-” Since her accidental on purpose murder turned suicide. “She died.” Veronica bristled. “You were all so close once. You, Heather Chandler, Heather MacNamera, and Heather Duke. Pretending to be so high class,” she laughed, “playing croquet in the back whilst I told you all the liverwurst was pâté.” Her mother shook her head forlorn, forgetting that Heather Chandler thought her pâté was a joke. “She was such a leader, people flocked to her.”
Yes, Veronica thought, uncharitably, like pilot fish on the shark . Guilt washed through her. Still, she realized, no matter who Heather Chandler was she had still died too young. And your soul wasn’t clean of that, her conscious reminded her. Tell yourself all you want it was JD for getting the cleaner out, him for not telling you you grabbed the wrong cup, that neither of you knew it would really kill her and that quickly… a part of you wanted to give her it. And you wanted her dead. She shivered as she always did acknowledging her own darkness and blackened soul.
“Oh. Yes. Of course,” was all she said to her mother. She glanced at the clock wanting to lose herself in her busy life. Motherhood and work were good distractions. “I better go drag the monster out of her bed and force her to get ready for school,” she said as she finished her coffee.
She trudged over to the couch and stared at the sleeping form of her daughter who was an unruly beast when trying to wake for school. Mostly because she had a bad habit of waking up in the middle of the night to sneak cereal and late night TV.
Her daughter. The one JD had helped her make. If there was one good thing to come from their union it had to be her. She hated the thought of it, and would never say it out loud, but in many ways their innocent little girl was really their salvation. If she could raise her to be a good person... Well, it wasn’t enough to erase the past, but it might wipe the slate a bit clean. She rubbed her face and tried to remember normal day to day life. “Come on!” She cried as she shook the small creature. “Breakfast. Get dressed. School.” Her nine year old groaned.
“Too early mom…”
“Were you up late watching TV again?” She asked, getting annoyed.
“Mooom…” She groaned, exhausted as she tried to pull her body up. She sat up in her Spice Girls pajamas and rubbed the sleep from her eyes.
“Morning peanut,” her dad said to her with a kiss on her head as he came towards the kitchen on his way to eat before work. “Morning lil’ peanut,” he said to Theo, giving her the same kiss.
“Morning dad,” Veronica chimed back.
“Morning grandpa,” Theo chimed as well.
“Get dressed, get dressed, get dressed…” Veronica hustled Theo up and at ‘em. She grumbled as she went to the chest with some school clothes she always had at grandma and grandpas for when they ended up sleeping over. “Dad, do you mind dropping us off on your way in? I left my car at school last night, Betty gave me a lift.”
“Why?” He asked, confused. “Oh, right. Thursday meeting day.” He chuckled, knowing about the nips of whisky in the teacher’s lounge after meetings. Veronica eyed him, not wanting to be reminded of her overindulgence the night before.
“Dad, come on. Please.”
“Of course,” he relented. He looked at her sideways. “Are you sleeping okay? The night-?” He cut himself off seeing Theo in earshot.
“We’ve been over it Bill,” her mother said. “She’s addressing it. And we also covered them moving back in, so don’t bring that up either.” Mr. Sawyer laughed as the natural family chemistry of the Sawyers kicked in.
Veronica packed her own bag up and by 7:30 all the Sawyers were ready to go to meet the new day. Veronica pushed aside any painful memories she had in order to face a day of work and normal life.
Last Night...
It was 3 AM at Westerberg High on Thursday going into Friday. Somewhere in the boiler room a couple of mice scurried around the lightly dripping pipes of the industrial antiquated heating system. One of which gnawed at the floor covering where once there was a bomb planted. It didn’t know what it was doing, it was just a mouse being a mouse. It’s final chew through caused a wave of electricity to fly through the air like St. Elmo’s Fire ending its short life.
In its wake left a non-corporeal being. It was neither alive, nor dead. It was most definitely trapped. Trapped somewhere between this world and another one that was unseen to most. It wasn’t bound by any natural law of nature. An unseen door appeared next to the shape.
“Jason Dean,” the demon named Azazel said to the being, stepping out from the shadows. The demon was gnarled and red, ugly in the darkness but crackled with power. “Greetings and salutations.”
The being looked at him, stunned. It was Jason Dean, 27 years old and wearing the black pants, motorcycle boots, black shirt, and trench coat of his youth. He looked at his translucent hand, realizing he wasn’t corporeal. “Where am I?” He croaked.
“Welcome back to Westerberg High,” the demon told him.