I have a plan to take down the Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline

CALL LOGS

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Every morning I wake up and look up at the sky, trying to count my blessings and remember why I?m still in God?s green earth.
At first the sky is empty. Then it seems overwhelming with a flock of birds.
Where there had only been one or two birds a few minutes ago there was now at least a dozen. I scowled at their beady eyes and their bobbing heads.
Then I get ready for work, and look at myself in the mirror. Touching my scar on the right side of face where I am blind in one eye, I remind myself I have a reason for still being alive.
That reason is to take down the Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline.
When I was hired and promptly placed at a desk by the window, I thought I had hit the jackpot. Instead, I got to watch birds **** on themselves in between calls. Talk about bleak. Why are there so many of them? And why do they look so...gross? I thought.
I hadn?t been able to place exactly what was wrong with the birds in my time here. I wasn?t a bird specialist by any means. I mean, I thought it was strange that the birds? spines looked twisted and that most of them looked like they were starving. I thought it was weird as hell that many of them lacked feathers entirely but? again, I?m not an expert.
I tried to shake off the bad feeling growing in my gut and started a little countdown in my head. 24 minutes until I can leave. But then the clock seemed to move backwards.
My phone rang just as my timer had 10 minutes left. I swallowed around the panicked lump in my throat.
Would answering calls from people so close to the edge ever get any easier? Would it make these minutes fly by?
?Thank you for calling Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline. My name is Troy, and I?m here today to help you get through tomorrow.?
There was some heavy breathing on the other end, and I could have sworn I heard a sinister giggle in the background. ?Thank you for calling Brighter Futures, my name is Troy Harte. How can I help you?? I tried again. Static. Giggling. Silence.
I gulped down the irritated sigh that threatened to escape.
?Harbingers are coming.? A voice interrupted me. I couldn?t tell if they were male or female. I wasn?t even sure I heard them right. ?Are you in danger?? I asked. The BFSH script didn?t cover all weird calls. ?You are. Locate the harbingers. Listen for the message.?
Click.
I stared at my phone for a second, trying to wrap my head around what I had heard. Harbingers? Messages? And did the caller really suggest that I was the one in danger?
But this call changed my life in more ways than one. A short time later Quality Assurance came by and reviewed our calls. A woman named Peggy called me into her office.
?You have done good work here, Troy. But simply not good enough,? she said in a sing song voice. The way she smiled made me sick. Was she the one making the birds sick?
?And I?m afraid you haven?t been entirely truthful about your reasons for working at this company?? she added.
She wasn?t wrong about that. Before I had been here in the Vermont branch, I was stationed in Emerald Bay.
That was where I had the first of several strange phone calls.
All of them of women screaming and shrieking and desperate for help. All relating to my dead ex-wife.
?We know you?ve been trying to uncover what happened to her,? Peggy said interrupting my thoughts.
?Wonder no more. You?re being put on suspension for two weeks and headed home.?
My mouth fell open. I felt a surge of emotions. Betrayal. Hurt. Desperation.
I logged out of the system and clocked out. I cleared out my desk for the next shift and tucked my company notepad into my assigned locker, switching it out for my cell phone. All the while, I was seething inside. I saw a coworker Theo, looking just as angry. Like he had just been kicked to the curb too.
?Downsized?? I guessed, offering a friendly nod.
?Replaced And Mister Price said I didn?t work here long enough to earn a check,? he snarled darkly as he slammed the locker door. I could hear the rumble of thunder outside. A storm was approaching.
?I spent every cent I had transferring here. And for what? To be threatened and laid off simply for asking questions?? Theo added.
I wasn?t sure which was more frightening. The roll of thunder or his demeanor.
?Good god, I don?t even have a way home to Emerald Bay. They took my car too, it was company issued,? he realized.
?We could carpool? I?m heading that way anyway,? I offered. He smiled in thanks.
As we walked to the parking garage I gave a nod and a charming smile to Elizabeth, a ridiculously pretty woman who worked third shift. She smiled back at me and hurried into the building; the women here didn?t like to be alone in the parking garage.
It made me wonder what had happened to spook them all so bad. I saw Mister Dally, my old floor manager stop her in the stairwell and berate her for another assignment. Then he glared at us, and it felt like his eyes were burning into my very soul. I realized he was staring at another group of individuals that were also departing. I remembered a few of them, and They looked like they were running from him.
I don?t remember much about leaving Paradise, except the continuous storm and the strange aura that was in the air. The sky was still full of birds. It was mesmerizing to watch them fly in and out of the darkness. The other corporate car was always just in front of us, the only light on that dark highway out of hell.
?We could make them pay you know. Warren, Peggy, even Mister Simon. All of the people that have risen to the top at Brighter Futures,? Theo said as he drove faster.
?I know a way. I worked in legal with Goldwaithe for a while, and I saw some things. Scandals that could bring the company down,? he added as he pat a white folder he had been clinging to. I said nothing. I didn?t want to admit that I had those same motivations. Because of what they did to her.
We took turns driving. As Theo drove I reviewed the files. The lightning storm was getting strong us. There were hundreds of records, photos. All pertaining to missing employees. Then I saw my wife?s photo amid the stack. The sky cracked to life. Theo glanced down as he drove. Something in front of us burst the road in two. A spear of lightning. It struck the car we had been tailgating.
?Watch out!!? I screamed as I reached across the console and swerved our vehicle.
?Holy ****,? he mumbled as he kept driving and he tossed me his cell.
?We should go back,? I told him. But Theo seemed to scared to do that. Like he was possessed he kept driving as I called in to 911. As I did so I looked up at the strange aura and realized that the birds were gone. Now all that was left was a rampaging cloudburst.
I drove all the rest of the way to the only motel in Emerald Bay (the seedy, roach infested ?suite? my home for the past few months) as Theo fell in and out of sleep.
The next day I went to the local branch, looking for answers. I had told 911 where the car had been headed and I figured since this was the closest place, someone here would know something about the wreckage. If not that, maybe I could learn more about the people who like Regina Brighter Futures had made disappear.
I tried first shift. There were no answers to be found amongst the dawdling elderly answering the phones that early. I scoped out second shift. So far in second shift I found myself grossly outnumbered by teenagers; none of whom had any sort of answer I was looking for.
Some were there because there were no other jobs in the town. Some wouldn?t say why they worked there. Most came and went so fast that I never even learned their names. Julio? Paula. Forgettable.
It felt hopeless. Then a voice reached into my thoughts.
?Hope springs eternal,? it whispered. I looked up and saw a janitor standing in front of me with bright spiky pink hair. Her name tag read Karen emblazoned with weird stars on the side.
?Third shift is where you hope to find your answers. Getting there is a problem, though. But you must find the harbingers. Lead them to victory.?
I was speechless and confused. But everything she told. made sense. ?I?ll put in a word for you,? she added in a hushed tone.
Management had been hesitant to hire me in the first place, given my previous history with Paradise, but they gave in eventually. I knew why of course. Karen.

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I was on a mission. Every day I would drive in, alone in the wee hours to get to work early. It shocking to see my 2000 Nissan (a real piece of **** in my mind) standing out amongst the other cars as newer and, probably, more functional. Every day fulfilling odd tasks for Karen who seemed to know the ins and outs of everywhere and everything.
Then, coming home; I would pause and reflect. The entire town was littered with broken down vehicles; some of which I hadn?t seen budge once since I moved into the Merry Motel. Every night I had to bang against the plywood with my shoulder as hard as I could to get the door to jostle open (I really wasn?t too worried about being robbed). I looked around as I always did before entering my room; making sure I hadn?t disturbed anyone with my violent entry was almost a waste of time, I hadn?t seen life outside of the blind front desk attendant since I arrived. I hustled into the room and slammed my body back against the door, wedging it closed. I turned to face the darkness and took a deep breath before flipping the only lightswitch in the room. The bug-filled fluorescent light buzzed gloomily many times before finally wheezing to life, illuminating the thousands of pictures I had taped and tacked to the yellowed walls.
Thousands of pictures of Gina stared back at me among the myriads of others. My funny, beautiful late wife. Her spirit haunted me. Taken too soon by? what? An evil corporation? Her deep, dark secret? The one I had helped her keep?
I went to the mini-fridge (the one I?d had to buy because the one originally in the room had been filled with maggots and mold) and grabbed a beer. It would be another long night of research, I just knew it. I walked past maps marked with important locations and dates, and no less than 200 printed articles that I had taped up alongside Gina?s smiling pictures. As I worked I began to make connections to other women. All of them strikingly similar to what had happened to Gina. Summer from Florida. Daphne from Serenity Falls. There was even one here in Emerald Bay. Hope Sparrow. What a funny name. My drunken brain just couldn?t make heads or tails of what it all meant.
My desk setup was elaborate. It almost entirely blocked my path to the small bathroom, but my research was more important than my comfort in this ****hole. The desk was nearly as wide as the bed, with two monitors on it. A printer was stationed on a lower desk shelf, and an expensive speaker system occupied the only other shelf.
I cracked open my beer and clicked on the video I watched every day. Every time I sat down to research Gina?s case, I watched this video. It was loud and grueling, confusing and painful. I had learned the first few days of setting up this whole system that I could turn the speakers all the way up if I wanted to: no one was around to hear.
No one was around to care.
The video started. The sound blaring through the speaker would have startled me into dropping my open beer on the keyboard had I not been so used to it by now
. There were hundreds of people talking and screaming in the background of the video; and thousands more micro-noises that told a horrifying story, like the crackling sound of fire, or the creaking sound of a building starting to collapse, or the tinkling sound of glass raining down on unsuspecting civilians. A face came into view on the screen. A young, fairly attractive, startled-looking newscaster. She was sweating in the heat of the fire raging behind her. The light of a tablet being held in front of her face lit up the terrified whites of her eyes. She kept glancing around as she watched the chaos unfold on screen. Angie Rice looked ready to run.
Rewatching the video gave me no answers. It just left me with the same old questions. Who had sent me the video? And why? And how? The destruction raging in the background would have been enough to destroy any evidence, especially with how close Angie?s crew had been standing as they watched the video of the flight?s last moments. And why had there been so many birds in the sky? They seemed to be circling the building. As though waiting to pick the flesh off the carcasses from any that were left behind.
I climbed around the desk and the bed to get back to the mini-fridge. I grabbed a handful of beer this time and sat back at the desk, cracking open the first one. I exited the video and on one monitor opened a document filled with my personal notes. On the other monitor I clicked over to the BFSH webpage.
?Brighter Futures Suicide Hotline: Here today to help you get through tomorrow.?
I snorted at the screen and quickly chugged my second beer. Even working at BFSH, even having saved the few lives I had on the job, I still thought that their motto was a crock of ****.
What had they done to save an entire branch of their company, after all? How had they helped my wife ?get through tomorrow?? Had they helped all these people by making them disappear?
All these things mean something and I think today at last the pieces are falling into place.
Today has felt? ominous. Foreboding.
As I looked toward the clear sky, I felt certain I would watch a plane come barreling towards my office. That would be exactly what I deserved for being so excited about a window seat in a suicide hotline center. For looking too deep into all of this. There are certainly no birds today to comfort me. Except the ones I see everyday out my small window.
I opened my third beer and clicked over to my favorite search engine. Speaking of window seats, why the **** did I have to watch sick birds **** all over each other every day? Their numbers were growing by the day, and they looked more and more sick every time I looked at them. Had they followed me from Vermont?
I thought about what type of bird it was that was haunting my work station before typing in my query. Sparrows piling up on windowsills. Thousands of results popped up and I glanced over the first few articles. They all claimed the birds were flocking to the building because of shiny windows, or shiny objects on the windowsill.
Both were wrong in this case. Every window of every building in Emerald Bay was far from shiny; covered in ancient grime from the decrypted town, there was no way the windows were attracting birds. And as for shiny objects, every BFSH building came equipped with a suicide net now. You couldn?t throw a cigarette over the edge of the roof (let alone a human body) or a shiny object to attract birds.
I had assumed there was some hole in the net that was allowing the birds in, and only right in front of my desk. How they got there didn?t mean as much to me as the why. The articles online just kept blaming reflections and shiny things-- wrong. I was getting bored with their repetitive answers until I hit the third page of results. There, nestled amongst the normal and expected answers, was a page I recognized. It was largely a conspiracy page, but it touched on a little bit of everything. It even touched on the BFSH plane crash. Others were spreading the news of this lie. Others like Hope Sparrow I realized as I saw her profile.
I chugged the last of my third beer and opened the fourth as the page loaded. The background was all black, the font was ridiculous and bright red. It honestly hurt my eyes to look at, but I had to see if even this off-kilter conspiracy page believed that birds could only flock to a building for two reasons.
Immediately, I saw that they didn?t. Reading these words unlocked all the missing pieces in my mind.
Sparrows are the harbingers of the dead.
When they gather in one place they are trying to pass on a message or a warning.
When an individual dies they are guided to their final spiritual grounds by the sparrows.
Sparrows are gods amongst us.
Sparrows possess the answers.
Sparrows guide us after the end.
Sparrows are the harbingers of the dead.
Heed their warnings. Listen for the message.
More passages sounded like they were written by deranged individuals. But yet everything I read made perfect sense.
As it turns out, a lot of ancient civilizations and cultures held the utmost respect for sparrows. They all believed that sparrows had everything to do with guiding the newly deceased.
Other passages related to the Bible.
the birds from heaven will gather together for the war of the great day of God Almighty
Then I looked up hundreds of pictures of sparrows. I could see that, even though the birds at work were starving and mutated, they were probably sparrows and I had guessed correctly.
I researched hundreds of bird illnesses. There are a lot out there. Enough to make me thank my mom for demanding I leave cool bird feathers where I found them in the park as I was growing up. I shivered as I looked over pictures of sick birds, broken birds, dead birds. Eventually I had seen and drank enough.
I turned off the computer and started walking with a purpose. Behind me Karen followed with the same pep in her step. Her demeanor didn?t seem so dangerous anymore. I forgot about everything she had ever done to me, including the time she nearly got me killed. It didn?t matter anymore. Nothing did.
We made it to the roof. The birds were circling the office the same way they did back in Salem.
The sky was crackling again with astorm.
Four women were standing there, right next to the edge of the building. I recognized their faces from my board. Daphne. Summer. Hope. The fourth I had never known her name, but she was clearly their leader. They were almost not there, fading in between light and dark as Karen boomed an order.
?Guide them. Take flight. The harbingers are here,? she ordered.

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The same nightmare plays out again and again in my mind. I could never escape the dream once it started no matter where I moved. I?m in the passenger seat of Gina?s old Dodge Caravan .
?Turn us back around,? I plead.
This part of the dream was wrong, though... I had never realized how drunk she was back then. ?I?m fine, Troy, ****. How many times do I have to say I?m fine?? Gina yelled. She got so angry when she drank. She drank all the time.
The inside of the car smelled like booze. She was out of control. I gripped the handle above my seat and tried to get her to turn around again. She wouldn?t listen. Instead she grabbed a bottle from under her seat and took a swig.
?We can?t go back. We can?t turn around. I?m fine. There is no going back, Troy!? I thought I could get her to listen. I thought if I begged her one more time?
She interrupted my pleading with an inhuman scream. She turned her eyes from the crackling sky to stare at me: her red-******, bloodshot eyes. She just kept screaming at me.
That little time was all it took. A heavily pregnant woman was on the side of the road, nearly hidden in the shadows. I saw her when Gina did, but it was too late. When Gina tried to swerve away from the woman, she drunkenly turned the wheel in her direction instead. I watched in slow motion as Gina?s face slammed into the wheel, breaking her nose and shattering her teeth. I watched in slow motion as the pregnant woman, my god she was at least 7 months along wasn?t she?, flew up and over the dented hood, bounced off the cracking windshield soaking it in her blood, and tumbled ass-over-belly several times in front of the still-moving car. Gina slammed on the brakes, finally, finally. She was hyperventilating. I ran to help the pregnant woman. Then I see those birds again. The ones I am staring at now in the sky over Emerald Bay.
?Leave her Troy, Leave all of them,? that?s Theo?s voice. Whispering dark truths into my ears. I had listened to him. I let this woman die. Her belly is bursting open at the side. I see four bulging egg like sacs dripping from her womb as strange creatures with wings like demons crawled out. It seemed like they were screaming for help.
I am walking backwards in the vision. But I?m truly pacing forwards, toward the edge where the women stand.
?Join them Troy, join all of them,? Karen encourages me.
I?m in the Dodge again. Regina is gone. Now the sisters that were likely that poor woman?s offspring are in the car with me. Telling me to go forward. Lightning hits the sky and my scar burns with awakened memories.
I realize that it was Brighter Futures that led me here. That made me believe I could stop them in the first place. All leading to this moment.
I take the hand of Hope Sparrow, her eyes shining like gold and silver. Then the other harbingers join me in a row of unity. Our feet are dangling off the side of the building. It wouldn?t take much for us to be pushed. Or to take a leap of faith.
?Take flight,? Karen tells us.
And I will. For this will be the way to stop Brighter Futures once and for all. To open the eyes of others. And to call forth the birds.
For I am become death.
And I will Guide them all into oblivion.
??????
this Suicide note along with several stacks of notes relating to BFSH were recovered as evidence by Detective Malevich on 10/11/19
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