Rhett McLaughlin - The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

Completely overwhelmed, Janine and Donna tried to let the moment pass, but it was no use.

They got to their feet and took an awkward bow as the applause continued.

—

“I DON’T KNOW if I’m ready,” Alicia said, standing in between Rex and Leif, staring down at the slow-moving water of the Cape Fear River.

“We totally get it,” Rex said, hands in the pockets of his Hornets Starter jacket. “We can just go somewhere else.”

“Yeah,” Leif said. “Definitely.”

The Triumvirate was attempting to make their way to the tiny island, where they could sit and talk and pretend things were just as they’d always been, that their lives hadn’t been irrevocably changed by what they’d been through.

This was not their first attempt.

Alicia had, unsurprisingly, developed an aversion to water. Thankfully, this spot was upstream from where Bleak Creek emptied into the river, so they could at least avoid contact with the tainted waters of Bleak Creek Spring (waters they were avoiding as much as possible these days, taking fewer showers and never drinking from the tap).

“No,” she said now, a cool November breeze blowing past them, “I need to get over this. Leif can do it; I should be able to too.”

“Yeah,” Leif said, “but I was in the spring for barely any time compared to you. And I was totally freaked to go back into water at first. It would make sense that it would take you longer because—”

Alicia grabbed Leif’s hand, and his heart jolted in his chest.

Over the past couple months, there had been no hugs, no playful shoves, no half nelsons, no physical contact whatsoever. Leif knew that was to be expected, as Alicia had gone through an extraordinary trauma—and he also knew how selfish it was to be wondering about her feelings for him in the midst of everything else she was dealing with—but it still hurt.

To feel her skin touching his was electrifying, like a flashback to a better time.

The spark faded as Leif watched Alicia grab Rex’s hand, too.

“We’ll go at the same time,” she said. “Okay?”

“Yep,” Rex said.

“Just say the word,” Leif agreed.

Alicia nodded and took a deep breath. “The word.”

They splashed their worn-out sneakers into the bracingly cold water at the same time, Alicia’s eyes immediately clenching shut, her shoulders lifting to her ears.

“One step at a time,” Leif said. “You got this.”

Alicia whimpered.

“Do you want to go back?” Rex asked.

Alicia shook her head.

“All right,” he said, “then we gotta go forward.”

A few dozen steps later, Rex and Leif encouraging Alicia for every one of them, they made it onto the island.

“You take the Big Rock,” Rex told Alicia as he and Leif helped her sit down.

Leif saw Rex release her hand, so he did too, even though he wanted to keep holding on.

“Oh, wait, aren’t there some rules or something?” Alicia asked.

Leif and Rex exchanged a quick look. Alicia of before had known the rules of the rocks very well, as she had mocked them constantly. This was yet another thing in a long line of things that Alicia didn’t remember from her old life. No matter how many times this happened, Leif was always a bit shaken (and grateful all of his memories had returned more or less intact).

“There were,” Leif said. “But now the only rule is that when you’re on the island, you can talk about whatever you want. Especially the stuff that, off the island, makes people look at you like you’re some kind of damaged weirdo.”

“Good rule,” Rex said, clearly making a conscious effort to support what his best friend said and not point out some way to improve upon it. He’d been apologizing to Leif for being a selfish dick more or less nonstop since he’d rescued him from the spring. Leif had been appreciative at first, but lately he’d found himself longing for the way things had been; sure, Rex had been annoying sometimes, and it was nice to have him acknowledge that, but these new contrite vibes didn’t make for the most fun friend dynamic.

“Yeah,” Alicia said. “I can get behind that.”

“You take the other one,” Rex said to Leif, gesturing to the Small Rock.

“Really?” Leif asked.

“Sure!” Rex said, awkwardly lowering himself to a third, much smaller rock, his long limbs jutting out at strange angles. “This is actually pretty comfortable.”

Leif saw how hard Rex was trying to sell this lie, how intent he was on making life okay for his two best friends, and this time, he felt deeply moved.

Then he started cracking up. “That’s just stupid, man.”

Alicia laughed too. “There’s no way that’s comfortable.”

“Yeah, no,” Rex said, joining in the laughter. “It’s a lot more painful than I thought it would be.”

“Come on, get up,” Leif said, helping Rex to his feet so that he could take the medium rock and Leif could take the tiny one.

Laughing had opened something up within all three of them, as if allowing them to fully access the sacred space of the island. Once they’d settled on their respective rocks, Alicia spoke first.

“Are we gonna feel like this forever?” she asked.

“Like what?” Rex asked.

“Bad.”

“I hope not,” Rex said, staring out toward the woods, toward Ben’s Tree.

“I hate that we can’t tell anyone the truth,” Alicia said. “I hate that so much. And I hate the way people look at me.”

“I know,” Leif said. “I hate that people all feel so sorry for us, but they don’t even know what actually happened. And if we told them, they’d think we were nuts.”

“I hate that there’s nothing left we can do,” Rex said. “That we can’t save Ben. And your friend Josefina. And the other kids. Maybe I should try again.”

Leif sighed. “But why? There’s still nothing there.”

It was the horrible truth. Rex and Hornhat had returned to Bleak Creek Spring multiple times, with the scuba gear and more blood—pig’s, human’s, even goat’s—hoping they’d open the gateway, reveal the heads of children and teens protruding from the spring wall, and get to work digging them out. But it never bubbled and glowed the way it once had.

The spring was never anything more than a spring.

“Yeah, but…” Rex shook his head. “So they’re just stuck down there forever? In the Void, or whatever you guys called it?”

Alicia shivered on her rock, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

“Maybe,” Leif said. “Who knows.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Still can’t believe Janine and Donna’s movie won the audience award,” Leif said. “It’s mind-blowing that everybody thinks it’s a giant stunt.”

“I know,” Rex said. “I wish my parents would’ve let us go see it.”

“I don’t,” Alicia said. “Then we would’ve had to listen to everybody tell us what great actors we are.”

“Yeah,” Leif said. “That woulda sucked.”

“Should have been our movie at that festival,” Alicia said, staring down into the water.

Leif and Rex generally refrained from ever mentioning PolterDog , seeing as they still, consciously or not, held it responsible for all the terrible things that had happened. But hearing Alicia mention it now, on the very island where the idea had first been conceived, was actually nice.

“I agree,” Leif said.

“For sure,” Rex said. “Hornhat still really wants to see it.”

“Who’s Hornhat?” Alicia said.

Leif and Rex looked at each other, alarmed.

“I’m kidding, guys,” she said. “I remember Mark Hornhat. We see him literally every day at school.”

“Oh, too bad,” Leif said. “I was gonna say this was the one case where it’d be advantageous to forget someone.”