Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

But even the most frustrating parts of her friendship with Rex and Leif were a billion times better than everything that had happened since she’d arrived at the Whitewood School.

She was going to miss them.

And there was something else, too.

About Leif.

She was finally allowing herself to think it. Seconds away from death—the world around her beginning to blur into hues of yellow—but still.

It had started that summer as they froze in position, Rex figuring out camera angles for the scene where Jessica tells her father that Mr. Bones has been run over. They were staring at each other so Rex could get the eyelines right, and Alicia was struck by Leif’s eyes. Had they always been so blue? Leif gave a goofy grin to break the inherent awkwardness of holding eye contact for so long, and Alicia smiled back, horrified by the part of her brain that was imagining what it might be like to kiss him. She’d pushed the thought away, then and always, for a billion reasons, one of which was that Leif definitely didn’t reciprocate the feeling, as he’d started to seem very irritated every time she was around. It was a ridiculous idea anyway. And now Leif would never kn—

Her head was lifted up out of the water.

Air.

She tried to consume as much as her lungs could handle, loud, greedy gulps that still weren’t enough. Her head pounded.

It took her at least a minute to even understand where she was, that Wayne Whitewood was still holding her by the neck, that she was alive.

She was alive.

Whitewood was saying something.

“…to follow?”

Alicia stared at him.

“Come on, Candidatus! I said: Are you ready to follow?”

She’d been given a second chance.

She nodded. She said, “Yes.”

Whitewood looked surprised. “What?”

Alicia nodded again, as vigorously as she could with hands clamped around her throat. “Yes,” she said for the second time.

Whitewood didn’t seem satisfied; he seemed taken aback. “Well, you— It’s too late!” He dipped Alicia back into the water, a quick dunk this time, but shocking nevertheless.

He wasn’t understanding her. Alicia must be miscommunicating somehow. She tried to get her mouth working, to tell him as clearly as she could: “I…will…follow.”

“No!” Whitewood practically screamed into her face. “You’re too late! It’s done, all right? It’s done!”

Alicia didn’t understand. What kind of a heinous mind game was this? Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe her brain had been severely compromised by her time underwater. “But…I’m…” She searched for the right words, in case she wasn’t dead yet. “I…will follow.”

Whitewood looked at Alicia, really looked at her for the first time, and took his hands off her neck. He began to quietly giggle to himself, more unhinged than ever. “Well, that’s very sweet, but again: You’re too damn late.” He shook his head, as if thinking fondly about a scene from his favorite sitcom. “You think this school is all about reforming kids, helpin’ out ‘troubled youth.’ ”

Alicia’s head still throbbed. She was fairly certain Whitewood had lost his mind.

“It’s about so much more than that—you have no idea,” he said, one last chuckle before he flipped back to rage. “Now let’s do this again, and this time you ain’t gonna give in. You understand?”

Alicia didn’t. She really didn’t. But she nodded anyway.

“Are you ready to follow?” Whitewood asked.

Alicia nodded.

“No!” Whitewood screamed. “You’ve come this far, and now you’re just givin’ up? What about your friend, your little trespassin’ buddy, who’s in the Roll right now? You’re gonna let her down?”

Josefina. It hadn’t been a setup.

Why was Whitewood telling her all this?

He looked like he might cry.

“Here,” he said, reaching behind her and struggling with the twine for a minute before he got it untied. “You’re free. What’re you gonna do? Escape? Hit me? You wanna hit me?”

Alicia had no idea what was happening. Her wrists burned and her arms ached and all she wanted to do was nestle up in the cozy purple bed in Ruby’s room.

But she wasn’t dead.

And Josefina hadn’t betrayed her.

And Wayne Whitewood was encouraging her to hit him.

“Come on,” he said. “Shove me like you shoved me into that grill. Wouldn’t that feel good?”

“I…I don’t know what you want from me!” Alicia said.

Whitewood grunted again before charging at Alicia, his hands back on her neck, this time choking her above water.

With her hands free.

She still had no idea what to do, but she knew she wanted to live.

Her adrenaline surging, she dug her nails into Whitewood’s face as hard as she could.

He removed his hands from her neck and smiled, a thin streak of blood appearing on his cheek. “That’s more like it,” he said. “Now: Are you ready to follow?”

“Guess not,” Alicia said. If playing along with this lunatic’s mind games was what it took to stay alive—to see her family again, Rex, Leif —then that was what Alicia would do.

“Good,” Whitewood said, grinning as he placed his hands back on her neck. He thrust her under the water, pushing her all the way to the bottom of the tub.

Alicia hadn’t gotten a good breath, and after only a few seconds she felt herself beginning to black out.

The darkness closed in on all sides.

15

LEIF GROANED AND keeled over onto his side, having just been hit with a Nerf basketball in the groin.

“Yeah!” Rex said, laughing and lifting his arms in triumph.

“Aw, man,” Leif said, in the fetal position on the carpet of Rex’s bedroom. “I really feel that in my stomach.”

“That’s because I’m very skilled at this. You ready to forfeit?”

Still shaken by what they’d witnessed at the spring—not to mention constantly worrying about what might be happening to Alicia at that twisted school—Rex and Leif were trying to distract themselves by playing a game they’d made up during elementary school. It didn’t have a name, but it involved sitting six feet apart with their legs spread and throwing a Nerf basketball at each other’s testicles as hard as possible. The only rule was that you couldn’t protect your testicles.

Leif reached out an arm, grabbed the soft orange ball, and pushed himself back into sitting position. “I don’t even know how to spell ‘forfeit.’ ” He flashed Rex a sly grin, then froze in thought. “Actually, I really don’t know how to spell it!” They both laughed.

Since their expedition Friday night, Rex and Leif had devoted hours of time to figuring out what they’d seen, what their next steps should be. It was now Monday, and they’d walked to Rex’s house together after school. Above his desk, Rex had repurposed his cork bulletin board for the cause; it was covered in Post-it notes with words and phrases in black marker: CULT, BLUE LIGHT, BLUE ROBES, STAR SYMBOL, SPRING, ABDUCTION, SACRIFICE, BEN’S ESCAPE, BEN’S SQUIRREL CONSUMPTION.

Leif lifted the Nerf and focused hard, steadying his breathing the way he’d learned in the one archery class he’d taken before dropping out of Cub Scouts. “Get ready,” he said, winding up. “This one’s gonna be especially nutty.”

“I’ll believe it when I feel it,” Rex said.

The words were innocuous enough, but the way Rex said them triggered something within Leif. They reminded him how he’d been letting Rex take the lead on everything, constantly pushing aside his own reservations—even his own crush —to go along with what Rex wanted. He harnessed that resentful energy and flung the orange sphere toward Rex’s crotch harder than ever before.