Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Ben shrugged.

Whitewood signaled with his hand, and the group bent down, bringing their faces to the surface of the water to drink.

“Gross!” Leif whispered. “There’s gotta be like, amoebas or something in there.”

After they’d had their fill, the followers lifted their heads and resumed the chanting.

He then began to slowly and deliberately walk counterclockwise along the row of chanters, his left hand extended to hover over each head, like some perverse game of duck duck goose. When he reached the end of the line, he turned around and walked back the other way, now holding out his right hand over the kneeling subjects. He then abruptly stopped and gently placed his hand on one of the heads.

The goose stood, and they both stepped forward to the spring as the chanting increased in volume. Whitewood reached into the folds of his robe and produced a knife, which he held aloft like the Statue of Liberty’s torch.

The chanting grew louder.

Leif took a deep breath. “Maybe they’re just practicing for Hallow—”

“It’s a cult!” Rex said, having trouble keeping his voice at a whisper. “They’re not carolers or Episcopalians, and nobody practices for Halloween! It’s clearly a cult.” Leif looked very much the way he had looked in second grade after Rex had told him the truth about Santa Claus.

They watched now as the robed woman chosen by Whitewood—at least, Rex was fairly sure it was a woman—extended one hand, palm up, from her robe. As the chanting intensified to near shouting, Whitewood slowly lowered the knife to the woman’s hand, then pulled back sharply across her palm. She shouted out in pain but also sustained a specific pitch, as if it were a continuation of the chant.

“What the crap!” Leif said, covering his eyes. “Did he cut off her hand?”

“No, it was just a slice,” Rex said, horrified but also grinning. Sometimes he inexplicably smiled when awful things happened.

Remembering the nasty, bloody bandage on Ben’s hand, Rex asked, “Is this what they did to you?”

“Pretty much,” Ben said. “Just watch.”

Leif reluctantly parted the fingers he held over his eyes just in time to see the woman kneel by the spring and dip in her wounded hand.

“That’s a great way to get an infection,” Leif said.

“Shut up and watch!” Ben whispered firmly. “This is the best part!”

The woman kept her hand in the dark water as Whitewood stood on the bank of the spring, motionless. The cult continued their chant. It seemed like they were waiting for something.

A faint blue light began to glow from deep under the water.

A few bubbles floated to the surface, as if some underwater creature were being stirred. Slowly, the light began to fill the pool as more bubbles rose. Within a minute, the spring was glowing bright and bubbling like a boiling cauldron.

“Holy shit,” Rex and Leif said in unison. Normally one of them would have said “Jinx.” But not today.

The woman rose and receded back into line as one of the other chanters stood and approached Whitewood, assisting him as he unfastened and pulled off his robe. Underneath, he wore an old-fashioned one-piece swimsuit. His untoned body spilled out of it, while his white mane of hair-sprayed locks held their ground in the gentle night breeze. None of the boys said a thing. The weirdness had reached a level that rendered snarky remarks about an old man’s body untenable.

Whitewood waded into the blue spring. He stepped forward methodically, sinking deeper as he made his way to the center. But instead of beginning to swim, he slowly marched forward until his head disappeared completely under the water.

Rex was expecting Whitewood to come up quickly, a brief dunk.

But he didn’t.

A minute passed.

“What the hell…?” Rex said.

The chanting continued, but Leif noticed that the words had changed. “Elect-us in-trot ah-qwam sank-tum,” they now droned.

Another minute passed. Whitewood did not reappear.

“Did he go into a cave or something?” Rex asked.

“I think we just watched a dude drown,” Leif said.

“Just wait,” Ben said.

Another minute.

Leif tried to distract himself by picking out some more peanuts from the bag he’d been gripping, but he’d entirely lost his appetite.

By the time five minutes had passed, Rex was more confused than ever.

Finally, Whitewood’s head broke the surface and he slowly came toward the water’s edge, not swimming but instead moving as if he was being propelled by an underwater motor. When he reached the shallows, he groggily stood up to walk out of the spring. His perfectly shaped bouffant had wilted, his wet hair hugging his skull, making him seem almost feeble. He stumbled onto the shore, then bent over and began to heave. A massive amount of spring water spewed out onto the ground, Whitewood repeatedly convulsing, ejecting fountain after fountain onto the muddy bank.

After he’d emptied himself completely, the blue light faded to nothing and the chanting stopped. Two of the robed people grabbed Whitewood under his arms to steady him. He said something weakly to the group, though it was hard to make out what it was. Rex thought he heard the word prophecy.

The torchbearers took the torches from the stands and led Whitewood and his followers back toward the school.

“I just…” Rex said. “What the hell did we just witness?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” Ben said.

“I mean, that can’t be real, right?” said Rex. “The glowing water, the bubbles? I mean, like, he’s rigged some lights and air tubes or something under there…It’s like a big Jacuzzi.”

“I don’t know…seemed pretty real to me,” Leif said. “I think this is some straight-up evil stuff. Like when Pastor Mitchell played Led Zeppelin backward and it said ‘my sweet Satan.’ ”

Rex noticed that Ben was staring silently out at the now-dark spring.

“What do you think, Ben?” Rex asked. “It’s not real, right?”

“I think they were trying to sacrifice me,” he said without emotion, not looking at them.

“What? No,” Leif said.

“This ceremony had no students. Therefore no death. But after they cut my hand, I could have sworn they were going to drown me. Those kids who died…I think they were sacrificed.”

Rex’s eyes widened. All traces of fear had been replaced by exhilaration, like after the first time he’d ridden the Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens. Whether or not the spring was Satanic or just some wild illusion cooked up by Wayne Whitewood, Bleak Creek had just been transformed from a dull town into a genuinely interesting place. They’d stumbled onto something huge. And he had it all on tape.

“How did you get away?” Leif asked, completely terrified by everything that had transpired in the past twenty minutes.

“I did some moves,” Ben said. “Martial arts stuff. Jean-Claude Van Damme saved my life.”

“Wow,” Leif said.

“People need to know about this,” Rex said. “We can show them the footage.” He held up the camera and was horrified to see that it wasn’t recording. Oh no. He’d committed the cardinal sin of videography: stopping the recording when you think you’re starting it. He would later realize that he’d accidentally hit the record button when passing through the fence, and the only thing of interest he’d captured was an argument about trail mix.

He didn’t think Leif or Ben noticed. “But not right away,” he backtracked. “Maybe…yeah, maybe we’ll wait on showing them the footage.”

“Definitely,” Ben agreed, getting to his feet, seeming eager to leave. “We shouldn’t assume we can trust anyone. Only each other.”