Free The Bleeding Season by Greg F. Gifune

torn opening and pulled out an unmarked cassette tape.  I felt nothing else, so I peered inside the envelope.  It was empty.  “What’s this?”
    “His note,” Rick said.
    “He recorded it?”
    “He must’ve used that Walkman we found in his duffel,” Rick said.  “I remember seeing a Record  button on it.”
    I moved to a chair, sat down and put the envelope aside.  “You already listened to it?”
    “Rick has, I haven’t.” Donald sighed.  “I didn’t want to have to do this twice.”
    “There was nothing else in the envelope and the cassette’s unmarked,” Rick told me.  “I didn’t know what the hell it was until I listened to it.”
    I stared at the cassette, entranced and repelled at once.
    “When I heard Bernard’s voice I almost shit myself,” he said, drawing my attention to his slowly flushing face.  “When I heard what he had to say, I think I actually did.”
    Rick took the tape from my hand, walked it over to a stereo in the corner and dropped it into the cassette player.  Multicolored lights on the equalizer came to life, rising then falling quickly, accompanied by a loud and steady hiss.  The lights continued to dance as the hiss became breathing, and finally, the sound of Bernard’s voice.
    “If you’re listening to this…If you’re listening to this then it means I really did it.”
    He sounded different than I’d remembered, not just because on tape everyone’s natural tone is somewhat altered, but because he sounded hollow, like he was speaking to us from the bottom of a stone well.  I sat forward, hands together.
    “Rick, I sent this to you first because it seemed like the right thing to do.  I know you’ll listen to it, and I know you’ll make the right decision and share this with Donald and Alan.  No offense, guys, but if I sent the tape to either of you I’m not sure you’d tell Rick or even each other.  But I know you’ll do the right thing, Rick, you’re the chief.  You’re Warlord.”
    My eyes met Donald’s, then Rick’s.  The Warlord was the leader, the head Sultan  who ran our pseudo gang.  When Tommy was killed Rick had become warlord—a term we’d used somewhat jokingly, and one I hadn’t thought about in years, but it summoned the past in vivid terms, and I was relatively certain that had been Bernard’s intention.  Although toward the end he’d become a shell of what he’d once been, Bernard spent most of his adult life in sales, and like any good salesperson he’d been skilled at speaking to people and eliciting from them the responses he needed or wanted, a flair for manipulation, in terms less kind.  
    “I had the people at the mailbox place hold off and mail the package on a specific date,” he continued, his voice eerie and laced with a faint echo.  “I figured by the time you got this and listened to it you’d know I was…gone.  I’m sure you all have questions and confusion and you’re probably pissed with me for doing it, but…believe me when I tell you, guys, it was the best thing.  Rick, you probably think I’m a pussy—a coward, right?  That’s what you’re saying, anyway, but deep down, you know that’s not true.  And Donald, you’re just sad and bitter about it, while Alan, I’ll bet you’re all withdrawn and introspective, like always.  We’ve known each other too long, fellas, too long.
    “But it’s funny how even after all these years you find yourself wondering just how well you really know anyone.  Hell, we’ve all been tight since we were kids—been through a lot together—but we still have secrets, don’t we? All of us.  None of us are ever exactly, precisely what we claim to be, are we?  We’re one way with some people, another way with other people, maybe another way still when we’re all alone.  That’s what it boils down to, fellas.  At night, when you’re lying there in bed looking at the ceiling, remembering the day, thinking back through things you did and what