The last one, of course, had been real. The staff member’s face had been covered with blood. Real blood. Taylor still sees it when she’s trying to fall asleep at night. The photos were leaked right after the news story broke. At first, there were rumors that Brandon had been trying to give police some kind of message about the person who had killed him. But from the police’s carefully worded statement, it sounded like he was just impressed with the Thicket’s effects.
Taylor hopes Norah hasn’t seen the photos. Her Facebook profile is still nowhere to be seen. But the photos have been everywhere.
“No, silly. Not those photos,” Maren chides, nudging Taylor with the phone. “Look. Some dorks made his locker into, like, a freaking shrine.” She zooms in on the lower right corner of one photo, shaking her head. “Look at that one, with all the hearts and sad faces. My sister says he was actually kind of a dick. Do you remember the one time we went to Norah’s house and he asked Jamie about her bra size—”
“Maren!” Jamie squeaks and throws one of the pillows from the futon near the door.
The pillow bounces off the side of the bed. Maren pulls up her feet and laughs, her fine, white-blond hair floating around her cheeks like dandelion down. “What? It sucks, but dying doesn’t turn him into an angel.”
Taylor sighs and sinks back into the pillows on the daybed, relieved that it’s just a photo of some flowers and notes on Brandon’s locker. “Have either of you heard anything from Norah?” she asks tentatively.
Maren turns and raises an eyebrow. “No, have you? I can’t remember the last time I talked to her. Like, I feel bad for her. But I’m not making shrines or anything.”
Jamie shrugs in agreement, and Taylor feels her cheeks turning pink. “Yeah, totally. I just hope she’s okay. Hey, can we please order the pizza now? And can we please get a vegetarian this time? Maisie told me how they make pepperoni, and now I can’t even.”
Jamie holds up her phone triumphantly. “I already ordered. One veggie, one pepperoni. All the pizzas. You’re welcome.” She makes a little bow on the edge of the futon then jumps onto the bed between Taylor and Maren. She lays her head on Maren’s leg and looks at Taylor. “Truth or truth?”
Taylor laughs, tugging her hair out of a ponytail to start a thick braid. “Uh, truth, I guess.” She glances between Jamie and Maren as she pretends to think, then laughs. “Hold on—no—truth.”
They’d long since run out of ideas for the “dare” part of truth-or-dare. Dares were really only fun when they involved boys, anyway.
Jamie nods, her pale blue eyes serious. “Maren?”
Maren picks at a piece of lint on her fleece hoodie and shrugs. “Fine, truth.”
“If the Thicket reopens, are we going?”
Maren flicks a piece of lint at Jamie, who squeals. “It’s definitely going to reopen,” she says. “You heard what they said on the news about the rope accident where the guy died in the mill. My mom said it almost closed back then—for good. But it just made the place more popular.”
Jamie nods thoughtfully. “Okay, so you’d go?”
Maren sighs loudly but can’t keep from smiling. “God, I’m hungry. And yes, obviously I’d go. I started the petition, didn’t I?” She glances toward the door and fluffs up the back of her short hair. “Tay?”
It’s been a few years since Taylor has been to the Thicket. It’s a forty-five-minute drive from Rupert to Declo on bad roads. She remembers begging her dad to go with Jamie and Maren when she was thirteen. Maren had to be escorted out of the Thicket by a staff member that first year—a fact she denies point-blank to this day. But with the Thicket in nonstop local features that are getting picked up by outlets across the US, it’s all anyone at Centennial High School is talking about. Taylor nods slowly. “Yeah, I’d go. It’s probably safer now than it was before. Would you, James?”
The doorbell rings and Jamie jumps to her feet with a grin, knocking half the pillows off the bed. “Yes, and yes. Come on, let’s take the pizza back out to the trampoline.” She motions toward a white air return just visible behind the daybed then lowers her voice. “My mom’s probably listening at the vent anyway.”
* * *
By the time both pizza boxes are empty, the chill in the night air is sharper. Inside, Jamie’s mom has turned off the TV and gone to bed, leaving the house still and dark. Taylor snuggles deeper into her sleeping bag on the trampoline and zips it up to her chin.
The brittle black leaves from the sycamore tree overhead rustle quietly, hiding and then revealing stars. Every few seconds, another leaf flutters slowly onto the growing pile on the trampoline.
“I’m so full I can’t even breathe,” Jamie whispers from inside her sleeping bag. “Did anyone else besides me even eat the pepperoni one?”
“I had at least three pieces of both,” Maren giggles back, burrowing deeper beneath her blanket. “Good thing we’re sleeping outside tonight.”
“Gross,” Jamie squeals, poking her head back out of the mound of blankets and shifting away from Maren. “You’re sleeping on that side of the tramp.”
A twig snaps from somewhere in the neighboring yard. Taylor eases out of her sleeping bag and whispers, “What if he’s over there now, standing behind that fence?” She nods toward the warped wood slats a few feet away, looming black above the dull red of the bushes.
“Oh, he’s totally out there,” Jamie says seriously. She pauses, then adds, “Jim, my neighbor that is. He wears these weird little man-shorts when he mows the lawn. He’s probably raking leaves in them right now.”
Taylor giggles. “Ew. You know who I mean. The guy from the Thicket. Norah’s family lives, like, five minutes from here. What if the guy’s been in your neighborhood? ”
There is a scurrying sound, followed by a loud slam against the side of the fence.
Maren shrieks and catapults out of her sleeping bag, flinging her legs over the side of the trampoline to run. Taylor freezes.
Jamie sucks in her breath then starts to laugh, scooping up a handful of leaves that have accumulated on top of her sleeping bag and tossing them at the fence. “Calm down, you guys. It’s just Pete.”
At the top of the fence, eyes glowing green, is Pete. Jamie’s enormous orange cat, returning from the neighbor’s yard.
Maren stands barefoot in the middle of the lawn, her black-lined, green eyes wide in the dark. Her sleeping bag dangles halfway off the trampoline. She lets out a sigh of relief but shakes her head. “Shit. Can we actually go back inside? He really is out there somewhere.”
Jamie makes a knowing mm hmm sound, but Taylor starts to gather up her sleeping bag. “We end up inside every time anyway, James. Plus, I already have to pee again. Come on, let’s go inside.”
CHAPTER 13
At nine o’clock, the Channel Two logo flashes across the silent, flickering TV screen. The camera pans around the studio and rests on the woman anchor with the wispy bob haircut.
He turns up the volume on the TV.
“Thanks for joining us. I’m Caroline Tolley, and this is Gary Lebhart,” the woman says. The camera angles wide to show a thickset, smiling man with a close-cropped brown mustache beside her.
He watches eagerly as Caroline announces the top story. As usual, it’s the Thicket.
The networks can’t help playing the same five seconds of security footage in slow motion every time a news segment runs. The clip is online, too. One video on Youtube has eighteen million views and counting.
It never gets old. As Caroline talks, he watches himself walk through the middle of the plaza, at 8:00 pm on a Tuesday. The grainy image shows kids laughing and sidestepping to let him pass through the lines near the food trucks. Some don’t even look at him. You can even see a security guard in one frame for a split second.
At the end of the recording, he steps into the light near the ticket trailer, looks up at the camera, and waves. Then he disappears into the parking lot.
The image on screen changes to a freeze-frame of his
hand lifted mid-wave. Leaning forward on the couch, he mimes the wave.
When the two anchors reappear on screen, Caroline Tolley’s lips are set in a terse, straight line.
He watches the muscle in her jaw tighten as she reminds viewers that there is still no determination as to whether the Thicket will be reopening.
Caroline doesn’t like to give him the spotlight. He can tell by the way her thin upper lip curls to the right whenever she’s forced to mention “the perpetrator,” as she always calls him. So clinical. So impersonal.
Still, Channel Two is what he watches most. He likes to see Caroline squirm through these news stories. He almost wishes she knew his name so he could watch her say it.
But Gary is already moving on to the weather. The usual bait-and-switch. Lead with the juicy stuff. Sneak in the weather and a local feel-good piece about someone rescuing a three-legged dog from a storm drain. Tease the big breaking story again. Then, finally, as the big hand on the clock starts its upward swing to close the hour, it’ll be time to dive back into the real story. The only reason anyone is watching Channel Two tonight.
He understands the technique. It’s all about building anticipation.
Gary the weather forecaster goes on about dropping temperatures and cold snaps—get those tomatoes covered, folks!
Restless, he turns away from the TV and yawns. On the coffee table near his legs, a fly is crawling across the shiny wood surface.
He studies it for a moment. It hops once, then twice, then continues inching toward the edge. It doesn’t appear to be able to fly.
He leans over, bringing his face close enough to the table that he can see the fly’s spiky legs rubbing together in front of its face in quick, hair-trigger motions.
Then he reaches out a hand and covers the insect gently, feeling it pinball back and forth across his palm, buzzing violently then quieting.
Cupping his other hand beneath it at the edge of the coffee table, he pinches the fly between two fingers. Then deftly removes both wings. Followed by the legs.
When he’s done, he sets the tiny black lump on the edge of the recliner, careful not to tip it off onto the brown shag carpet.
The fly is quiet now.
He watches it long after the 9:00 news has ended and the theme music to “Seinfeld” begins to blare from the small TV.
The two red, twitching eyes are the only indication that it’s still alive.
CHAPTER 14
When the sound of voices drifts through the still-dark house, Taylor rolls over sleepily and pulls Jamie’s pink duvet underneath her chin.
It’s early, she gauges by the gray light coming through the blinds. Can’t be much after seven. Jamie is still curled up on the futon across the room, one side of her sleeping bag splayed open to show her fleece panda pajamas.
On the other side of the bed next to Taylor, Maren is still snoring softly, her short blond hair draped over one eye.
Sitting up and scooting to the foot of the bed, Taylor listens at the door crack as the drifting voices rise and fall.
“So you’d let Jamie go? Is that what you’re saying?” It’s Jamie’s mom.
“. . . Kris. She’s sixteen. We can’t keep her in a bubble,” says Jamie’s dad. Taylor strains to hear as his voice drifts away.
“This isn’t a bubble, David. They’re opening up a week after two closed-casket funerals. The Lewises live just a few blocks away,” Jamie’s mom says a little louder.
Taylor is fully awake now. She turns and shakes Maren’s shoulder, then quietly gets out of bed and pads across the carpet to wake Jamie. “Wake up, you guys. Shh. I think something happened.”
Jamie groggily rolls off the futon and motions to the daybed. Then she carefully lifts one corner of the bed frame to pull it away from the wall. “Come on. The vent listening goes both ways.”
Giggling softly, Jamie and Taylor slide between the wall and the bed on one side, crouching beside the vent. Maren army crawls down the narrow strip of carpet beneath the bed.
The TV is on again—the news. And through the vent, they can hear it almost as well as if they were standing in the living room with Jamie’s parents.
“... assured patrons that this was a tragic but isolated incident, and that the Thicket will continue working closely with police and authorities to establish the facts around the two slayings. But at this time, as the official crime scene processing concludes, we have learned that the Thicket will be reopened with additional security and safety precautions.”
Maren’s eyes widen, and she slaps at Jamie’s arm in excitement. “Shh!” Taylor whispers, dying to hear the rest.
A woman with a brusque voice is speaking now. “Our hearts go out to these families. Safety is our number-one concern, and we will work tirelessly to ensure that all guests have a safe and enjoyable experience at the Thicket.”
As the male news anchor takes over again, repeating what he just said about the Thicket reopening on Monday, Jamie’s parents begin arguing where they left off.
Maren pokes at Jamie’s arm again from under the bed then reaches up to shake Taylor’s shoulder. “Truth or truth—final answer, bitches,” she whispers excitedly. “Are we going to the Thicket this year?”
Jamie scrunches up her nose and pulls at a few tangles in her thick auburn hair. She carefully extricates herself from the space between the wall and the bed then shrugs. “My mom will kill me if a random psychopath doesn’t. But I’m in.”
Taylor grins and decides she is definitely dying her hair red. “I’m in too.”
CHAPTER 15
October 4th
Norah mutes the TV as the anchors exclaim over the big news.
It’s already all over the Internet. The story broke early this morning.
The Thicket is reopening.
Norah stares at the small TV in the dimly lit living room and tries to find the rage she felt earlier this morning. But she can’t seem to find it. The white-hot anger broke the surface then disappeared into a sea of nothingness. The counselor she saw last week says that’s normal. Which seems like a strange way to put things.
The anchors on screen gesture animatedly. The dark-haired weather reporter, Gary, grimaces and shakes his head. The blond woman with the pristinely highlighted bob purses her lips and frowns. The banner running beneath them on the screen reads, “Thicket Reopens After Double Slaying Despite Protests.”
Norah watches the silent TV in her silent house until she sees her own living room reflected back at her. Then she grabs the remote to turn the volume back on. Her mom did an interview with Channel Two last night at the house, after the press conference. Her mom, who is still asleep upstairs and doesn’t yet know about the Thicket’s reopening.
The house looks terrible, Norah notices as the camera view changes and she stares at her own messy living room on the TV screen. The field reporter is perched on the very edge of the sofa while he talks to Norah’s mom. It’s hard to tell if his rear end is even touching the cushion. It’s probably for the best, since there are two very greasy paper plates in the middle of the couch.
Norah glances to her left. The greasy paper plates are still there. The house hasn’t been cleaned for almost a month.
Norah leaves the plates where they are, but as she pulls her cold toes up beneath her on the sofa, she nudges a fun-size Twix wrapper onto the carpet. A few flakes of chocolate spill onto the already dingy cream shag rug.
Norah’s stomach clenches as she watches her mom make the latest stuttering, incoherent plea for viewers to step forward with new information. Her mom’s voice sounds thin and wavering. Like she’s asking for a personal and unlikely favor. Her chin is quivering so hard that she can’t get some of the words out fully.
Norah feels a muted wave of nausea.
The field reporter nods sympathetically and ends the interview. Back to you, Gary and Carol.
Back in the blue-lit studio, the anchors shake their heads. Poor family. So very difficult. Hope they catch this guy so
on. Then Gary repeats the salient details of the breaking story: the Thicket is reopening.
Norah lays down on the couch next to the greasy plates and listens to Gary share the same information about the reopening. She reaches for the Twix wrapper lying on the rug. She knows she didn’t eat the piece of candy. And it wasn’t her dad, who insists chocolate tastes like vomit. Or her mom, who hasn’t really eaten anything over the past month.
Which leaves Brandon.
Norah crumples the metallic wrapper into her palm, rolling the foil tight until the inside of her knuckles starts to hurt. But after a few minutes, even they go numb.
Yesterday while Channel Two interviewed her mom, Norah stayed upstairs. From her bedroom window, she watched the field reporter load his camera into the van with the tall blue “Eyewitness Channel Two” in vinyl letters on the side. A group of kids across the street were standing in a driveway a few houses down, watching too.
They were Brandon’s age. Middle school. Two boys and a girl. Norah didn’t recognize them. All three were crowded on the edge of a dented green transformer, shoulders touching. They were watching the news van with unabashed, wide-eyed interest.
The only thing missing was the popcorn.
Norah had opened the window carefully, deciding to eavesdrop, although with the wind in the aspens out front, she couldn’t hear much.
One of the kids—a boy with a blue flannel shirt—pointed at Norah’s front door. Then he grabbed the girl’s shoulders playfully with one hand while making a stabbing motion with the other. The girl flipped him off as she jumped off the edge of the transformer. It wasn’t hard to catch the gist of what they were saying.
Norah had shut the window, and put her headphones in, no longer wanting to hear what was being said outside or downstairs in her living room. As The Smiths sang about Lesly Ann being buried on the moors, she closed her eyes and tried to drift away. When she couldn’t, she popped a blackberry pot gummy into her mouth and imagined herself confronting the boy with the flannel shirt. She is pretty sure she could make him cry.
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