Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

The spray dissipated, and soon Leif could again see past his nose. “We brought you a fire extinguisher so you could have a cold Cheerwine?”

“Yep, and I really appreciate it. You should both help yourselves to two of them. And I think you can take the dogs out. They’re probably ready.”

The longer they were with him, the more Leif became convinced that Ben wouldn’t, in fact, murder them. He removed the rake from the flame and handed it to Ben as Rex cracked open two cans and handed one to Leif.

“This really is the perfect temperature,” Rex said, wiping Cheerwine off his lips. “So, what do you know about the Whitewood School?”

Ben stopped chewing the first bite of hot dog he’d just taken directly from the rake.

“You should both grab a frank and join me in my quarters.” Ben rested the rake on a log before walking into the crude lean-to he’d built against the Tree.

Rex and Leif looked at each other before each grabbing a hot dog and walking underneath the branches. Following Ben’s lead, they sat cross-legged on the ground. It was a tight space. All their knees were touching.

“Since you did this noble act for me,” Ben said, “I consider you my friends. And as your friend, I would like to entrust you with my secret.”

Leif and Rex leaned forward.

“Last week, I escaped from the Whitewood School.”

Ben took a long sip of Cheerwine.

“You…escaped?” Leif asked, his eyes wide.

“What do you mean?” Rex asked. “What were you escaping from?”

“Death, I believe,” Ben said.

“What?” Leif was hit by a full-body shiver.

Rex didn’t want to believe his story, but since Ben was already defying all reasonable expectations by living in the woods and cooling down Cheerwine with a fire extinguisher, he found himself shaken. “Death? Come on,” Rex said.

Ben unwound the bloody bandage on his hand and showed them what was underneath. “Look.”

Leif and Rex both felt queasy as they stared at a deep, still partially open wound traversing Ben’s palm. “Oh my gosh,” Leif said, covering his mouth. “They did that to you at the school?”

Ben nodded solemnly.

“You should go to a hospital, man,” Rex said.

“I can’t. I can’t go anywhere.”

“Okay, okay, hold on a second.” Rex held his hands up in the air, more terrified than he wanted to admit. “What grade are you in? Maybe you went to Whitewood, but I don’t remember you from our school before that. Do you, Leif?”

Leif examined Ben carefully. “I don’t think so.”

“I’m supposed to be entering ninth grade. But you wouldn’t know me because I was homeschooled.”

“So if you escaped,” Leif said, “why don’t you go back home?”

“Because my dad will just send me back to Whitewood.” Ben began to slowly wind the bandage around his hand.

“Not if you tell him they tried to kill you! And, like, cut your hand and stuff.”

Ben looked deep into Leif’s eyes. “He wouldn’t believe me. The reason he sent me to the school in the first place was because of my…exaggerations.”

“Huh,” Rex said. He knew that Ben might just be a pathological liar, but Rex’s highly sensitive BS meter was telling him otherwise, and there was something exciting about that, too. Horrifying, but exciting. He needed to be sure, though. “Wouldn’t Whitewood report you missing?”

Ben laughed. “He’d rather get me back there without having to explain anything.” He lowered his voice, suddenly serious again. “I’ve got no idea how deep this thing goes, but I know there are other adults in town helping him look for me. I’ve had to move twice already.”

“So, our friend Alicia,” Leif asked, trying not to shake, “are they gonna try to kill her, too?”

Ben took a bite of hot dog. “Very hard to say. You know about the other kids who died there, right?”

Leif bit down on his lower lip.

“Those were freak accidents,” Rex said.

“You think they would tell the newspapers they murdered kids?” Ben asked.

“This is bad,” Leif said, his arms wrapped around his knees. “This is very, very bad.”

“I agree,” Ben said, staring past them at the fire with a haunted look.

“Yeah. Okay. Yeah,” Rex said, mainly to himself. He hadn’t decided for sure if he believed Ben or not.

“Look,” Ben said. “Maybe you think I’m making this up. I understand that. I can’t guarantee I would believe me either, considering I referenced my history of embellishment less than two minutes ago. So meet me Friday night at midnight behind the old tobacco barn in the field near the Whitewood School.”

“What will…what will happen then?” Leif asked.

“It’s best if you come and see for yourself,” Ben said.

“We’ll be there,” Rex said.

“No!” Leif shouted reflexively.

“Okay,” Rex said, not wanting to get into another argument with Leif. “We’ll think about it.”

“This is…this is, like, nuts,” Leif said. “Like totally nuts.”

“We, uh…we should get going.” Rex stood and helped Leif up as he continued muttering about how nuts this was.

“Think about my offer,” Ben said. “Do it for your friend at Whitewood.”

“We will,” Rex said.

“Please take a Cheerwine for the road,” Ben said, standing up. “They taste like motor oil when they’re warm.”

Once they were back in the river, Leif leaned toward Rex after a big gulp of soda. “Glad we’ll never see him again.”

“Yeah,” Rex said. But he knew he would see Ben on Friday.

And he was pretty sure Leif would, too.

11

ALICIA HAD ONLY been at Whitewood for a matter of days, but she’d needed just one meal to grow sick of the food. Knives and forks were forbidden, so anything that required cutting was blended into a spoonable slurry. Lunch was particularly unimpressive today. Even so, Alicia tried her best to enjoy it, shoveling a mystery stew into her mouth as she rubbed her sore neck with her other hand. It had been a couple days since her time in the Roll, but she’d developed an excruciating kink after sleeping an entire night with her head hanging out of the carpet cocoon.

Still, there was a perverse sweetness to the pain. It was like a battle scar, proof of her rebellion. They’d disciplined her, and she’d survived. She wasn’t eager to visit the Roll again, but she was proud of how she’d handled it.

One thing was for sure: Her time in the Roll definitely hadn’t helped her standing among her peers. If she had been a pariah before, now she was practically toxic. A small part of her had wanted to believe her defiance would serve as inspiration, a spark to resistance, but it was clear that her fellow students had been trained to distance themselves from mutiny. She tried not to let it bother her; no one at the school was talking to anyone else anyway, so what did it matter if nobody sat next to her at meals, that she seemed surrounded by a bubble at all times?

As she finished one of her two Saltines and pulled back the foil of her applesauce, the girl beside her—well, not so much beside her, since there were two empty seats separating them—slid her tray several inches in Alicia’s direction. Alicia ignored it, assuming it had nothing to do with her, until the girl slowly slid it even closer. Alicia took a quick glance at her. The girl, who had long black hair and thick eyebrows and looked close to her age, was staring straight ahead while gently wiggling the tray, as if to direct Alicia’s attention there.

Alicia looked. The girl had mostly cleaned her plate, but left behind some peas.

Was she offering Alicia extra peas? If Alicia was going to the Roll again, it wasn’t going to be because she broke the food-sharing rule for peas. If the girl had been offering an extra cupcake, that might have been worth considering. But there were no cupcakes at Whitewood.