The first thing I noticed was the intensity of that tangy smell that I associated with Bo. It seemed concentrated in this spot, like the further I walked into the room, the stronger it got.
I stopped and looked around. The floor of the room was concrete, painted a dark gray like the walls. A daybed was pushed up against one wall. It was covered with a black spread and a mountain of pillows in varying shades of gray. Beside it, in the corner, was a small table, and on its surface a half-burned incense stick and a lighter.
Across from the daybed was a shelf that held a stereo and various pictures and mementos, along with rows and rows of CDs. I trailed my fingers along them, reading the names as I went. Bo was right; he listened to a little bit of everything.
There was truly classic rock like Led Zeppelin, The Who and The Rolling Stones. He had 80’s rock like Tesla, Motley Cru, and Def Leppard. There was some 90’s music sprinkled in, bands like Nirvana, Dave Matthews Band, and Santana. He even had a Backstreet Boys CD. When I saw that one, I had to smile.
On top of that, he had a few country bands, some blues titles I vaguely recognized and a few more current groups like Train, Nickelback, The Fray and even some Pink. He had a very eclectic palate.
Bo closed the door and walked to the stereo to turn it on. When he hit play, I was curious to hear what he’d been listening to most recently. I recognized the beginning guitar riff instantly. It was Guns ‘n Roses, Sweet Child O’ Mine.
He turned to lean back against the wall, crossing his feet at the ankles and his arms over his chest. He seemed content to quietly watch me as I looked around.
I pointed to a picture of an older man, a face that was featured in all of the pictures scattered around. “Is this your dad?”
Bo nodded.
I figured as much. In some pictures, he was by himself. In some pictures he was with Bo’s mother. But in every picture, he was there, like the image of a ghost that refused to fade with time. I thought of Izzy’s room. I knew all about those kinds of hauntings.
My heart ached for Bo’s loss. It wasn’t a shrine really, but I could see that Bo probably got a lot of his motivation from the articles in this room. His relationship with his dad was written all over the place.
There was a baseball mitt, a football, some tennis balls with faces drawn on them, a floppy fishing hat and fishing pole. There were some model cars and a model airplane, projects I guessed Bo completed with his father. The whole room was like the sad history of a life cut short and the evidence of a son who couldn’t let go.
The one thing that I found odd was that Bo was not featured in any of the pictures with his family. I wanted to ask him about it, but I’d already done enough to taint his good mood. I could wait until another time to find my answers.
I slid my eyes over to Bo. He was watching me closely, an inscrutable look on his face. I glanced away quickly. I felt as if I was intruding on a very intimate family gathering.
“He would’ve liked you.” When Bo finally spoke, the thick walls absorbed the words as soon as they left his lips. Behind the music, the room was an eerie kind of quiet, almost tomblike.
“What was he like?”
Bo leaned his head back against the wall, his eyes on the low ceiling, a sad smile curving his lips.
“He was great. He taught me everything,” he said. “He always said he wanted to prepare me to do anything I wanted to do, to ‘take the world by storm’, he’d say.” He laughed, a bitter bark of a sound, and then his eyelids drifted shut. “He didn’t deserve the death they gave him.”
“What happened to him?”
“As far as I can remember, there were two guys at his throat. They attacked him so viciously, they almost decapitated him. He was nearly drained of blood. The coroner’s report said he was dead within seconds.”
“And you had to watch?”
Bo’s eyes opened to meet mine. They were fathomless pools of agony. “They were stronger than you can imagine. Even after years of playing sports, of football and weightlifting, they held me easily. There were two more guys holding me and a girl was watching. She said she wanted me to watch, that she wanted my heart pumping for her. Pumping hard.”
I covered my mouth with my fingers. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to cry or be sick. Probably both.
“Then what happened?” It was so gruesome, I could hardly stand it, but I had to know what happened to Bo and to his father, what had caused this need for revenge that was costing him his life.
“When they were finished with Dad, they held me while she bit me. She went wild when she tasted my blood, said that it was sweet, that she could taste the power in it.
“The other two started complaining about wanting to feed, but she wouldn’t let them. My guess is that she decided to keep me for herself, but the two guys holding me didn’t like the new plan. One of them attacked her, just let go of my arm and pounced on her.
“The other one held on, but he was distracted by the fight. I guess my adrenaline was jacked up, so I was finally able to get away from him. I went to check on Dad,” Bo said, closing his eyes again, this time in remembered pain. “But he was already gone.”
Bo shook his head. “Anyway, I looked back and they were tearing each other apart, blood and spit flying everywhere. I took off, ran as fast as I could to an old cabin in the woods, one I’d seen several times when we’d been hunting. I remember banging on the door, but no one answered. I knew I needed to get away, but I didn’t have the energy to go any further. I remember falling against the door and sliding down to the ground. I guess I passed out there. That’s all I remember until I woke up like…this.”
“Bo,” I breathed, my heart breaking for him.
“When she bit me, she must’ve injected me. I found out later that she did it on purpose. She wanted to keep me as some sort of weird drinking buddy, almost like a mate.”
“How do you know that?”
Bo paused, giving me the strangest look before he answered. “I saw it in her memories when I drained her.”
I tried to remain calm, not to get all judgmental about Bo talking so casually about murder. All I had to do was remind myself what they’d done to his father and it didn’t seem quite so bad anymore. I’m sure, for Bo, it was more than adequate justification for killing them.