Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

She ran side by side with him, twigs crunching under their feet as they darted through trees and dodged branches.

The fence came into view. Rex found the gap and practically dove through, landing on his knees in the damp grass before holding it open, first for Donna, then for the camera and its lengthy pole, then for Janine, and then for…

“Where’s Leif?” Rex asked.

“I don’t know,” Janine said. “I thought he was right there with us.”

Rex began to freak out and was climbing back through the fence when he heard someone running through the woods. Leif materialized out of the darkness. “I slipped,” he said. He was holding his side, completely out of breath as he came toward them—more of a jog than a run, really—but he was going to make it.

Rex pulled the fence back.

“Come on, Leif!”

As Leif kneeled down to slide through the hole, Rex saw another silhouette.

Wayne Whitewood was only a few yards behind, in full sprint.

Leif. Come. On.

Leif began to slide through the fence but was abruptly jerked to a stop.

His shirt was stuck.

Rex reached down, grasping at Leif’s collar, trying to rip the fabric. They locked eyes as Leif lurched backward.

Whitewood had him by the leg.

“Let go of me!” Leif said, writhing back and forth.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Whitewood said.

Rex started to pull the fence back and go through, imagining that together, maybe he and Leif could somehow fend Whitewood off.

But then Whitewood pulled out his knife.

“Come on over,” he said. “I’ll take both of you.”

Rex didn’t know what to do.

So he did nothing, watching as Whitewood tied Leif’s hands behind his back and walked him deeper into the woods. “Don’t worry, I’ll see you again soon,” Whitewood said.

“Rex!” Leif shouted. “Help! Please!”

Rex desperately wanted to, but he knew that if he had any real hope of helping him, he couldn’t be captured too.

“I will,” he yelled, slowly backing away from the fence, “I promise!”

19

REX WAS JARRED out of a deep sleep by the phone ringing in the kitchen.

He’d forgotten to close his bedroom door.

Understandable, considering the night he’d had.

He’d also neglected to remove the decoy punching bag from under his covers, which meant, once again, his five or so hours of restless attempts at sleep had been spent crammed onto one half of his extra-long twin bed. He leaned in to the massive bag, pushing it off the edge of the mattress. It slammed to the floor, making more noise than he’d expected and taking his top sheet and comforter along for the ride. He lay there in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boxers, which were still slightly damp with the mysterious waters of Bleak Creek Spring.

The phone rang again. He buried his head beneath his pillow.

It wasn’t just the phone he wanted to block out.

It was any thought about what had happened last night. He felt the way characters in movies looked when they had a hangover. Like he’d been run over by a truck.

The minuscule amount of sleep he’d gotten had been dominated by dreams of Leif, Rex abandoning him in every single one—riding away on a bus that Leif had just missed, seeing Leif drowning and doing nothing to help him, releasing Leif’s hand and watching him plummet off a cliff.

They were dreams it didn’t take a psychologist to interpret.

Leif had been taken by Whitewood, and Rex hadn’t even put up a fight.

He knew he’d probably done the right thing, that taking on a grown man who had a knife wouldn’t have ended well, but that didn’t prevent him from feeling more guilt than he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t stop cycling through the night’s events, questioning each disastrous decision. He should never have let Leif go into the spring to begin with. It was supposed to be him.

At the very least, he should have made sure Leif—who’d just exhausted himself tussling with that thing in the spring—was following him to the fence. But no. He was too selfish to even look back. What an asshole.

And now what?

What had Whitewood done with Leif?

He couldn’t just keep him there. Admission to the school required parental consent, and Leif’s mom wouldn’t agree to that, would she?

Then it dawned on him. The ringing of the phone.

It was Whitewood calling. Of course. He was gonna tell Rex’s parents that he was also there last night, trespassing.

They would both end up at the Whitewood School.

This was the worst-case scenario.

But no. Whitewood wouldn’t push to get Rex into the school so soon after the public accusation at the funeral. Too obvious.

It hit him. The real worst-case scenario: Whitewood had already killed Leif. He was a madman, after all. Maybe he’d dragged him right back to the spring and drowned him, then called Leif’s mom saying there had been an accident.

“Are you up?” Rex’s mom said, peeking through the doorframe in her nightgown, seeing him lying there uncovered. “Is everything all right? Where are your covers?”

“I was hot,” Rex said in a sleepy voice, trying to hide his full-blown panic attack.

Rex’s mom stepped into his room, shutting the door behind her.

“I just got off the phone with Leif’s mom.”

Rex shot up in bed so fast the room spun a little. He was having the worst kind of déjà-vu, remembering his parents walking into this same room to break the news about Alicia.

“It seems Leif got caught trespassing on the Whitewood School property last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

Rex exhaled as his entire body relaxed. Leif wasn’t dead. Thank God.

“Rex?” It was clear his mom knew, or at least strongly suspected, he’d been there. He decided to stall anyway.

“Trespassing?” Rex asked in his most incredulous voice.

“Cut the act,” Martha said, her eyes looking furious even as they filled with tears. “I just…What in the world were you thinking, Rex? First saying all that nonsense at the funeral, and now, even after your father and I warned you about it, you’re gallivantin’ around in the middle of the night on Mr. Whitewood’s property? This has to stop!”

“I’m sorry,” Rex said.

“You know Bonnie got called out to that school at two in the morning? Mr. Whitewood strongly encouraged her to send Leif to the school, and she agreed right there on the spot. Just as I—”

“She agreed? ”

“Of course she did! And you better believe your father and I have talked about it too! I don’t know why you can’t seem to understand how serious—”

“How could you even consider that after what happened to Alicia?”

“Rex, that was an accident! And it looks like it was her own fault. You’ve got to stop with these ridiculous stories—”

“I can’t believe you’re that stupid!” Rex yelled, jumping out of bed. “You want me to die there too?”

His mom looked taken aback. Rex had never spoken to her like this. She steadied herself on the doorframe, her expression quickly transforming from shock to anger. “What do you think your father would think about you talking like that?”

Rex knew he’d gone too far. Things never turned out well once his mom asked that question.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I’m really sorry. It’s just ever since Alicia died…” He had the thought that he should make himself cry to garner sympathy, but then realized he was already crying. He sat back on his bed, his face in his hands.

His mom’s face softened. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, sitting down next to Rex and putting an arm around him. “I know how hard this is.”