The death of Frank Iero.

“Why do I keep seeing you?!”

A mother and father watched unseen from their adult son’s half open bedroom door. They watched their pajama clad son sitting at the end of his bed, his arms wrapped around his knees, tucking them under his chin. They watched as he shouted in frustration at the empty corner of his room next to his closet door. Mother and father shared a worry glance and quietly hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

The father continued to busy himself with preparing dinner, while the mother sat back at her laptop at the kitchen table. Her brown eyes tried to focus on the work she had brought from the office, but her worry for her son was overwhelming. “He’s not getting any better, John. You can’t expect me to ignore this anymore and hope it goes away.” John remained silent, dumping the spaghetti noodles from the strainer back into the pan on the stove. “John!” she harshly whispered, “Our son is losing his mind! He needs help!” John whipped around gazing at his wife with a knowing yet angry stare.

“He’ll be fine, Debra.”

“John! He’s seeing things that aren’t there! Trying to talk with him went nowhere! He denied everything! We need professional help here!”

John pulled out the wooden chair next to his wife and slowly sat, letting a worried, defeated sigh escape his lips. “Ok, after dinner we’ll talk with him about seeing someone.”



“See someone? Great, they think I’m crazy.” Gerard tiptoed quietly back up the stairs from where he had been spying on his parents. He stood before his bedroom door ever hesitant as always to go inside, but with a resolute deep breath the raven-haired twenty-two-year-old pushed his way inside, shutting the door tightly behind him. He kept his green tired eyes focused on the floor as he padded quietly over to his bed, afraid of what he might see otherwise if he looked around elsewhere.

Gerard hadn’t always been afraid to be in his bedroom. He rather loved this house the very second his family moved in to it those many months ago. It was closer to the college he was attending, and so much more spacious. He finally had a big enough room for his enormous collection of books, for a desk with his very own computer, for a full-size bed, and enough wall space to display all the drawings he wanting. It was a definite upgrade from the piece of decrepit shit the Way family had previously called home. He didn’t plan on living there too long, though. After he graduated from college he would look for a place of his own quickly after. But Gerard had settled in quite comfortably for the time being. Though, that comfortable, peaceful living only lasted but a month. That’s when things started to happen; bizarre things. They weren’t really so bad at first. Unexplained noises and then items on shelves and in drawers going missing and turning up the next day in odd places, such as in the inside of Gerard’s shoes. Gerard thought his father was playing dumb little jokes on him and had complained to his father about such, but his father genuinely denied it. As did his mother. Gerard was at his wits end about it, but then rationally figured he must have started sleepwalking, moving around these little odd items in his sleep. Mystery solved, and Gerard felt at ease once again ..until he saw it.

His heart had froze in his chest the first time he saw it. There it was standing, or hovering rather, at the foot of his bed for only about a fraction of a second. It was a figure of a man? A boy? Gerard couldn’t tell. It was dark, the lower part of its body was missing and the rest of it see-through. Gerard tried to be logical about this. What he saw was just a shadow, or he was having a nightmare. But those excuses were losing their merit as Gerard continued to see the figure in his bedroom as the days went on. Each day it would become a bit more tangible, a bit more complete in its materialization, and Gerard grew more and more afraid that he was loosing his mind. He couldn’t very well tell his parents he was seeing a person or ghost or whatever it was, which Gerard knew by all sound reasoning couldn’t truly be there.

“I am fucking crazy..” He muttered to himself, sinking down to his bed. For once Gerard wished he hadn’t stopped using drugs, he could have at least used them as an excuse for seeing these hallucinations. He rubbed his hands up his pale face and then down through the tangles of his messy short mane. His usual handsome self looked to be in a disheveled state brought on by weeks of nights where he was barely able to find sleep. A frustrated sigh passed his lips; Gerard just wanted this nightmare to end. He stole a glance around the room and then glared at the empty corner. “This is all your fault.” He got up from his bed, marching over to the spot. “Why can’t you just leave me alone?!” He wound his arm back and then threw his fist forward, but it didn’t connect with the shadowy figure he swore he saw there. His hand punched hard into the wall, and Gerard bit down hard on his lip to keep himself from crying out not wanting his parents to hear.

He cradled his injured fingers to his chest and leaned himself heavily against the wall. Gerard looked absolutely defeated, and let himself slowly slide down the wall into a hunched over sitting position on the floor. He closed his eyes tightly as he felt the sting of tears fill his eyes, from his pain, his frustration, his fear.

“Why can’t you just leave me alone?” He asked again, quiet this time. Broken. He stayed that way, hunched over, eyes squeezed shut as he concentrated on willing away the tears that wanted to gather. Gerard was content on staying that way until he was called to go downstairs for dinner, but his eyes snapped open, his whole body tensing up in shock when he heard a voice that didn’t belong to either his mother or his father.

“I’m sorry.”

Gerard lost his breath in his throat as he stared up in shock at the figure that now stood before him. He was going even crazier; he heard the thing speak. But even more shocking, the figure was solid. There always seemed to be a haze about it, pieces missing, but now it looked as real and existent as Gerard did himself. ‘It’ was a boy, a teenager, and if Gerard hadn’t recognized the likeness from the figure that had been appearing before him for weeks, Gerard would have thought some random kid had just intruded upon his room.

Torn jeans, socked feet, a simple black t-shirt; he just stood there gazing at Gerard with a sad, apologetic expression playing on his face. Dark brown hair fell loosely around his face, half shielding his right eye and a long scabbed up cut on the right side of his forehead. That dark hair and also dark angry bruises at the sides of the boy’s neck and arms contrasted greatly against his extremely pale skin. The pain of Gerard’s throbbing fingers was now forgotten as all he could find himself to do was stare. And stare he did for long drawn out moments before he was able to recover from his shock enough to speak.

“..You’re.. y-you’re sorry..?” Gerard stammered out quietly, not so sure if talking to this hallucination was really a good idea.

“You could hear me?” The boy’s expression turned ecstatic, “You can hear me?”

Gerard nodded slowly, the look on his face a mix of shock and uncertainty as he just kept his gaze locked on the boy. He was scared now, thinking he honest to god had to be insane. The boy, on the other hand, looked absolutely beside himself with excitement. “You can see me, and you can hear me? I haven’t been able to talk with anybody in.. I don’t know, it feels like forever. I know I’ve been getting you upset, but it’s just.. I’ve been alone for a real long time, I think.”

“Okay.. I don’t know what you are, but you’re not real. You. Are. Not. Real.” Gerard squeezed his eyes shut for a few seconds before slowly peeking them open, hoping with every fiber of his being that the boy would be gone. No such luck though, as the boy still stood in place looking down at Gerard now with a frown on his face.

“But I am. You just couldn’t always see me and hear me I think because I’m dead,” he chewed on his bottom lip a bit, looking off a little unsure. “Well, I think I am.. Yeah, yeah, I’m pretty sure.”

A ghost? A spirit? This unbelievable possibility had crossed Gerard’s mind a few times in his countless hours of contemplating his sanity. He never believed in this paranormal bullshit, but now a part of him seemed to grasp on to this chance, a part of him suddenly wanted to believe now with every fiber of his being. After all, if this spirits and ‘other side’ nonsense was real, then he wasn’t crazy.

“So, you’re dead..” Gerard slowly pushed himself up onto his feet, ever so cautiously walking around the boy, making sure he stayed out of arm’s reach as he passed him, then slowly sitting himself down on his bed. “So is there like really a God and heaven and stuff then?”

The boy shifted his feet to turn in a circle so he stayed facing Gerard as he moved around him. “How am I supposed to know?” He shrugged helplessly. “I’ve always been here.”

“Why in my room? Why can’t you just leave?”

“It was my room once. And I wish I could go, but I can’t.” The boy frowned.

“Why not?”

“I just.. can’t.”

“Did you.. Did you die in here?”

“Yeah, I think so. I just.. I can’t remember how.”

This was the most bizarre conversation Gerard had ever been a part of. A conversation with a maybe ghost or a maybe mind loosing hallucination. And the fact that he was speaking calmly throughout this little bout of interaction scared himself even more. “Okay listen kid, I’m sorry for whatever happened to you, but I can’t really believe any of this crap is real. But fuck I really wish it was, because I think I’ve gone insane here. I mean, how come my parents haven’t seen you?”

“I don’t know,” the boy looked quite helpless again. “The other people that lived here before you couldn’t see me either. I don’t know why you can.”

“Listen, if you’re real you have to make them see you or hear you. Something. Anything.” Gerard begged. “They’re gonna end up sending me away to a nuthouse or something. I need to know I’m not crazy here, okay? Please, kid. If you’re real, please.”

“I’ll try,” the boy nodded, but he looked rather unsure if he’d actually be able to pull the request off. “I’m just not so sure that..” he paused in mid sentence at the sudden sound of a knock on the door. He and Gerard looked to it and soon Debra’s soft voice followed.

“Gerard sweetie, dinner’s ready.” The door began to slowly open and Gerard hoped to God that she hadn’t been standing there long enough to have heard him have a conversation with nothing. She stepped inside, and immediately the boy jumped in front of her, waving his hands in front of her face. Debra was unfazed though, the boy going unseen as she merely looked to her son smiling softly. “Your father made spaghetti and meatballs.”

“Oh, that sounds good..” Gerard tried to keep his gaze from slipping to the boy, who had moved to one of the bedroom walls and started pounding on it with his fists. Gerard heard the sound being made clear as day, but his mother hadn’t even flinched as the start of the sudden banging began.

“Well, come on then while it’s hot.” Debra motioned for them to leave together, and Gerard felt his hope crumble. She couldn’t see, she couldn’t hear.. he was crazy. He looked to the boy when his mother turned her back to leave and saw him now desperately trying to pick something up from his desk. The boy’s fingers simply slipped through the objects like they were only merely projected holograms. All hope that he was still in his right mind was lost, that is until Gerard saw the boy manage to swat over a glass of water that had been set down on the middle of the desk. Debra jumped a bit at the sudden clink noise the glass made when hitting the wood. She looked back and immediately spotted the spill on the desk, the water slowly spreading out over the surface. “Oh goodness, how did this happen..?”

“I don’t know. I’ll clean it mom. I’ll be right down.” Gerard gathered up a great wad of Kleenex from the tissue box on his nightstand and quickly started to sop up the liquid with it, unable to keep himself from stealing a quick glimpse at the boy who stood beside him with a triumphant grin plastered on his face.

“Okay, just get it all quick before it reaches those computer wires.”

“Uh huh..” She left, and Gerard stopped mopping up the water, really not giving a damn about cleaning it up at the moment. He quickly moved to shut his door and looked to the boy, hope again brimming in Gerard’s eyes. “So, you really are real?”

“I am.”

“And, I’m not crazy?”

“You’re not.”

“So.. I’m just being haunted by a ghost?” A short chuckle left Gerard’s lips at the absurdity of this. It was the only thing that made sense now. He wasn’t just imagining. His mother heard and saw the result of the boy’s action. There was no way that glass could have just knocked itself over like that.

“I guess you are,” the boy let out a soft chuckle of his own. “Sorry I’ve been scaring you and making you think you’re crazy. I didn’t mean to.” He hesitantly stuck out his hand, “I’m Frank.”

Notes

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