Creep
Sour Milk Story Series
Creep by Tim W.
Summer 2025
“Tell my mom we got this at a club.”
These are the last words she will ever speak.
She’s dying.
On a carpeted bathroom floor in her aunt’s partially-finished basement, she’s dying.
The shower is running, a vain attempt at revival, and she’s dying.
He attempts CPR, believes he feels a pulse, but he’s not sure.
She’s dying.
For a couple days they consume an over-the-top cocktail of illicit substance, threading the needle of up and down so that the celebration never stops. Cocaine, counterfeit Xanax, and alcohol for her, all of the above and powder fentanyl for him.
He isn’t supposed to be here. Up until now, their domestic life has been constrained to the home of his parents, an eighty-something couple who insist that she be out before bedtime. She moved into the odd layout of her aunt’s basement two days ago and he’s been laying low inside ever since.
He’s a good-looking kid, well-dressed and with a thick head of brown hair that seems to effortlessly fall into place across his brow. His five o’clock shadow adds to the “not-trying” facade, providing contour to his prominent jawline.
He’s nearly six feet tall, slim, not muscular, and his face carries the disaffected vibe of a free spirit, someone that’d be fun to talk to.
Upon closer inspection, his expensive clothes look slept in, dusty, and bear the cauterized holes of butterfinger-ed cigarettes and fumbled glass pipes. The contour of his jaw is due not to a confident nature, but to the sunken hollows of his cheeks, years of poison carving away the full face of his youth.
He’s slim because he forgets to eat.
He’s trying to get pressed Xanax (bromazolam, an analog of alprazolam, the sedative compound found in prescribed Xanax) in bulk, make some money selling them. Otherwise, he subsists off of his parents’ donations.
He’s nearly forty years old. Not quite a “kid”, I guess.
She is in her twenties, an aspiring singer and the light of her mother’s life. Her father killed himself when she was young, and so it has been just her and mom for most of her life. They are close, and mom believes that there are no secrets between them. Mom believes that daughter never used a hard drug until she met this guy. I think mom is correct.
In the two days after the move, she uses more Xanax than he thought was humanly possible. He’s surprised by her tolerance, impressed even, and only becomes concerned when she appears to blow out her knee during an intoxicated fall. Concerned, a little, but mostly annoyed.
She begs him for fentanyl, but he denies the request. He was in this exact situation once before, several years ago. That time, he acquiesced, and woke up the next morning to find his girlfriend dead at his side.
She’s out of control, saying strange things. He believes she tore her ACL, and she has trouble walking. She keeps on dancing, though, hobbling around and singing despite the damage.
He emerges from the shower to find that she has removed the fentanyl from his “stash”, a toiletry bag that he made no effort to conceal. He thought his “no” would be barrier enough to stop her from taking any fentanyl.
As he exits the bathroom, she is standing on the bed, her arms held out to the side as if she were preparing for crucifixion.
Maybe she was.
She holds a “trash can” in her hand- a thumbnail-sized transparent purple container with a flip-top lid- holding the innocuous white powder that will be her demise.
“Tell my mom we got this at a club”, she says, before lifting the can to her nose and inhaling.
This final hit takes the bones out of her frame.
She loses structure and topples to the floor.
He tries to wake her up, drags her into the bathroom where he turns the shower dial to “cold”. He has trouble with the drag, but manages to get half of her body into the cold stream. It’s no use- her central nervous system is shutting down, failing to maintain all of the vital involuntary functions that we might sometimes take for granted.
He has more xanax in the pocket of his expensive pants, and the water transforms them into a white sludge. He drags her to the bathroom floor and begins what he believes is CPR. He’s done this before, “many times”, and believes his lifesaving skills to be proficient.
They are not.
At one point, she opens her eyes, and he believes he sees recognition in her look. He believes he feels a pulse.
At one point, she was alive.
He phones a friend, a seemingly responsible adult who works for the federal government. She cannot understand anything he says. He is crying and saying that he fucked up, but she cannot decipher exactly what he wants.
She texts him to call 9-1-1.
He does not.
He texts another friend, another government employee.
“Bring narcan now”.
Friend #2 is at work. As such, Friend #2 texts and advises him to call 9-1-1.
He does not.
Instead, he texts his mother and asks for money over CashApp. Mother complies.
Still no call.
Instead, he sends Mother’s donation to the man who supplied him with the fentanyl that just killed his girlfriend. The man arrives at the aunt’s house an hour or so later, leaving after a few minutes.
She is dead, now.
She had a pulse.
And now it is gone.
Her eyes opened.
And now they will never see again.
He waited over an hour to call for professional help.
When the timer started, she was alive.
And now she is not.
This is HIS story, the best he could conjure to absolve himself of legal blame. I am certain that there is more to it. If I’m wrong, if his recollection is true and accurate, it’s still despicable.
He admits that emergency personnel, professional lifesavers, may very well have kept her in this realm.
He didn’t want to burden the system with something he felt he could handle on his own. Lesson learned. Next time.
He wasn’t supposed to be at the aunt’s house, and wished to avoid the awkward situation of having police and firemen showing up. Bullet dodged. Face saved.
He doesn’t have the best relationship with law enforcement, and thought that he could avoid a little discomfort if he kept them out of it. He’s aware that our state has a law preventing the prosecution of a person that calls in an overdose, but knew that we would take his drugs in the process. He thought he could have his cake and eat it, too.
He’s furious when I ask him if he feels responsible for her death.
“What kind of fuck shit is that to ask someone? What about ME?”
I explain that the question of personal accountability may be the only question that truly matters, the only one for which he must search for answers. The addiction cannot claim full responsibility for this, cannot cover the cost of the calculating and scheming that led to an hour-plus delay in calling for any real help.
Instead, he debriefs his tactics- should’ve had narcan, should’ve done a better job hiding the fentanyl, “next time I’ll…” and “at the end of the day, she’s an adult”.
“Of course I’m sad, but…”
Addiction is a small part of this equation. There is something darker here, sinister and predatory, multiple dead girlfriends and him without a scratch. Worse, it appears that he introduced this one to the briefly-lived lifestyle that killed her.
It’s fucking vile.
The lesson is there, vivid, about the dangers of no self-reliance and a lack of personal accountability, but I take a few days before I choose to see it. I don’t want to move past my disgust at this mewling shadow, he who gambled with her life, who watched the bright spot of a mother’s life as she faded away on a carpeted bathroom floor. He who bought more or paid off a debt before calling to have her body removed from the house. He who has lost two prior girlfriends to overdose, one of them under almost identical circumstances. He who had the audacity to be indignant when asked if he felt remorse, who will not accept responsibility for his actions and inaction.
He who could have done something.
He who could have said he’s “sorry”.
Her mother has never heard from him. He did not attend her funeral. Understandable, I guess.
Understandable, but not acceptable.
I’ve talked to him for hours, dancing the dance and exploring the depths of his twisted perspective, searching for the contrast, the flame that will illuminate the meaning behind this tragedy.
I don’t find it with him. Perhaps it’s not there, or perhaps I’m not yet skilled enough at the search. If he cares, I’m unable to sense it, despite wanting to, despite desperately grasping for a semblance of remorse or redeemable.
I find remnants of a spark in videos sent to me by her mother- short clips of her, singing, smiling, happy, alive, snapshots of a joyful capability, of potential.
I find the inferno in my discussions with mom, whose enduring love for her daughter and best friend are the heartening dawn of this dark affair, the life-changing lesson brought on by this tragedy.
“Please bear with me. I made notes so I wouldn’t forget anything.”
This is her first time hearing from me. She knows my last name and title, but has never seen my face. The investigation was passed to me when the assigned detective left the unit, but I have been familiar with it- invested in it- since its inception.
I know that Mom is interested in our progress. I know that it is important to her that we know who her daughter was in life, who her daughter continues to be in her memory.
I am less certain about what Mom is actually searching for in a conversation with the detective investigating her daughter’s passing.
Mom’s daughter has been dead for nearly a month. No charges have been placed on the man who she was with when she died, the man who procured the drugs that killed her, the man who neglected to make the call that may have saved her life. The man who watched her die.
He’s been interviewed. Several times, in fact. I don’t believe that he tells the full story, that he doesn’t omit significant truths. I don’t believe that there’s anything he wouldn’t do to defer his guilt. I understand the self-preservation, but believe Mom’s closure should outweigh his survival instinct.
I press the green telephone icon and prepare to enter the dance.
Mom answers on the third ring and it is clear that she has not saved my number. Maybe she never had it. Her voice is unsteady and somewhat breathless, uneasiness adding a barely-shrill undertone to the pitch and roll of her speech. It invokes a profound sadness, a tenuous grasp on hope, slippery hope, the cadence a series of reeling, frictionless footsteps on an icy path. Her words seem carefully sequenced in an effort to avoid an emotional avalanche, but still rush to jumble together at the end of her sentences all the same.
I introduce myself and ask her if she has time to talk. She’s connected to the car’s bluetooth and is unhappy with the sound quality, so asks me to hold while she figures out how to turn it off. I listen to a series of clicks and bumps as she shifts around in the driver’s seat, searching for the correct digital sequence to engage a more direct verbal contact.
Once she’s switch to handset only, she requests a call back, has just pulled into the driveway with a car full of groceries and it is nearly 100 degrees outside. She’ll take the groceries into the house and call me back once she’s settled.
I’m aware of the heat because I’m walking while I talk, barefoot in the burned late-summer grass of my front and back yard. Today is my day off.
Sort of.
I’m free all day, and begin to tell her as much, but the raincheck request is forgotten as soon as it’s spoken. She flows straight from groceries in the car to the beginning of the conversation, and the next hour or two are spent pacing the yard, sweating, searching for the darkest corners of this thing and testing the limits of what Mom can handle.
I explain who I am and what my role is, mindful to avoid the sterility of phrases like “case”, “investigation”, or “victim”, easy words that used too often risk implying apathy, callousness, or “just a number” mindset. At the same time, I am mindful to speak truthfully, sugarcoating my phrasing as little as possible, and use words like “dead”, “death”, and “addiction”.
I’m professionally responsible for finding out what happened to her daughter.
I’m professionally responsible for holding the person(s) responsible for her daughter’s death as accountable as the law will afford.
I’m morally responsible for doing whatever is in my power to help her find peace.
The preamble finished, the parameters set, Mom asks the first in a long series of questions.
“Please bear with me. I made notes so I wouldn’t forget anything.”
“Please bear with me” while I ask you for details of my daughter’s death.
“Please bear with me” while I consult the gut-wrenching notes that I wrote when a question popped into my head.
Please, guy walking in his yard surrounded by everything he could ever ask for, please excuse this minor inconvenience.
I can hear the unmistakable crackle of unfolding paper, the sound sharp and prominent as it’s singled out by the mic of her phone. She’s not yet walked inside, so I assume her notes must travel with her, the running list of unanswered questions on standby in a pocket so that she’s ready when an opportunity for answers might arise.
She went to a store and bought food and essentials with a sheet of paper on her that lists questions about her daughter’s death.
She wants to know if I’ve seen the videos she sent to the first detective, videos that show her daughter singing along to her favorite pop songs. She wants me to know how vibrantly full of life her daughter was, how she lit up the room, and how she lit up Mom’s life. She wants me to know about her daughter’s aspirations, her hopes and dreams and where she thought her life was heading. Mom has fully accepted that Daughter is gone, that her body is no more, but speaks of her with a vigorous joy that causes me to doubt what I know to be fact. Could this person truly be gone when Mom speaks of her so presently, with such life? I sense very little energy is wasted on regret.
She wants to know about the guy that her daughter was dating. She knows his name but had not yet met him before her daughter died. She wants to know about his life, his parents, and what he thinks about all of this.
The treads carefully on the boyfriend topic, knowing but not wanting to know. Mom instincts describe this guy before I tell her, knows what he did and didn’t do, what he could have done. She doesn’t avoid him altogether, but palpably steels herself for the answers to the questions he raises.
She believes that she is prepared to hear the truth about what happened.
And I acquiesce.
I tell her everything I know, clarifying what is factual, what I was told, and what is merely conjecture. I tell her about the alleged drug use, the cocaine, the pressed Xanax, the fentanyl. I tell her about boyfriend’s alleged attempt at resuscitation, about his delay in calling 9-1-1. I summarize my interviews with him, his statements, and his attitude, coupled with and corroborated by what I’ve learned from digital data so far.
I share my experiences with this type of death, the things I’ve been told by grieving parents, and explain the risky nature of allowing her healing to hinge on man’s attempt at justice. I am honest about the posture of our current prosecutorial body, relaying the oft-brutal path that’s walked by the vengeful and toothless, those who seek retribution and are forced to depend on another to deliver it.
I am eager to give an answer to end all of her questions, and nearly naive enough to believe I can do it.
I can’t stop her pain, and don’t want to. That belongs to her, hard-earned and paid for by all the love she poured and pours into a child that she will never see again. I have no right to stop it, but maybe I can staunch the bleeding, provide some small measure of comfort in the form of honest dialogue.
I can’t make her forget, and wouldn’t dare to. But maybe I can bridge the gaps in the circuit, close the loops with factual information to dampen the noise of a racing and creative mind. For mom, uncertainty has bred a monster that has haunted her with shadows, with whispers of what might have been. Perhaps if I drag the monster into the light, the shadows of her imagination will disappear.
This is the dance.
A deadly-serious tightrope over an ocean of despair. A dialogue that I have no inherent right to, my authority on the topic limited by the impossibility of sharing her every experience and thought. Her life and experience are fictional to me. I know that she is real, that her daughter died, and that she is sad about it, but am unable to experience it in the way that she is experiencing it.
Simply put, I am not her, cannot be, and so the limited authority I have to discuss her anguish in a meaningful way is granted only by a willing exposure to the black and twisted darkness of her present condition. In order for my words to be received, they MUST be genuine. They must be FELT. To do this, I have to FEEL some semblance of what SHE feels.
My heart must remain open, lest I lose the thing that convinces me that I’m truly alive- the ability to connect, to care, and to feel.
I think I understand the risk of being pulled into a blackness from which there is no end. Most of the courage I have to plumb these dark corners flows into me from the tethers formed of the love of my wife and son, of their belief in me and vice versa. Strongly anchored in the warm light of their love, I am free(er) to stare into the cold ebon of the abyss.
Sometimes the dance is so immersed in darkness that to light it would be blinding, out of place, harmful. Hatred, despair, shame and revenge have hardened the hearts of some to such a degree that empathy and compassion are unable to find a way in, the love inside relegated to some sealed chamber to protect it from the lightless inferno that rages all around it.
Some hearts are different.
Mom’s heart is different.
She knows hatred, rage, and what it is to wish death on another. She doesn’t deny having these feelings about the boyfriend, but tries to feel them at their fullest, not allowing them to conspire in dark corners to overcome the miraculous privilege that it was to raise and know her daughter.
In fact, she spends an hour every morning in deep thought, sitting through the maelstrom of these negative emotions to prove to them that SHE is in control. She won’t dishonor her daughter’s philosophical memory by throwing her own life away on a rage that will never be satisfied. She looks the inferno in the eye to rob it of its power.
She knows what it is to hate him, but she will not hate him. She will not dwell on his harm or discomfort. She’s not afraid to, and the concept isn’t foreign to her, but rather an affront to her daughter’s memory, to what her daughterMs spirit represented in her short time on this Earth.
Her morning work is directed at moving through these feelings to the healing on the other side of them.
She proves that we can choose.
That we can feel without reaction.
That we are not merely slave to impulse.
Every morning it gets a little easier. Easier to see clearly her daughter’s face, her impact, and her soul. Easier to ignore the poisonous call to heed emotions that don’t serve her.
Easier to heal.
She hasn’t given up. If he can be prosecuted, she supports it. We agree that the responsibility for his legal accountability will be mine and mine alone. I held him to a moral standard when I had the opportunity, and for this she is grateful. As a result, several conversations later, she reports that her morning routine is a little shorter.
Her example stays with me, that of the awe-inspiring power of a mother’s love, how, wielded, it holds the potential to shed light on the darkest that humanity has to offer.
Of those that death has left behind, I’ve witnessed so many torn apart, all that “was” burned away by the inferno.
Her daughter’s death seems to have inspired not resentment or hate, but gratitude and love. I’m sad for her loss, but happy for her, grateful to have crossed paths with such wisdom and grace, and inspired by what her example might mean for the human condition.
Tim W. is a police officer in the mid Atlantic region.
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