Bella had already been buried for half a week by the time news of her death had reached Poe. His Winnipeg coat jacket he’d bought was stuffed full with a dozen fridge magnets, and it was only when their Volkswagen Mini had secluded back into the driveway of their family home did Poe’s parents feel the time was right to tell him.
He kicked and screamed and rushed out to her grave to grieve, which was not far from the place Poe had marked where the two would begin and start a family. In an instant the life he’d envisioned with her had just dissipated into thin air, and he felt his first brush with the cold chill death pass him by as he reached for her beloved.
The elder Wattersons were reluctant to discuss the gruesome details, but Poe was able to gleam out the truth from old newspapers that had been left in a stack since their departure. Bella’s killer had turned out to be a man called Tatum, who had previously worked in Bella’s middle school as a janitor before being discharged over his sadistic and contemptuous nature which had come to light after attacking one of the teachers over some perceived slight. He had also at one point starred in the school’s play rendition of To Kill a Mockingbird as the villainous Bob Ewell, and there were whispers that perhaps he'd gotten a little too far into his role if he was willing to gun down a real life Scout in Bella.
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Once he was brought before the Judge, Tatum countered that he was not at fault for Bella’s death since she was dressed in such dark colours that she blended into the surroundings. Any skilled huntsman would’ve made the same mistake he had once someone runs across a heavily wooded area dressed in dark furs and a platypus hat.
The Judge agreed, but the town court of his town peers did not, and ran him out of town the moment the gavel had sounded and he was once again a freeman.
Poe hated that the townsfolk had gone and done a perversion of justice. His justice. In the future, he would've wanted the chance to kill Tatum with his bare, little hands.
He wasn’t content either to hold onto her fridge magnets either. Some were given out as a gift for friends who'd asked, but most of them stayed in the attic, locked up with little league baseball trophies and souvenirs from less than idyllic places the Wattersons had been before. The only memory he’d kept of her was the stubbed ticket for the Zombie flick he decided to watch a week after her death. He’d gone back and forth over it, but decided he would finally go and see it and not let Bella’s spirit wander over him until he’d finally fulfilled his promise of seeing it with her. He wanted to run out at time, cover his eyes and start screaming, but he chose to stay through it, for her sake. He kept the stubbed ticket afterwards, and left the theatre and a new interest in all things horror and the undead.
