Rochester Shorts - Based on short story "Shadow People"
in White Noise Volume 1 by Tammy Vreeland
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Lullaby
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Lullaby
After a short day at work, Megan was happy to come home to her apartment. Sadly, she realizes she no longer has the energy she used to. Even a half day of work was a strain on her!
Stripping down to underwear and bra, Megan endures a brief hot flash. Fortunately, not one of the bad ones! For once in her life, she is happy that she is divorced and with no children. This way, no one has to see her go through the difficult stage of menopause. Megan can bitch and moan all she wants and not have to be accountable to anyone!
One of the most difficult stages of her menopause for Megan was the strange hallucinations she has been having. In all the books she has read on menopause, nowhere does it mention the onset of hallucinations? Let alone a brief hearing of music that seems to be getting louder with each hot flash! The restless nights, hot flashes, and mood swings were all there, but no mention of what was happening to her.
And these weren’t your typical hallucinations, where perhaps you think you see something out of the corner of your eye. Far from it, hers were specific! The haunting music, that damn lullaby she’d heard all her life at unusual times, would come first.
Then a man she had never seen before standing over a body he had just killed, with, get this, an ice pick of all things! As if that wasn’t bad enough, each time she has seen him he’s been with a different victim!
Certainly not something you wanted to run and tell your doctor for fear of locking you up! But who could she talk to about it? She had no family, both parents long gone and not really prepared to get sympathetic looks from her friends. She had enough of that from the divorce!
Then, as fate would have it, a strange woman named Bonnie had reached out to her. Wanting to meet with her and explain something about her past.
Megan had only agreed because Bonnie verified she was a nurse at the hospital Megan was born in. Due to the way she was born, her parents, while traveling, had to make an emergency stop for the pregnancy in a small town. Megan had a feeling she was about to be told her parents were somehow not her real parents.
As Megan gets dressed in casual clothes, she thinks about how that makes her feel. She will always think of her parents as her real parents, no matter what. Yet on the other hand, maybe she had more family out there? Someone who may understand what she is going through!
If anything, it would make for an interesting afternoon. She was supposed to meet Bonnie at the park in fifteen minutes. Hot flash or not, she had to get dressed and get going!
Fortunately, the park they agreed on was minutes from her apartment. Upon arriving, she looked around, not really knowing how to find Bonnie.
There in the corner sits a much older woman gently rocking a baby. The woman looks up at her and calls out, “Megan, over here!”
Megan walks over, “Bonnie?”
Bonnie smiles, “That would be me. So sorry for having to bring my granddaughter. Some confusion at the house over work schedules, so I had no choice! She’s almost asleep. Once she is, we’ll have no interruptions. Sleeping is what she does best right now.”
Bonnie looks lovingly down at the baby, “Right precious?” Bonnie then begins softly singing a lullaby. The baby falls fast asleep.
Megan is shocked and whispers, “I know that lullaby!”
Bonnie answers, “It’s ok you can talk in your normal voice. She won’t be bothered.”
Megan is still shaken by hearing the lullaby, “You don’t understand! I’ve always tried to figure out where the lullaby came from! No one knew!”
Bonnie looks down and softly says, “No one would because my great grandmother created it! She used to say she added an incantation to soothe the soul, so none of her babies would be tempted by the devil’s drugs.”
Megan is still bewildered, “It was never sung to me! I only heard it in my head at the most unusual times.”
Bonnie looks at her, “You’re wrong. I sang it to you over and over. But what did you mean you heard it at unusual times?”
Megan tries to explain, “Any time I attempted to take any drugs? Even over-the-counter drugs! Honestly? Annoying as ever, to the point, if I did have to take something for a headache, it would become a worse headache because of the lullaby! It was like the lullaby was somehow preventing me from taking drugs!”
Bonnie’s eyes begin to tear, “I’m so sorry child! I had no idea, although I suspected due to how your brother acted.”
Megan takes a deep breath in, “Maybe you should start at the beginning!”
Bonnie looks straight ahead in deep thought, “I still believe I did the right thing by you. I will not apologize for that! However, I do apologize for taking so long to tell you.”
Bonnie looks over at her and begs, “Tell me you had a good childhood! Tell me you loved your parents!”
Megan begins to tear up herself, “I did! With all my heart. I never wanted for anything. I miss them terribly!”
Bonnie nods, “The detective told me they had passed. I’m so sorry.”
Megan is curious, “Did they know?”
Bonnie shakes her head, “No and in a way, I’m glad they won’t! I knew they were good people when I first saw them.”
Megan whispers as she looks down at Bonnie’s granddaughter, sleeping, “What happened?”
Bonnie instinctively holds the baby tighter, “It was a horrible night you were born! The local football team had been involved in a terrible bus crash. Many who worked at the hospital that night lost their own children. It was mayhem, to say the least.”
Bonnie goes on, “Your mother had unexpectedly gone into labor.”
Bonnie hesitates but finishes, disgusted, “As did another woman.”
Before Megan can interrupt, Bonnie explains, “The poor doctor not only had to deliver those two babies but operate on his own son! Unfortunately, his son did not make it.”
Bonnie relives the memory, “I was helping him with your poor mother, the one you called mother, and she was having such a hard time! She lost so much blood.”
Bonnie shivers at the thought of all that blood, “We had to make the father leave the room. In the end, you mother went unconscious, not able to see the birth.”
Bonnie finishes, “The other woman went into labor just as the doctor handed me that baby. He didn’t even realize the baby was dead. Just handed her to me, knowing I would know what to do for her.”
Bonnie lowers her head as she looks at her precious granddaughter, “A little girl who looked as peaceful as this one. It was heartbreaking!”
Bonnie remembers, “I still cleaned her up and put her in the crib. Moments later, the other nurse comes in with this screaming baby and hands her to me.”
Bonnie clears her throat, “She told me she had to attend to her own child that was on that fateful bus. She had no patience to detox some crack whore’s baby.”
Megan realizes what this means, “I was the crack baby?”
Bonnie nods, “But you weren’t just on crack. Your lovely father was a designer drug dealer. He had come up with a concoction for repeat business. A drug that would never leave your system. A drug you would always be addicted to.”
Megan wonders, “How did you do it? How could my parents not know I wasn’t their child, especially if you had to detox me?”
Bonnie shrugs her shoulders, “That part was easy, too easy. Almost like it was meant to be. No one knew the other baby was even dead. The father was outside worried. Your poor mother was barely hanging on. It was easy to convince them the baby needed to stay longer at the hospital to get strong. I knew I didn’t have much time, but I was determined.”
Megan has to know, “The other woman, my real mother, how did she take the news?”
Bonnie sighs, “She was relieved, was more interested in getting out of there and back to her drugs! Problem was, I needed to know the drugs she was on to be able to ween you off. I took her blood, had it run, but no one knew what was in her! In fact, they were quite concerned. It was nothing they had seen before and its implications were frightful!”
Megan is confused, “How so?”
Bonnie thinks back, “We had quite an epidemic of drug users back then. More than we had ever seen before. Even casual users were completely addicted to this drug your father had created. Of course, at the time you were born, we didn’t know he was the one doing it. Just figured your mother was like everyone else coming in. Unfortunately, though, because I now knew what drug was in you, I also knew we had yet figured a way to detox any of the ones on that drug!”
Megan doesn’t understand, “It may have been hard, but wouldn’t time simply detox you?”
Bonnie sadly shakes her head, “No, once they no longer had access to that drug, their bodies turned against them. Began actually eating itself up from the inside looking for any remains of the drug in the body!”
Bonnie shivers, “It was terrifying to watch! They passed it off as the fleshing eating disease but what they didn’t tell people was by the time it had eaten your flesh; all of your insides were already gone!”
Megan is shocked, “Saving me like you did, please tell me you saved my brother too!”
Bonnie shakes her head, “At the time I didn’t know he existed! They did do an autopsy on the other baby to make sure it hadn’t died of drugs, but of course it hadn’t. I had to be quiet that it wasn’t hers. I thought no harm no foul. At least you were safe. But I was shocked when she came back in about a year later to have your sister with your brother in tow! He was all of 3 years old and strung out so bad I truly don’t know how he didn’t die!”
Megan whispers, “I have a sister?”
Bonnie gently corrects her, “Had. Unfortunately, Abigail died in a car accident when she was a teen.”
Megan asks, “Drugs?”
Bonnie whispers, “No, her friends were on them, and sadly Abigail desperately wanted to be! But Abigail complained of not being able to. Her injuries from the car accident are not what killed her, but both her ear drums were pierced. As if someone had stuck something in her ears all the way to the brain.”
Megan clearly shivers as she wonders, “And my brother?”
Bonnie thinks about it, “Actually, he and Abigail were quite close. After Abigail was born, your parents were arrested, and they were put in a good foster home after detox. Those two claimed they were connected in ways people would never understand.”
Suddenly it hits Megan, “You were the one to detox them, weren’t you? And you sang that lullaby to them!”
Bonnie nodded, “Abigail was like you, and within days, the lullaby sort of walled in the addiction. But Roy, poor boy, was a mess! His little body was riddled with drugs they fed him to keep quiet.”
Bonnie remembers, “He struggled with just the concept of being held. I cringe to think what they did to that little boy!”
Bonnie hesitates, “Unfortunately, the lullaby seemed like pure torture to him! Since it worked on you two, I was determined to make it work on him. I was relentless with him, singing it to him over and over for fear he would turn out like the others if I didn’t detox him! Eventually it did work, but honestly, I think I may have been too late.”
Megan wonders, “How so?”
Bonnie is not sure, “With all Roy had endured before I started on him, he could have already been damaged. But that boy wasn’t right in the head afterwards. Perhaps his body had eaten some of his brain before I could get that damn drug walled in? Detective, even thought the damage may have given him abilities we didn’t know! Even though the detective has him dead to rights for the killings, he can never actually place Roy at the scene of the crimes.”
Megan is afraid to ask, “How do you think Abigail and he were connected?”
Bonnie shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t rightly know. I do know Abigail’s friends had said she screamed out right before she died for Roy to make it stop. One claimed they briefly saw Roy appeared. Seemed to stab her in both ears with something. Of course, we all thought she was seeing things due to the drugs she was on. Roy wasn’t even in the same town that night, let alone in the car!”
Bonnie sighs, “When the detective came to me about his theory, I thought it was a bit far-fetched, but agreed to tell you the truth in hopes you may have the same connection as Abigail so they can stop him.”
Megan whispers, “It is Roy! And he’s doing it with an ice pick!”
Bonnie is shocked, “How do you know?”
Megan explains, “Ever since I started having menopause, I’ve been having hallucinations of a man killing people!”
Bonnie understands, “Of course, your hormones have changed!”
Megan wonders, “Did the detective have a theory to why Roy is killing?”
Bonnie explains, “He seems to think that for some reason, Roy was able to hunt down all the ones that were on your father’s drug and killed them. A sort of revenge killing.”
Megan has chills run over her, “And you don’t think so?”
Bonnie is not sure, “Sure, it’s more than coincidence that the ones killed had at one time been on that drug. But not all of them have been killed. Not to scare you, but why hasn’t he found you?”
Megan suddenly feels a hot flash come over her and her eyes begin to unfocus. Faintly, she hears Bonnie call out to her, “Sing the lullaby to him! It may have an effect on him!”
Megan stands before her brother, standing over his last victim. She yells out to him, “Roy!”
Roy turns to her and smiles, “Well well! You learned the trick, my sister, and I knew! What whore did you come from?”
Megan smiles, “Your mother! Bonnie, the nurse, switched me at birth.”
Roy screams violently, “That bitch! She cursed our family! She caused me to kill sweet Abigail to put her out of misery, because of her and that damn lullaby!”
Megan tries to understand before doing what Bonnie suggested, “Why Roy? Why kill all those people like that?”
Roy shakes his head, “You don’t understand! These were mercy killings! They called out to me, begging me to give them relief! That damn drug my father created was not only addictive, but somehow, we’re connected! I could feel what they were feeling, hear what they were hearing. I simply put them out of their misery.”
Megan is confused, “Relief from what?”
Roy smiles, “She didn’t tell you? Daddy dearest infected the whole town with his drugs. Bonnie took it upon herself to help those poor addicts. Had damn meetings with them all, singing that cursed lullaby to them over and over! But all she did was trade one evil for another!”
Megan doesn’t believe him, “Then why didn’t you come for me?”
Roy smiles, “Because it hasn’t hit you as hard as the others yet! The ones who desperately wanted to do drugs, like poor Abigail, just the desire alone would turn your own body against you! Making you beg for relief! I was able to be their relief. Somehow, I am able to “Astro surf” is what I call it and provide them with their relief.”
Roy adds, “If you were good and able to abstain, for some reason, later on, the lullaby still comes for you!”
Suddenly, Bonnie starts belting out the lullaby. Since Roy is in contact with Megan, he can hear the lullaby, too! Quickly he covers his ears screaming, “Make her stop!”
Megan agrees as she holds her own ears. The lullaby is deafening and so damn hurtful! Why does it hurt so much? Could it be because it’s from the original source? Then Megan realizes it must be the hormones too! In fact, all the victims she had seen Roy with recently were her age! Maybe they were beginning to hear the lullaby more than just a deterrent to drugs?
Suddenly Megan screams out to Bonnie, “No! You must stop! You are killing us!”
In fact, Megan and Roy, later found, both died the same time as what appeared to be an aneurism.
Some may argue that Bonnie and her good intentions caused more harm than good. However, Bonnie and her great grandmother’s lullaby did give those poor drug users a chance of a longer life through abstaining. It’s just unfortunate that menopause is such a bitch and had to ruin a good thing!
Stripping down to underwear and bra, Megan endures a brief hot flash. Fortunately, not one of the bad ones! For once in her life, she is happy that she is divorced and with no children. This way, no one has to see her go through the difficult stage of menopause. Megan can bitch and moan all she wants and not have to be accountable to anyone!
One of the most difficult stages of her menopause for Megan was the strange hallucinations she has been having. In all the books she has read on menopause, nowhere does it mention the onset of hallucinations? Let alone a brief hearing of music that seems to be getting louder with each hot flash! The restless nights, hot flashes, and mood swings were all there, but no mention of what was happening to her.
And these weren’t your typical hallucinations, where perhaps you think you see something out of the corner of your eye. Far from it, hers were specific! The haunting music, that damn lullaby she’d heard all her life at unusual times, would come first.
Then a man she had never seen before standing over a body he had just killed, with, get this, an ice pick of all things! As if that wasn’t bad enough, each time she has seen him he’s been with a different victim!
Certainly not something you wanted to run and tell your doctor for fear of locking you up! But who could she talk to about it? She had no family, both parents long gone and not really prepared to get sympathetic looks from her friends. She had enough of that from the divorce!
Then, as fate would have it, a strange woman named Bonnie had reached out to her. Wanting to meet with her and explain something about her past.
Megan had only agreed because Bonnie verified she was a nurse at the hospital Megan was born in. Due to the way she was born, her parents, while traveling, had to make an emergency stop for the pregnancy in a small town. Megan had a feeling she was about to be told her parents were somehow not her real parents.
As Megan gets dressed in casual clothes, she thinks about how that makes her feel. She will always think of her parents as her real parents, no matter what. Yet on the other hand, maybe she had more family out there? Someone who may understand what she is going through!
If anything, it would make for an interesting afternoon. She was supposed to meet Bonnie at the park in fifteen minutes. Hot flash or not, she had to get dressed and get going!
Fortunately, the park they agreed on was minutes from her apartment. Upon arriving, she looked around, not really knowing how to find Bonnie.
There in the corner sits a much older woman gently rocking a baby. The woman looks up at her and calls out, “Megan, over here!”
Megan walks over, “Bonnie?”
Bonnie smiles, “That would be me. So sorry for having to bring my granddaughter. Some confusion at the house over work schedules, so I had no choice! She’s almost asleep. Once she is, we’ll have no interruptions. Sleeping is what she does best right now.”
Bonnie looks lovingly down at the baby, “Right precious?” Bonnie then begins softly singing a lullaby. The baby falls fast asleep.
Megan is shocked and whispers, “I know that lullaby!”
Bonnie answers, “It’s ok you can talk in your normal voice. She won’t be bothered.”
Megan is still shaken by hearing the lullaby, “You don’t understand! I’ve always tried to figure out where the lullaby came from! No one knew!”
Bonnie looks down and softly says, “No one would because my great grandmother created it! She used to say she added an incantation to soothe the soul, so none of her babies would be tempted by the devil’s drugs.”
Megan is still bewildered, “It was never sung to me! I only heard it in my head at the most unusual times.”
Bonnie looks at her, “You’re wrong. I sang it to you over and over. But what did you mean you heard it at unusual times?”
Megan tries to explain, “Any time I attempted to take any drugs? Even over-the-counter drugs! Honestly? Annoying as ever, to the point, if I did have to take something for a headache, it would become a worse headache because of the lullaby! It was like the lullaby was somehow preventing me from taking drugs!”
Bonnie’s eyes begin to tear, “I’m so sorry child! I had no idea, although I suspected due to how your brother acted.”
Megan takes a deep breath in, “Maybe you should start at the beginning!”
Bonnie looks straight ahead in deep thought, “I still believe I did the right thing by you. I will not apologize for that! However, I do apologize for taking so long to tell you.”
Bonnie looks over at her and begs, “Tell me you had a good childhood! Tell me you loved your parents!”
Megan begins to tear up herself, “I did! With all my heart. I never wanted for anything. I miss them terribly!”
Bonnie nods, “The detective told me they had passed. I’m so sorry.”
Megan is curious, “Did they know?”
Bonnie shakes her head, “No and in a way, I’m glad they won’t! I knew they were good people when I first saw them.”
Megan whispers as she looks down at Bonnie’s granddaughter, sleeping, “What happened?”
Bonnie instinctively holds the baby tighter, “It was a horrible night you were born! The local football team had been involved in a terrible bus crash. Many who worked at the hospital that night lost their own children. It was mayhem, to say the least.”
Bonnie goes on, “Your mother had unexpectedly gone into labor.”
Bonnie hesitates but finishes, disgusted, “As did another woman.”
Before Megan can interrupt, Bonnie explains, “The poor doctor not only had to deliver those two babies but operate on his own son! Unfortunately, his son did not make it.”
Bonnie relives the memory, “I was helping him with your poor mother, the one you called mother, and she was having such a hard time! She lost so much blood.”
Bonnie shivers at the thought of all that blood, “We had to make the father leave the room. In the end, you mother went unconscious, not able to see the birth.”
Bonnie finishes, “The other woman went into labor just as the doctor handed me that baby. He didn’t even realize the baby was dead. Just handed her to me, knowing I would know what to do for her.”
Bonnie lowers her head as she looks at her precious granddaughter, “A little girl who looked as peaceful as this one. It was heartbreaking!”
Bonnie remembers, “I still cleaned her up and put her in the crib. Moments later, the other nurse comes in with this screaming baby and hands her to me.”
Bonnie clears her throat, “She told me she had to attend to her own child that was on that fateful bus. She had no patience to detox some crack whore’s baby.”
Megan realizes what this means, “I was the crack baby?”
Bonnie nods, “But you weren’t just on crack. Your lovely father was a designer drug dealer. He had come up with a concoction for repeat business. A drug that would never leave your system. A drug you would always be addicted to.”
Megan wonders, “How did you do it? How could my parents not know I wasn’t their child, especially if you had to detox me?”
Bonnie shrugs her shoulders, “That part was easy, too easy. Almost like it was meant to be. No one knew the other baby was even dead. The father was outside worried. Your poor mother was barely hanging on. It was easy to convince them the baby needed to stay longer at the hospital to get strong. I knew I didn’t have much time, but I was determined.”
Megan has to know, “The other woman, my real mother, how did she take the news?”
Bonnie sighs, “She was relieved, was more interested in getting out of there and back to her drugs! Problem was, I needed to know the drugs she was on to be able to ween you off. I took her blood, had it run, but no one knew what was in her! In fact, they were quite concerned. It was nothing they had seen before and its implications were frightful!”
Megan is confused, “How so?”
Bonnie thinks back, “We had quite an epidemic of drug users back then. More than we had ever seen before. Even casual users were completely addicted to this drug your father had created. Of course, at the time you were born, we didn’t know he was the one doing it. Just figured your mother was like everyone else coming in. Unfortunately, though, because I now knew what drug was in you, I also knew we had yet figured a way to detox any of the ones on that drug!”
Megan doesn’t understand, “It may have been hard, but wouldn’t time simply detox you?”
Bonnie sadly shakes her head, “No, once they no longer had access to that drug, their bodies turned against them. Began actually eating itself up from the inside looking for any remains of the drug in the body!”
Bonnie shivers, “It was terrifying to watch! They passed it off as the fleshing eating disease but what they didn’t tell people was by the time it had eaten your flesh; all of your insides were already gone!”
Megan is shocked, “Saving me like you did, please tell me you saved my brother too!”
Bonnie shakes her head, “At the time I didn’t know he existed! They did do an autopsy on the other baby to make sure it hadn’t died of drugs, but of course it hadn’t. I had to be quiet that it wasn’t hers. I thought no harm no foul. At least you were safe. But I was shocked when she came back in about a year later to have your sister with your brother in tow! He was all of 3 years old and strung out so bad I truly don’t know how he didn’t die!”
Megan whispers, “I have a sister?”
Bonnie gently corrects her, “Had. Unfortunately, Abigail died in a car accident when she was a teen.”
Megan asks, “Drugs?”
Bonnie whispers, “No, her friends were on them, and sadly Abigail desperately wanted to be! But Abigail complained of not being able to. Her injuries from the car accident are not what killed her, but both her ear drums were pierced. As if someone had stuck something in her ears all the way to the brain.”
Megan clearly shivers as she wonders, “And my brother?”
Bonnie thinks about it, “Actually, he and Abigail were quite close. After Abigail was born, your parents were arrested, and they were put in a good foster home after detox. Those two claimed they were connected in ways people would never understand.”
Suddenly it hits Megan, “You were the one to detox them, weren’t you? And you sang that lullaby to them!”
Bonnie nodded, “Abigail was like you, and within days, the lullaby sort of walled in the addiction. But Roy, poor boy, was a mess! His little body was riddled with drugs they fed him to keep quiet.”
Bonnie remembers, “He struggled with just the concept of being held. I cringe to think what they did to that little boy!”
Bonnie hesitates, “Unfortunately, the lullaby seemed like pure torture to him! Since it worked on you two, I was determined to make it work on him. I was relentless with him, singing it to him over and over for fear he would turn out like the others if I didn’t detox him! Eventually it did work, but honestly, I think I may have been too late.”
Megan wonders, “How so?”
Bonnie is not sure, “With all Roy had endured before I started on him, he could have already been damaged. But that boy wasn’t right in the head afterwards. Perhaps his body had eaten some of his brain before I could get that damn drug walled in? Detective, even thought the damage may have given him abilities we didn’t know! Even though the detective has him dead to rights for the killings, he can never actually place Roy at the scene of the crimes.”
Megan is afraid to ask, “How do you think Abigail and he were connected?”
Bonnie shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t rightly know. I do know Abigail’s friends had said she screamed out right before she died for Roy to make it stop. One claimed they briefly saw Roy appeared. Seemed to stab her in both ears with something. Of course, we all thought she was seeing things due to the drugs she was on. Roy wasn’t even in the same town that night, let alone in the car!”
Bonnie sighs, “When the detective came to me about his theory, I thought it was a bit far-fetched, but agreed to tell you the truth in hopes you may have the same connection as Abigail so they can stop him.”
Megan whispers, “It is Roy! And he’s doing it with an ice pick!”
Bonnie is shocked, “How do you know?”
Megan explains, “Ever since I started having menopause, I’ve been having hallucinations of a man killing people!”
Bonnie understands, “Of course, your hormones have changed!”
Megan wonders, “Did the detective have a theory to why Roy is killing?”
Bonnie explains, “He seems to think that for some reason, Roy was able to hunt down all the ones that were on your father’s drug and killed them. A sort of revenge killing.”
Megan has chills run over her, “And you don’t think so?”
Bonnie is not sure, “Sure, it’s more than coincidence that the ones killed had at one time been on that drug. But not all of them have been killed. Not to scare you, but why hasn’t he found you?”
Megan suddenly feels a hot flash come over her and her eyes begin to unfocus. Faintly, she hears Bonnie call out to her, “Sing the lullaby to him! It may have an effect on him!”
Megan stands before her brother, standing over his last victim. She yells out to him, “Roy!”
Roy turns to her and smiles, “Well well! You learned the trick, my sister, and I knew! What whore did you come from?”
Megan smiles, “Your mother! Bonnie, the nurse, switched me at birth.”
Roy screams violently, “That bitch! She cursed our family! She caused me to kill sweet Abigail to put her out of misery, because of her and that damn lullaby!”
Megan tries to understand before doing what Bonnie suggested, “Why Roy? Why kill all those people like that?”
Roy shakes his head, “You don’t understand! These were mercy killings! They called out to me, begging me to give them relief! That damn drug my father created was not only addictive, but somehow, we’re connected! I could feel what they were feeling, hear what they were hearing. I simply put them out of their misery.”
Megan is confused, “Relief from what?”
Roy smiles, “She didn’t tell you? Daddy dearest infected the whole town with his drugs. Bonnie took it upon herself to help those poor addicts. Had damn meetings with them all, singing that cursed lullaby to them over and over! But all she did was trade one evil for another!”
Megan doesn’t believe him, “Then why didn’t you come for me?”
Roy smiles, “Because it hasn’t hit you as hard as the others yet! The ones who desperately wanted to do drugs, like poor Abigail, just the desire alone would turn your own body against you! Making you beg for relief! I was able to be their relief. Somehow, I am able to “Astro surf” is what I call it and provide them with their relief.”
Roy adds, “If you were good and able to abstain, for some reason, later on, the lullaby still comes for you!”
Suddenly, Bonnie starts belting out the lullaby. Since Roy is in contact with Megan, he can hear the lullaby, too! Quickly he covers his ears screaming, “Make her stop!”
Megan agrees as she holds her own ears. The lullaby is deafening and so damn hurtful! Why does it hurt so much? Could it be because it’s from the original source? Then Megan realizes it must be the hormones too! In fact, all the victims she had seen Roy with recently were her age! Maybe they were beginning to hear the lullaby more than just a deterrent to drugs?
Suddenly Megan screams out to Bonnie, “No! You must stop! You are killing us!”
In fact, Megan and Roy, later found, both died the same time as what appeared to be an aneurism.
Some may argue that Bonnie and her good intentions caused more harm than good. However, Bonnie and her great grandmother’s lullaby did give those poor drug users a chance of a longer life through abstaining. It’s just unfortunate that menopause is such a bitch and had to ruin a good thing!
