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They called him the mad dog. Garraty never really understood why they called him that, maybe because he was like a madman, or maybe because he liked to bark at people.
Ever since he was little, Gary Barkovitch was the weird kid.
The boy dressed strangely, his clothes never fit him right. He wore clothes that either wrapped tightly around his skinny frame, or clothes so large that it threatened to drown him
He talked with an accent that sounded southern, which Garraty found strange, but at this point it was the most ordinary part about the boy.
Garraty never saw him at school. Considering that Pownal was a fairly small town with a single school, it was puzzling.
Garraty doubted if the boy even went to school.
The other kids picked on him a lot, they would bark at him, and he would do it right back.
Some threw stones, some insulted him, yet none of it seemed to bother him.
Garraty was fascinated with the boy, not just because he acted strange, but because he was beautiful.
Behind all the dirt and grime, his face was covered in all the time, he had an almost angelic face, he looked as pretty as a girl, but not quite a girl.
His dirty blonde hair, and blue eyes fit his pale skin infuriatingly. Gary's smile made Garraty feel all warm inside, the boy's toothy grin was the most beautiful thing that Garraty ever saw.
Of course, no one knew what he looked like aside from Garraty because they never gave him a chance to, well, to do anything.
Gary would sneak into Garraty's room, his skinny body squeezed through the gap because his window never really shut properly, and they would talk for hours.
They would lay together in Garraty's tiny twin sized bed, their small bodies squeezed together. Sometimes they faced each other, sometimes their backs were against each other's.
Gary had an abusive father, an alcoholic mother, and a grandmother who never seemed to remember him. Gary liked to call his grandmother, "meemaw" for some odd reason.
Garraty had a happy family, his parents were loving, and he even had a good school life.
They were practically opposite of each other, but that was exactly what drew them closer.
As the years went by, they grew apart, of course they talked everyday, but the talks were practically meaningless now.
Garraty had a girlfriend now, her name was Jan, and she was all Ray could talk about.
Ray would go on and on about how great she was, how pretty she was, and Gary, Gary was getting sick of it.
To rub salt on the wound, Garraty would also talk about Pete, his best buddy. Perhaps he forgot, because Pete was one of the kids who picked on him back in the day.
Nonetheless, Barkovitch stayed by Garraty's side, like an obedient dog.
Even though he was getting beat up every day by his dad, he never told Ray. Even though his sick grandmother needed care 24/7, he never said anything. Even though he was working a full-time job at the gas station to support himself, he didn't ask for elp.
Why? You may ask, well, because he was scared, scared of telling his only friend that he was a failure, scared of being alone.
Behind the crazy act, Gary Barkovitch was in his adolescent years just like anyone his age, but he was carrying burdens not even people twice his age carried.
Gary tried to hold it all together but it all came crashing down. First, his grandmother died, not surprising since the woman was probably older than the universe itself, but the reaction it drew out of Gary was surprising.
The guy missed the nightly talk for the first time ever, and then missed it, again and again.
Gary became a ghost, not a glimpse of the guy was to be found.
So Garraty took matters into his own hands. Garraty decided to visit the guy, but the problem was that he didn't know where the guy lived.
At that moment, it dawned on Garraty of how little he knew about the guy. He didn't know when his birthday was, what he liked, and what he didn't like.
It was like he had been talking to a wall for 10 years, and he had no one to blame except for himself.
He asked around, and eventually found the guy's house. The house looked abandoned, almost haunted like.
He knocked three times, and waited, and waited, and waited. Nobody came to the door, and as Garraty waited, an eerie silence filled the air.
Garraty had patience, lots of it actually, but this wasn't the time for waiting, so he turned the door knob, and to his surprise it opened.
The door creaked open, and Garraty stepped inside. The air inside smelled rotten, like feces and rotten eggs.
Garraty dreaded what he was thinking, he really didn't want it to be what he was thinking about.
He walked around the house, and each step he took caused the floorboards to creak.
The closer he got the the living room, the worse the stench got.
Once he finally reached the living room, his heart plummeted. There on the floor, lay a face-down Barkovitch, seemingly dead.
"Barko?", Garraty called out, and as expected he received no answer.
He knelt down next to the guy, slowly as if he didn't want to wake him up.
With a trembling hand, he reached over and shook the guy gently.
The guy didn't move, and Garraty called out once more, "Barkovitch", his name now felt wrong in his mouth, like a jumble of random syllables.
He didn't want to believe it, Gary Barkovitch wasn't dead, he was sure of it, but as much as he wanted to believe it, he didn't, couldn't.
Turning the guy's body over, he was not so surprised to find him dead.
The blonde's pale face was covered in sickeningly purple blemishes. The bruises went all the way down to his neck, the hem of his shirt was the only thing preventing Garraty from seeing more.
His face looked peaceful, as if Gary Barkovitch was in a deep sleep, and as if he would wake up soon.
He hunched forward, burying his face in the crook of Barkovitch's cold neck, and he cried. Tears, snot, and drool mixed into a gross mixture, but Garraty couldn't care less.
He sat there hugging Barkovitch's cold corpse, his face still buried in the crook of the guy's neck.
Only when his tears were no longer able to come out, did he raise his head. The first thing he noticed was how destroyed the room looked.
Furniture were scattered on the floor like fallen leaves on an autumn morning. A fallen dresser, a table with 3 legs that used the corner as a 4th leg, a TV with a smashed screen, and a...book of sorts?
The book was at most 2 feet away from Garraty, at an arm's length.
With mild curiosity, he reached over and grabbed the book.
Once he started reading, he quickly realized that it was not a book, but rather a diary, Barkovitch's diary.
The last entry was dated the day before, and at that moment Garraty felt an indescribable sense of regret.
If he had been a day early, Barkovitch could have lived, or at least bid him a farewell.
He felt himself tearing up, but he could swear that they had just been dried up.
So he continued, flipping through the thick diary to the very first page.
The first entry was dated 11 years ago, the handwriting was messy, like that of a child, and because Barkovitch was a child at that time.
Garraty couldn't remember if they had met at that time, the more he thought about it, the more confused he got.
He described his day in the diary, his mom had taken him to the store to buy groceries, and she even bought him a chocolate bar, his favourite.
Garraty wondered if Gary was smiling while writing this, him kicking his little feet, and eating the candy with a toothy grin. And somehow, something so innocent made him want to throw up.
He read more, and more of the diary, and a few entries later, a boy named Ray was introduced. Gary described him as a boy with brown hair and eyes, and as his first ever friend.
In a few entries, Pete was introduced, he was described as a mean boy who called him a killer because he accidentally stepped on a cat, unintentionally ending the mammals life.
Then Collie was introduced, and then Stebbins, Baker, Olson, Abraham, and Scramm.
Gary mentioned a lot of things in the diary, some of which shocked Garraty. Gary described his struggles in detail, the kind of description that makes you sick.
A lump had formed in Garraty's throat, his eyes stinged with tears for the 3rd time, and Garraty kept on with it, reading his dead friend's diary like a some sick fucko.
Now, Garraty was on the very last page, still not having a clue about why Gary was dead.
Well, he did have some clue, around age 14 Gary started describing his father as an abusive person.
Perhaps, his father was the one who killed him. And Garraty wanted to feel angry, wanted to avenge his dead friend, but the truth was that even if he got revenge on the guy, it wouldn't bring Gary back.
Gary was gone, gone forever, and there was nothing Garraty could do about it.
Gary had already been a ghost long before he even met his end, and now, he was a cold corpse in the middle of his living room. Garraty just so happened to be the unfortunate fella to come across him.