Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

“Right,” Rex said. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“I don’t want Alicia to be sacrificed,” Leif said quietly.

“We won’t let that happen.” Rex was completely serious, and yet he could feel it: He was still smiling a little. He dug a hand into the trail mix Leif was still holding and threw a bunch into his mouth, thinking it might suppress the smirk. It did, but that was mostly because he realized he was chomping down on nothing but raisins and M&M’s.

14

ALICIA COULDN’T BREATHE.

Wayne Whitewood’s gloved hands were gripping her neck.

It took everything she had not to panic, to resist the water from pouring into her nose as the headmaster leaned her back, her face just below the surface.

This was her third time in a Thinking Shed, but instead of being compressed in the unforgiving coils of the Roll, she was now immersed in a grimy basin filled with the so-called healing waters of Bleak Creek Spring.

“Are you ready to follow, Candidatus?” Whitewood asked after lifting her out of the water. Alicia coughed and sputtered, her curls heavy and matted to the sides of her face. Then she just stared at him.

Whitewood dunked her again.

Alicia’s brain was still racing to catch up to her new situation. She’d been forced to one-eighty so quickly from the anticipation of seeing Josefina to the dread of encountering Whitewood that it hadn’t sunk in yet.

And almost worse than the abuse she was currently suffering was the thought that had occurred to Alicia moments after she’d entered the bedroom:

Did Josefina set me up?

Was that what their friendship was the whole time? A con?

It was too painful to contemplate. Could it be that the only real human connection she’d made since arriving at Whitewood wasn’t real at all, that she was even more alone than she’d imagined?

Just when she thought she might gasp in a lungful of water, Whitewood lifted her up.

“ Now are you ready to follow?” His tone remained calm, but Alicia thought she saw a flash of desperation in his face. She stayed silent, though she was beginning to question how long she could keep it up.

Whitewood shook his head slowly, tightening his grip on her throat, and pushed her down once more.

Aside from the horrible smell coming from the cloudy water, the sinewy hands pressing on her windpipe, and her arms being tied behind her back, it wasn’t too unlike her actual baptism, performed by Pastor Mitchell when she was ten. Just like back then, she was in waist-deep water with a fully clothed man who wanted to hear some very specific words. Pastor Mitchell had told her ahead of time that he would be asking a number of questions about Jesus, and all she had to do was say yes to each one. Whitewood hadn’t mentioned Jesus once, but he seemed to be after a similar answer. She wondered now, as she had then with Pastor Mitchell, if the best strategy was simply to go along with what the adult was looking for.

As Whitewood again lifted her from the water, her head woozy and vision blurry, she questioned how much it would really hurt to just say, “Yes, I will follow.” She could spend the rest of her time at the Whitewood School in hushed defiance.

“Candidatus,” Whitewood said, his voice oozing with charm even as his eyes conveyed the exact opposite, “I have to say, I’m glad we’re gettin’ this chance to talk. Had my eye on you since you got here. Every day I’m wonderin’ if you’ll see the light. If you’ll let us save you. But that doesn’t seem to be on your agenda.”

Alicia didn’t know how to respond, but it didn’t matter, as it was evidently just a dramatic pause. “You feel these gloves on my hands?” Whitewood asked.

Alicia nodded.

“You know why I have to wear these?”

She nodded again.

Whitewood smiled. “Of course you do. I have to wear these while my hands heal. Because of what you did to me. Let me ask you, Candidatus: Do you know how difficult it is to play the organ with gloves on?”

Alicia shook her head, a genuine response.

“Pretty darn difficult,” Whitewood said. “You can still do it, sure, but you lose the subtleties, the nuances. I can convey the basic message of the music to all the congregants, but it’s like I’m…It’s like my music is screamin’ the whole time. And sometimes I don’t want it to scream. Sometimes I want it to talk. To converse. To whisper. You understand?”

Alicia didn’t. But she nodded anyway, water dripping from her hair into her eyes.

“And you’ve taken that from me,” Whitewood said. “Because you think the rules don’t apply to you. That you’re… special . So what I want to know is…Was it worth it? Is it worth it?”

It was a very good question. But Alicia couldn’t fully consider an answer because she was transfixed by Whitewood’s flawlessly coiffed hair. The way it maintained its signature swoop despite the strained expression on his face, it almost looked fake.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “ It’s not. So I hope you’re ready to fall in line. Are you? Are you ready to follow?”

Whitewood stared coldly, his hands still wrapped loosely around her neck. “I asked you a question, Candidatus.”

Alicia was on the verge of saying yes.

She decided to split the difference between rebellion and submission.

“Whose room was that?” she asked. “Who was that girl, Ruby?”

A cloud of rage passed over Whitewood’s features as he dug his thumb into her neck, his face reddening. He scream-grunted through gritted teeth as he again shoved her underwater.

Alicia immediately regretted asking. She should have just said yes.

But it was too late. Whitewood was screaming things above the surface.

For the first time since arriving at the Whitewood School, it hit her: She could die here. Is this what had happened to the students who’d been in those freak accidents over the years? Had they just pushed Whitewood too far?

When he brought her to the surface again, she would say yes. It was time. She would rather be a living Alicia with a compromised sense of self than a dead Alicia with no self at all.

But Whitewood was still yelling, showing no indication that he’d be lifting her anytime soon.

Her entire body was flooded with the panic she’d been holding back since the moment she’d seen Whitewood in that room instead of Josefina. She squirmed, twisted, and thrashed her legs, striking Whitewood’s shins and calves, which only inspired him to stiffen his grip.

She realized with horror that she might have missed the moment to save her own life.

And then, suddenly—just like she’d seen in movies but had always doubted could actually happen—her thoughts became a patchwork of disjointed memories.

She remembered her family watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids on movie night, her mom and sister cracking up the whole time, her dad bemoaning the irresponsible parenting of the Rick Moranis character.

She remembered daring Leif and Rex to shoplift a Krackel bar from the Short Stop and neither of them being able to go through with it.

She remembered the day earlier that summer when she’d gotten so angry at them, the day she’d decided to show up uninvited at their island of stupid rocks in the Cape Fear River—the one place where their group friendship didn’t seem to extend to her, a reminder that no matter how close the three of them became, Rex and Leif would always have their own special, impenetrable thing—and overheard them coming up with the idea for PolterDog, laughing and high-fiving and congratulating each other on their brilliance. Another genius plan that the boys’ club had devised without her input. She’d lost it, getting back on her bike and pedaling furiously away. Then, when she’d seen the dopey mannequins in ridiculously puffy pleated khakis in the storefront of the Belk and realized they vaguely (ever so vaguely) resembled Rex and Leif, she’d gone inside and pantsed the crap out of them. And three others, too. It had felt very cathartic.