Chapter X- Aftershocks

A/N: I thought about ending the story with Chapter IX, but again decided to add one more; this chapter gives an epilogue to the story, showing the truth- and otherwise- to the thoughts of Jack, Roger, and some of Mr. Tiny's claims. Tiny's liking for manipulating people with half-truths and outright lies- albeit very convincing ones- is well-illustrated here if you keep in mind the things he says in Chapter IX.

Ralph Meyer, Jack Merridew, Roger Matthews. All three had gone missing on the same night, the same day, the same year. For weeks, the parents of each boy had kept up with police reports, hoping against hope that when the law did find their son, it would be before… no, that was unthinkable. Unbearable. The boys just had to be found.

One, Ralph, never resurfaced. Some eventually assumed- or told themselves to assume- that Ralph had run away, perhaps to start a new life and in time completely forget what he'd been through on that lone island in the Pacific.

The other two were found.

One week after their disappearance, exactly seven days after they were marked as missing, the bodies of Jack Merridew and Roger Matthews were found beneath the Great Oak, a massive, 240-year-old White Oak tree that stood on a hill, deep within the wooded grounds far behind the Davidson Military School. From what the sheriff's deputies had been able to piece together, the boys had gotten up on one of the tree's higher branches. After presumably sitting there for a time, they'd fallen off backwards. Deliberately.

The county coroner found little reason to disagree; the deaths of Roger and Jack were ruled suicides. No one, not even the coroner, noticed the little scars on the tips of their fingers. Had someone noticed, it would have been impossible for them to have known what that signified anyway. But still, had anyone seen, the sight would have been strange indeed. It would have looked like both boys' fingers were briefly punctured by… human nails. Unusually sharp ones.

It was quiet in the Merridew household.

Michael was dead, and as difficult as it was to believe it had been an accident. Charles Merridew was sure of it. How else could it have happened? He and Susan were good people; caring and protective parents who wanted only the best for their two boys. Accidents happened sometimes; that was just how things were.

Small comfort.

But then Jack had gone missing, and within a day Charles had begun to fear the worst. It just fit too perfectly; Michael dead and within the next day Jack is missing, leaving no sign of where he's gone or why. Charles knew he should've been out there in person; he should've just driven straight out to Davidson and taken Jack home. He should've known Jack would do something desperate when he learned of his little brother's death; it was the one thing that had always held the power to destabilize Jack, to send him over the edge.

For that whole week the Merridews had hoped and prayed, hoped and prayed. Desperately waiting for some kind of news, any news… anything but what they somehow knew they'd have to hear.

And then the knock had come at the door; for the rest of her life Susan Merridew would hate to hear that sound. It would always bring her mind back in time, forcibly and coldly remind her of the day she'd lost both her boys. The sheer grief of the loss threatened to bury her; Susan was hard-pressed many days to not just give up and let it. But somehow, each day, she found enough strength to get up and do what she needed to do.

Mrs. Matthews called regularly, and despite living a few states away, the two had talked about visiting one another. Susan found this actually helped, somehow- she knew the Matthews woman had it worse than her. Her husband had left the family years ago, and she just hadn't had time to both support the family on her own and spend proper time with Roger. Now, Rhoda Matthews feared it was her busy work schedule that had helped drive her boy to killing himself. While Susan sympathized greatly with the Meyers and still hoped Ralph would be found, there was somehow a limit to what they could talk about with the Merridews. Susan got to feeling that somehow, the Meyers believed her boy- and possibly Roger also- responsible for Ralph's disappearance. Just how or why even the Meyers seemed unsure of, but their certainty was startling, and it made things awkward, even when the Meyer's themselves wanted to talk.

Rhoda Matthews was the opposite- the fact that their boys had killed themselves together had forever bonded the Merridew and Matthews households, uniting them in their grief. Susan wished this bond could have happened another way. Any other way.

Charles had to take a full month off from work, then two, both for himself and his wife. Those few friends who saw Charles during that time would later describe to others a man so struck by loss it defied words. He was a broken man. Charles Merridew had given parenting his all; nothing had made him happier than to watch his boys start to grow up in the world with him and Susan watching them all the way.

But now it was all over.

Charles came home one day to find Susan asleep again; she was sleeping far too much these days, but what else was there to do? He'd also discovered, upon making his rounds of their home, that Susan had hidden or turned over every picture of the boys, anywhere in the house. That Charles Merridew could find no fault with. He tried taking one of the pictures off the mantelpiece and righting it, gazing at it from the couch for a time. It had been the photo Jack prized most. Jack, in his gray Davidson uniform, was grinning like the Cheshire Cat as he held Michael up for the camera; Michael was grinning too, his face half-hidden under Jack's dress uniform hat. But after just a few minutes, Charles had stood up and turned the framed picture over again.

He couldn't bear to look at it.

And yet… somehow…

It was a feeling so vague, so impossible to define or prove, that Charles Merridew never dared mention it to his wife. But it was there nonetheless. Charles almost wondered if there really was life after death, or if Jack had managed to live on, somehow.

It was impossible, of course. Charles Merridew had buried both his sons; he'd seen their pale, sleeping faces, held their cool, lifeless hands. They were gone and he'd seen the proof himself.

The two gray headstones in the family cemetery were pretty hard to argue with.

But the feeling was still there. Part of it Charles traced back to the day he'd been at Jack's funeral; Jack's face had regained a bit of its colour, and somehow, Jack had looked as if he really had been sleeping. Charles just wished Jack could've woken up.