Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Rex and Ben nodded.

It was hard at first to tell that the footage was no longer paused, as the screen remained bright blue even as the camera panned back and forth. Then, the frame shifted violently, the picture dimming for a moment.

“That was whatever was pulling on the camera?” Rex said.

“Yeah,” Janine said. “You never see anything other than that darkening. But just keep watching.”

The camera began to swing around again, a wall of roots and rocks coming into view as Leif panned the camera farther to the right. Janine paused the camera.

“There,” she said.

“There what?” All Rex saw was the rocky wall of the spring. Was there more to see than that?

“Oh,” Ben said, his eyes bugging.

What were they seeing? Is there an especially interesting rock? He was embarrassed to ask.

But then Rex saw.

And he felt faint.

Sticking out from the dense, mossy wall was a head. A curly-haired head.

Alicia.

“That’s not all,” Janine said. She pressed play again and Rex saw it, just before the camera moved left.

Alicia opened her eyes.

20

FEBRUARY 1978

THE MOMENT HE walked in the door, Wayne Whitewood knew something was wrong.

He set Ruby down in front of the television, unable to shed the sudden feeling of panic, like a bat fluttering around his rib cage. He began calling his wife’s name, inviting her to come enjoy the banana split they’d brought back from the Dairy Queen.

“Hey, honey,” he said as he walked down the hall to their bedroom, hoping that if he kept behaving like everything was okay, then it really would be. “You better get in here before this thing melts!”

Judith was in bed, but she wasn’t asleep.

She’d left a note next to the empty bottle of pills: It’s too hard. I’m sorry.

Word traveled fast through their small town of Plumland, North Carolina, even faster than normal, given Wayne Whitewood’s story was one of bad luck piling on bad luck, the kind of story that opened your heart wide even as it made you exhale with relief that your own troubles seemed mild by comparison. “Oh, no,” people would gasp. “And after everything that poor man’s gone through with Ruby…”

Wayne and Judith’s daughter had been sick since she was three, an unforgiving illness that had gripped their family and refused to let go. At first, they’d thought it was the flu, and their pediatrician had agreed; what else would leave an exuberant, bouncy toddler like Ruby completely sapped of energy? But, two weeks after following Dr. Robinson’s recommendations to the letter—rest, hydration, and plenty of orange juice for Vitamin C—Ruby had been as fatigued as ever. And disturbingly frail, too. She’d ended up with bruises up and down her leg just from bumping into a chair in the kitchen. Another time she’d tripped in the living room on her beloved blue crocheted frog, and somehow broken an arm. She also bled easily—even a slight nick from safety scissors could break skin. When they’d returned to Dr. Robinson, he’d examined Ruby and said, “You sure she’s been gettin’ enough orange juice?”

Wayne and Judith took Ruby to several other doctors, including one at the nearby university hospital. Even the big shot doctor had no idea what was wrong with their precious little girl, despite running a battery of unpleasant tests on her. They returned home, having become disillusioned with medical professionals altogether. It was then that Judith had suggested they turn to God.

Wayne, up to that point not a particularly religious man, agreed to join the local Pentecostal church that Judith had attended as a child. He’d always been skeptical of that crowd, with their tales of healing and miracles. But given the circumstances, it seemed like the perfect fit. After they shared their situation with the church, everyone lovingly gathered around Ruby, devoting an entire Sunday service to laying healing hands on the little girl and pleading with the Lord to take the sickness away. Ruby came home that day with more energy than she’d had in weeks, giving them hope that their prayers had been answered. The next morning, however, when Ruby awoke, her listlessness was back in full force.

It was then that Wayne saw his wife change. Judith retreated to a grim place, refusing to discuss further treatment for Ruby. She continued to carry out her motherly duties, but she did so distantly, like a robot following a program. The love was gone from her eyes. She’d grown cold.

When Ruby was five, Wayne made the difficult decision to enroll her in kindergarten at Plumland Elementary School, where he had served as principal for the last ten years. He thought this could provide a badly needed break for Judith, and he figured he’d be able to keep an eye on his fragile daughter at school. On her third day, though, two boys in a shoving match collided with her and broke a couple of her ribs. Wayne wanted to have the boys expelled; the vice principal convinced him that was unreasonable. Wayne pulled Ruby out of school instead. It would be up to Judith to teach her at home.

Two miserable years later, his wife was dead and his seven-year-old daughter was as ill as she’d ever been. The grief was unrelenting. A day barely passed when he didn’t feel that same pull toward hopelessness that had overtaken his wife. Ruby remained the only reason he was able to get out of bed each morning. He couldn’t lose her as well.

Wayne leveraged his unenviable circumstances into a yearlong sabbatical—something elementary school administrators weren’t typically granted—so he could devote himself entirely to his daughter and her health.

This time he turned over all the stones, taking Ruby to anyone within a hundred-mile radius who he thought might be able to help: doctors, healers, homeopaths, practitioners of New Agey crap that he would have never considered before. An old woman in thick glasses stuck leeches all over Ruby’s back. A master of Eastern medicine made meticulous adjustments to Ruby’s chi. A lazy-eyed German man zapped her with a giant electromagnet.

Wayne was optimistic each time, thinking maybe this was it, they’d finally figured it out, but then a month would pass and Ruby’s situation would be unchanged. In a way, these days of chasing unlikely remedies were the most bittersweet of his life, as spending so much quality time with his daughter brought him profound joy in the midst of his crumbling hopes. He’d started teaching her how to play piano, and those moments together at the keyboard were the only ones in which he could truly lose himself, his routine of misfortune sloughing off like a snakeskin.

“You know, it’s a shame that spring ain’t open anymore,” Wayne’s friend Hank said one night as they downed a couple of Budweisers on Wayne’s porch, Ruby fast asleep in her room.

“What spring?” Wayne asked. Hank had been his mentor at Plumland Elementary before retiring and handing Wayne the job. The older man seemed to enjoy maintaining that knowledge-bestowing dynamic.

“That healing spring over in Bleak Creek. You never heard about it?”

Wayne shook his head.

“Oh, yeah, at one point people were comin’ from all over to bathe in that spring, get healed.” Hank took a long sip of his beer, like an ellipsis at the end of his sentence. “Even had a whole resort set up next to it.”

“Healed from what?” Wayne asked.

“Everything, I guess.” Another long sip. “I remember people goin’ for smaller stuff—gout, kidney stones, rashes, that sort of thing—but Patty’s cousin still swears it wiped out his leukemia.”

Wayne laughed. Hank didn’t.

“I’m dead serious,” Hank said. “He was gettin’ his will together and everything. But then his wife convinced him to go to the spring.”