Chapter 6 – At The End
Gravel crunches under Shrek's car as he pulls into the small parking lot. After parking his car, he checks his phone one last time. He sees that he has a missed call from Fiona and a few unread texts. She's asking him where he is and if he's okay. There's also a text from Barry with an address and a winking emoji next to an eggplant emoji. Asshole.
He doesn't respond to any of them and turns off his phone and puts it in the glove box. He already feels guilty for what he's about to do to Fiona, and would rather not lie to her too. But he feels like a dick for ignoring her and that only makes him feel even less deserving of life.
He gets out of his small, green Ford Focus and starts walking to the edge of the cliff. There are some other people at the park, but Shrek ignores them. Before long, he's at the cliff, looking out over the waterfall one last time.
Shrek sighs. "I'm a monster," he says to himself, before leaping off the cliff.
He hears a few screams coming from the park above as he falls, likely from shocked visitors. Great, now he's ruining the lives of random bystanders. He deserves this. And once he's dead, maybe he'll be with Donkey again. Assuming that Donkey doesn't hate him.
The wind rushes around Shrek as the ground grows closer. Until finally, with a sudden burst of pain, Shrek collides with the ground.
Fiona is pacing outside of Shrek's house, holding her phone to her ear. "Come on, pick up. Please pick up," she says to herself as she walks back and forth in front of his door.
After Shrek had left Donkey's funeral, Fiona realized immediately that she shouldn't have let him go. She tried to contact him, but he never picked up or responded. When she arrived at Shrek's house to check on him, she feared the worst after discovering that he wasn't home. Now, she's trying not to think about the fact that her best friend may already be dead.
Fiona sighs as the call once again fails to go through. She has a sudden realization and heads back to her car. There's another place where Shrek may be, but she hopes she's wrong. She starts driving to the Duloc Waterfall Park, where she's sure Shrek will be. She just desperately hopes to be wrong about why he went there.
Shrek lay at the bottom of the cliff, groaning in pain on top of some rocks. He should've figured that the fall wouldn't be enough to kill an ogre, but he hadn't exactly been thinking. Now he's going to have to find a way back up and then kill himself some other way. And he can see that there's an audience forming at the top of the cliff. Perfect. What a great day this has been.
Shrek carefully climbs to his feet on top of the slick rocks, and starts to steadily climb down from the pile. He'd rather not fall in river and embarrass himself any further. He makes it down from the rocks and starts to head into the nearby forest. He thinks there are some trails in there that he could use to find his way back up the cliff. If he's lucky, he'll stumble across some poisonous plants and save himself some time. But that's when he sees it.
Sticking out of the mud is a small velvety box, sitting open. Nearby is the ring that the box must've once contained. Shrek picks up the muddy ring and washes it off in the river. It's a large, silver ring with a beautiful emerald on top. Shrek puts it on his finger and it fits perfectly, as if it were made for him. That's when he notices the engraving. A small message, wrapping around the ring.
"For Shrek, My Beloved"
Shrek feels himself begin to tear up. Donkey was going to propose to him, but must have changed his mind at the last second. He just hated Shrek that much.
Unless, Shrek begins to think, did Donkey really kill himself?
And then it clicks. The scuffed grass that night. There had been a fight. That hole in the bench looked more like a bullet hole than anything. "It's almost feels like that note was written by someone else." Fiona was right, it did come out of nowhere. And why would Donkey's suicide note encourage Shrek to hook back up with Barry? And why was Barry acting so smug at the funeral? It was as if he thought he'd already won.
Barry must have killed Donkey and made it look like a suicide.
Shrek feels his hands clench into fists. That fucking bastard bee. In an instant, all of Shrek's grief is transformed into blood-boiling rage. He bellows out an anguished, monstrous roar and punches a hole straight through the nearest tree. All of his pain from earlier already forgotten. "I'm going to kill that fucker," Shrek growls.
He turns back toward the cliff and begins to run. He doesn't have time to find the easy way back up. The sooner he kills Barry, the sooner Donkey can rest in peace. He bursts out of the forest and leaps. His superhuman ogre strength propels him high into the air, but it's not enough. He slams into the cliff about halfway up, but holds on tight. He rests for a second and then starts to climb.
Within minutes, he pulls himself up into the park. A few assholes are recording him with their phones, but he just shoves right past them. He storms over to his car and notices Fiona standing next to it, looking worried. She sees him and runs over.
"Shrek!" She says, sounding relieved. "You're okay! Why didn't you answer my texts?"
"Donkey didn't kill himself," Shrek says, already marching past her.
"What? We both read the note," Fiona says.
"Barry wrote that," Shrek says while getting into his car. "He killed Donkey and now I'm about to go turn him inside out."
And with that, he slams the door shut. He sees Fiona trying to say something to him, probably trying to convince not to murder that shithead and contact the police instead. But jail isn't good enough for that bastard. And Shrek is determined to personally see Barry to the gates of Hell.
He pulls out of the park and speeds off toward the address Barry texted him earlier. That little piss bug led Shrek straight to him. Barry fucked up when he killed Donkey.
Because tonight will be the night that Barry B. Benson dies.
