Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Rex leaned in to the snot and the tears and the mess of it all. “I just miss her so much, Mom. And now Leif is gone too…I didn’t mean to misbehave. Leif didn’t either, I swear. We just…we don’t know what to do, so we come up with these stories. I’m so sorry.” It was both a performance and not a performance, as most of what he was saying—and all the underlying pain—was more or less true.

“I understand,” Martha said. “I’m sorry I was so harsh with you. But you understand why you can’t keep behavin’ like this, right?”

“Of course. Of course I do.”

“Good. Now, Dad’s already over at the home—got a rush job funeral this afternoon that I need to get over there and help him with—but are you gonna be okay gettin’ to school?”

Rex stared at his mom and, again, the emotions were all there to support his case. “Is it…Is it all right if I stay home today?” he asked between sniffs. “I just…I feel so awful.”

“Rex, now, I don’t want people talkin’ when they hear that Leif has been sent to that school and see that you’re absent too.” Rex nodded as he let out a sob. “But then I don’t want people talkin’ when they see that you’re a total mess, either.” Martha puzzled it out for a moment. “All right, you can stay home, but you are not to leave this house, you understand?”

Rex nodded.

Martha hugged him. “All right then,” she said as she stood. “You take it easy today, okay? Call us if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

Martha walked out of the room, and Rex gingerly rolled over and laid his head on the pillow, immediately beginning to brainstorm ways to take down the Whitewood School and save Leif’s life.

—

REX DIDN’T KNOW he’d fallen back asleep until he was again abruptly awakened.

It wasn’t the phone this time.

It was a tapping. At his bedroom window.

Rex tried to steady his breathing even as an internal voice said oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit .

He suddenly understood why his mom had been so easily convinced to let him stay at home.

His parents were sending him to the Whitewood School and the goons in coveralls were outside his window, moments from crashing into his room to abduct him.

How could he have been so stupid?

There was the tapping again.

Rex stepped out of bed—as quietly as he could—thinking his best bet would be to grab a baseball bat from the garage.

Just as he was about to leave the room, though, he heard a voice.

“Rex! Are you in there?”

It wasn’t the voice of a goon in coveralls.

“Ben?” Rex asked, cautiously lifting the shade, not quite believing that the wild boy from the woods was standing in the shrubs next to his bedroom window.

“Can you let me in?” Ben asked. “No one else is home, right?”

“Uh…yeah. But do you want to go around and use the front door?”

“Not really,” Ben said. “I’ve had too much exposure as it is. Can you just open the window?”

“Sure, sure.” Rex slid the window open and helped Ben negotiate his way over the sill. He was still in the dirty jumpsuit and, without the woods as a buffer, his stench was much more apparent. Rex left the window open but pulled down the shade. “What are you doing here?”

“Who’s your favorite?” Ben asked.

“What?”

“Your favorite Ninja Turtle. I see you’re a fan,” Ben said, gesturing to Rex’s underwear.

“Oh. Can we discuss that later?” Rex grabbed a pair of jams from his drawer and slid them on. “Why are you here?”

“Yeah, okay. Well, as you know,” Ben said, “I saw everything that happened last night.”

“Yep, thanks for the hoots.”

“I did what I could. And it still wasn’t enough.” Ben shook his head, as if feeling deep regret. “So I thought it was time for me to…emerge. To help.” Ben picked up a book from Rex’s desk. “ Deep Thoughts . I love these. Jack Handey is hilarious.”

“Uh, yeah, definitely. How did you know where I live?”

“The phone book,” Ben said. “They had one at the Short Stop.”

“Weren’t you worried about being seen?”

“Desperate times.”

“Yeah.”

“Only one person saw me. A woman power walking. I told her I was going duck hunting.”

“Smart.”

“So. Whitewood took Leif,” Ben said, shifting his voice into “let’s get down to business” mode. “Which means Leif could be the next sacrifice.”

Rex was grateful to have someone to talk everything out with, but even with the window open, Ben’s smell was overpowering. “Hey,” Rex said. “Do you want to maybe take a shower?”

“Oh,” Ben said. “Is that an option?”

“Yes, definitely. You can borrow some of my clothes, too. Maybe ditch the jumpsuit.”

“That is incredibly generous,” Ben said.

Thirty minutes later, with Ben looking and smelling like a regular human being, outfitted in sweatpants and a baggy orange 1990 rec-league basketball T-shirt and fresh gauze on his hand, the two of them stood in the kitchen, staring at the contents of the McClendon family fridge.

“Really, help yourself to whatever,” Rex said.

Ben’s eyes greedily roamed over everything before grabbing a carrot from the produce drawer.

“That’s what you want?” Rex asked.

“I’ve missed carrots so much,” Ben said, taking a huge chomp.

Rex was mid-shrug when he heard a car pulling into the driveway. “My parents!”

He rushed Ben and his carrot into his bedroom closet and ran to the front window to see if it was his mom or his dad.

It was neither.

It was a Grand Marquis with a red stripe of paint on the side.

Janine bounded out of the car, camera bag in hand, and by the time she made it to the front doorstep, Rex was waiting for her. “Hey,” he said. “How’d you know I was staying home from school?”

“Oh, right. School,” Janine said. “I didn’t even think about that. Can I come in? There’s something you need to see.”

“Yeah, definitely,” Rex said. “So Leif is officially a student at Whitewoo—”

“Where’s your TV?” Janine asked, already striding past him into the house, unzipping her camera bag.

“Uh, in the living room,” Rex said, pointing. “Hey, Ben,” he called back to his bedroom. “It’s not my parents, it’s Janine. The filmmaker.”

When Ben made it to the living room, Janine was crouched down by the TV, pulling random cords out of her camera bag as Rex paced around, biting his nails, wondering what they’d caught on camera. He had a feeling it wasn’t the underwater machinery of a fancy hot tub.

“Why is your TV so weird?” Janine asked, trying to figure out which colored holes on the back of the television were the right ones to attach the camera cords to.

“It’s not weird,” Rex said, feeling oddly defensive about his parents’ choice of electronics. He took the cords from her hand and quickly plugged them in, as if to prove his point.

“Oh, that worked,” Janine said, as the otherworldly blue of the spring filled the television screen, the camera on pause.

“I haven’t seen a TV in ages,” Ben said, still working on the carrot.

“Who the hell are you?” Janine asked.

“I’m Ben.” He gave a small wave with his bandaged hand. “I was the hooter.”

Janine cocked her head.

“In the tree,” added Ben. “Making owl noises.”

“Oh, yeah,” said Janine. “Hi.”

“Thank you for joining the fight,” Ben said. “Most adults think it’s bullshit.”

“No problem,” Janine said, eager to show them the tape. “Okay, so, um…I rushed over here as fast as I could. Because this is…Well. I mean. Yeah. I’m gonna hit play now.”