Andrew Klavan - Empire of Lies

There it was again-that light. She got a longer look at it this time. It was the beam of a flashlight. It traced an erratic arc up out of the earth, then over some branches, then across a stretch of dirt road until, for a moment, it was a bright disc shining right at her from-she didn't know-not far, maybe twenty yards away.

Serena lifted her hand and almost shouted out. But quickly, she thought, Oh, that's real bright, Serena, because what if this was, in fact, the guy with the butcher knife who tortured women in his cabin? What if, in fact, just like in the horror movies, he'd already killed the boys one by one as they tried to scramble over the ground and get away from him? She knew it probably wasn't really the horror-movie guy-she wasn't stupid-she was just afraid it might be him or something else bad. Anyway, why would the regular guys-her guys-be wandering around this swamp with a flashlight? That didn't make any sense either.

She thought of turning on the car's headlights so she could see the road, but then that struck her as stupid, too. If there was some kind of bad guy out there, the headlights would lead him right to her. She had gotten a glimpse of the road when the flashlight swung over it. She had seen that it was a broad path, more than wide enough for a car. She thought if she went forward carefully, she could keep to it, keep away from the water and the snakes and frogs, and get to a place where she could make sure the flashlight belonged to her friends or to someone else who was all right.

Serena nerved herself with a big breath. She inched forward along the side of the car, keeping her fingertips on it the whole time. When she got to the front of the car and had to leave it behind, it was terrible, a terrible moment. She could barely take her hand off the hood, could barely force her feet to keep moving. It wouldn't have been so bad, she thought, if it wasn't for the frogs. They were so loud and slimy-sounding. And it sounded as if there weren't just frogs out there, either. It sounded as if there were animals growling, too, and other things she didn't even know the names of, or want to know. Also, she thought, it wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the shapes of the trees like phantoms watching her, and the silhouettes of the branches like grasping fingers. And it wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been so dark, too dark to see even two steps ahead of her, even by the light of the pale quarter moon.

But somehow she managed to keep going, to keep sliding her feet forward ever so carefully over the packed dirt, farther and farther away from the car, deeper and deeper into the darkness until-there it was!-the flashlight again, and not that far away now, not far at all. In fact, now, she could keep it in sight as she moved toward it. That gave her more courage. Another few sliding, cautious steps, and she heard voices-male voices. She was almost sure it was her friends. That gave her even more courage. She took another few steps. And now she heard the words:

"Just forget it."

It was Jamal's voice. What a relief! The tension flooded out of her with a sigh. She put her hand to her chest and her small shoulders sagged and her eyes fluttered upward: Whew! Now she felt much better, much more confident. As she came forward another step or two, she even started rehearsing the shit she was going to give the boys for abandoning her in the car like that, scaring her crazy like that. You don't just do that to someone, she was going to say. You don't just leave them out in the middle of a fucking swamp like that, assholes.

But then she saw them.

She saw the white boy first, the boy she'd been dancing with. The flashlight was right on him, right on his face. He was kneeling in the shallow swampwater with his head hanging down and his hands clasped together in front of him. Serena didn't understand what she was looking at for a second, but then she did. Because then she saw Jamal. The flashlight touched him, too. He was standing right behind the white boy. His arm was lifted straight out. He was pointing a gun at the back of the white boy's head.

The other four boys were all around, shadows hulking on every side of the kneeling boy-like forest ogres, Serena thought-with the quarter moon looking down on them through the silhouetted branches. The water came up over the boys' shins. Serena could hear them slosh as they moved. And she could see that one of them-she didn't know which one-had a knife. A big, horrible hunting knife. He kept jabbing it at the white boy's clasped hands and his face. The silvery blade would flick into the light, gleaming, and then dart back into the darkness.

Serena gasped-and then she clapped her hands over her mouth to keep the sound in so they wouldn't hear her. The frogs were so loud-there were so many millions of frogs and their belches were so constant, so incredibly loud-that she hoped they covered any noise she might make. But she could hear the voices of the boys, their low, murmuring voices and the sloshing sounds they made when they moved. They seemed almost to be part of the swamp noises, like the million frogs.

"You think you did something? You think you gave us trouble? We didn't even lose a wink of sleep," Jamal said. He was trying to sound high and sneering, Serena thought, but she could hear him choking back his rage. "You didn't do anything, and now look at you."

The white boy didn't answer. He kept his hands clasped in front of him. His eyes were closed and his lips were moving. He was praying, Serena thought. She could see his hands twisting together fretfully. His whole body was shivering.

"Fuck you-tell me!" Jamal yelled suddenly. The rage was suddenly thick and ragged in his voice.

The kneeling boy went on praying silently. Jamal growled and whacked him with the gun. He whipped the barrel across the kneeling boy's head. It made a ripe, hollow sound. The boy grunted and tilted over, splashing as he reached down into the water to brace himself against a fall.

Serena wanted to cry out. She wanted to scream at them, Stop it! Stop it! What are you doing to him? But she was so scared, it felt as if the fear had dissolved all the energy inside her, all the will. She couldn't scream. She couldn't do anything but stand there and stare with her hands pressed to her mouth.

And then Jamal said, "Do it," and they killed him-they killed the white boy as he leaned over with his hand in the swampwater. The boy with the knife grabbed the white boy's short blond hair, yanked his head up, and drove the hunting knife into his throat with terrible force. He ripped the blade to the side, dragging it free. Serena saw pieces of the white boy fly out into the air through the flashlight's glow. She saw black blood gout from him and splatter in the water. The white boy made a sick, gurgling sound. The boy with the knife flung the white boy aside, and the white boy pitched face-first into the water with a splash. The million frogs went silent. Everything was silent all around them. There was only the sound of the white boy convulsing and thrashing in the water. The water flew up, drops winking silver in the moonlit night. Then the boy subsided and sank down so that only the ballooning back of his shirt showed at the surface. The other boys hulked over the sunken body like forest ogres. The million frogs began to belch and croak and mutter again. The quarter moon went on watching through the branches. The phantom trees stood guard.

A moment before, Serena couldn't scream. Now the scream was forced out of her. She shuddered and bent forward with the thrust of it rising from her belly. She hugged her belly and the scream came retching out. Only at the last second did she cut the sound off, fight it down, but still, a high syllable of it broke out of her, out of her open mouth.

The boys heard it. They froze where they were standing shin-deep in the swamp. They cocked their heads, listening.