The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

by Rhett McLaughlin

  “Funny,” Leif said.

  “So, uh, Ben, what is it you think we’re gonna see here?” Rex had brought his dad’s camcorder, thinking whatever they observed might be worth documenting.

  “It’s not here, actually,” Ben said. “We’ve got to go onto the Whitewood School property to see it. And we should get going. It usually happens about quarter after twelve.”

  “What? No!” Leif protested. “Go on the school property? Are you nuts?”

  “Possibly,” Ben answered. “My uncle once told me I was ‘uniquely challenging,’ which sounds like a nice way of saying nuts.”

  Rex took a step toward Leif and adopted his serious voice, which registered about a half octave below his usual speech. “You need to decide right now if you’re going with us.”

  Leif knew he was cornered. Rex had purposely said us, a clear indication that Leif would have to stand alone in this creepy cow pasture—or, worse, walk home alone in the middle of the night—if he didn’t tag along.

  “Fine,” Leif said. “But what are we supposed to do? Climb that fence?” He pointed toward the ten-foot chain-link fence topped with barbed wire running just behind the barn.

  “No need to climb,” Ben said, starting to walk. “Follow me.”

  Rex immediately strode after Ben.

  Leif paused, sighed loud enough for Rex to hear it, then followed.

  When Ben reached the fence, he squatted down and placed both hands on it, moving them around like a mime outlining an invisible box until he found what he was looking for. He pushed forward to reveal a part of the fence was cut, giving them a gap to squeeze through, about fifteen links high. “You guys first,” he whispered.

  Rex appreciated the polite gesture. Leif thought it might be a trap. “No, that’s okay, you go first,” he whispered.

  “Okay,” Ben said with a shrug, sliding one leg through the gap, then his head and torso, followed by the other leg. A few twigs fell off him, but it was an otherwise smooth passage.

  Rex went next, first popping his backpack through before his towering frame, sliding through the fence using Ben’s technique (though failing to make it look as easy as Ben had). Leif, perhaps in subconscious protest of this midnight mission, took a different approach, turning around and backing his way through the fence. The tail of his Coke shirt got caught, sending the fabric up and over his head, halting his progress. Before Leif could ask for help, Rex unhooked his shirt and the rest of him popped through the fence.

  “You’re welcome,” Rex said.

  Leif scowled at him, but his tall and currently irritating friend was already catching up with Ben.

  They moved through the woods as silently as they could, each of them highly aware they were now on the grounds of the Whitewood School.

  They had walked for a minute or so up a small hill when Ben stopped at a medium-sized tree with a trunk that, just above his head, forked into two. “This is the spot,” he said, crouching down and encouraging Rex and Leif to do the same.

  Leif peered around the two-trunked tree. From the top of this crest, he could see they were only a couple dozen yards from the edge of the woods behind the school. At the bottom of the hill, glistening in the moonlight, was a pool of water about forty feet across, a creek slowly flowing away from it across the school grounds.

  “Is that,” Rex whispered excitedly, “Bleak Creek Spring?”

  “Yep,” Ben answered. “That’s where Bleak Creek begins, and it’s also where the action’s gonna happen.”

  “I’ve lived here my whole life and I’ve never seen it,” Leif said, the wonder of seeing his town’s hidden namesake momentarily distracting him from his fear.

  Beyond the sparse trees on the opposite side of the spring, they could see the school itself, a featureless pale rectangle in the darkness. It stood less than a hundred yards away, along with a row of four tiny buildings, all surrounded by a large lawn, the same lawn that Travis cut each week. An interior light shone from a first-floor window, a translucent curtain obscuring any details within.

  “So…what happens now?” Rex asked, camcorder in hand.

  “Now, we wait,” Ben said, gazing out at the spring.

  “How long?” He didn’t feel as antsy as Leif, but he was again relying on the ol’ punching-bag-in-bed trick to keep his parents from realizing he was gone, and the off-chance of them checking his room left him uneasy.

  “Just a bit,” Ben said.

  As they crouched in silence, watching and waiting, they noticed the cicadas belting out their pulsing songs around them, making the forest seem alive, like it had a giant, beating heart. “I’m kinda hungry,” Leif said. Terror and hunger were often interchangeable for him.

  “Here.” Rex dug around in his backpack and chucked a huge Ziploc bag over to Leif. “Brought some trail mix.”

  “Thanks,” Leif said, instantly comforted by a familiar snack.

  “You can have some too, Ben,” Rex said.

  “I’m okay,” Ben said. “Still pretty full from my three-squirrel dinner.”

  “Uh, all right,” Rex said, as he noticed Leif taking out individual peanuts from the bag and consuming them one by one. He was tempted to say something, but he was well acquainted with Leif’s pickiness—his aversion to olives, mushrooms, and pepperoni had sabotaged many a pizza order—and either way, this was no time to bicker over trail mix etiquette. Then Leif popped another peanut in his mouth, chewing so loudly, the sound began to rival the cicadas.

  “Hey, Leif, don’t—Let’s not…let’s not do it like that.”

  “Like what?” Leif asked.

  “Like eating all the peanuts and nothing else.”

  “But I don’t like M&M’s or raisins. I’m avoiding them.”

  “Yeah, but you’re throwing off the whole ratio. My mom had a specific mix in mind.”

  “You think your mom is gonna be upset about me eating the peanuts?”

  “No,” Rex said, growing more flustered, “but when you eat trail mix, you’re supposed to take a handful. Everybody knows that. What you get is what you eat!”

  “Maybe quiet down a bit,” Ben said from between them.

  “Sorry,” Rex said.

  “Yeah,” Leif said, depositing yet another peanut onto his tongue. “You offer me a snack and then you’re telling me how to eat it. Makes it kinda hard to enjoy.”

  “Okay,” Rex said, reaching his arm across Ben, “gimme back my mom’s trail mix.”

  “No,” Leif said, holding the bag close, “you—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence, because that’s when the chanting started.

  Just outside the school, about a dozen people were walking across the grass toward the spring. Their words were indecipherable but sounded to Rex like Latin. Or at least how he imagined Latin would sound. Two individuals holding torches led the procession; the others walked two by two behind them. All wore full-length hooded robes and walked slowly in step with one another.

  “What is this?” Rex asked, hitting the record button on his camcorder and placing his finger over the red light to maintain their cover.

  “See?” Ben whispered. “I told you you’d want to check it out.”

  “Is it the KKK?” Leif asked. “I’ve heard they’re still around.”

  “Nope,” Ben said. “KKK’s got white robes. These are light blue. Plus, they’ve got open hoods, not the pointy ones with eyeholes.”

  “Yeah, they look more like Druids or something,” Rex said.

  “Might just be, like, a nighttime choir group,” Leif said, gripping tight to the Ziploc of disproportionate trail mix. “You know, like Christmas carolers. Is there such a thing as Labor Day carolers?”

  “Just keep watching,” Ben said.

  As the group reached the edge of the spring, their chanting hit a crescendo. They were now c
lose enough for the boys to hear the foreign words clearly: “Vee-tah ehst ah-kwa, vee-tah ehst ah-kwa.”

  “Maybe they’re Episcopalian?” Leif asked, barely able to get the words out. “I think they do weird stuff like this.”

  The pairs split, making way for an individual to walk down the newly created aisle between them. In addition to the light blue robe, this person wore a white stole draped over his shoulders with what looked to be some sort of star symbol embroidered at each end. Rex got a glimpse of the face under the drooping hood, the torchlight illuminating his features. “Is that…Whitewood?” he asked in disbelief.

  “Bingo,” Ben whispered.

  Leif couldn’t fully process what he was seeing.

  Whitewood lifted his arms, and the torchbearers placed their fiery sticks into two stands near the edge of the water. The chanters fanned out, forming a semicircle around the spring. They all kneeled and began to chant more quietly.

  “Are those students?” Rex asked.

  “Unlikely,” Ben said. “I never wore a robe.”

  “Wait, so they’re teachers?” Leif asked.

  Ben shrugged.

  Whitewood signaled with his hand, and the group bent down, bringing their faces to the surface of the water to drink.

  “Gross!” Leif whispered. “There’s gotta be like, amoebas or something in there.”

  After they’d had their fill, the followers lifted their heads and resumed the chanting.

  He then began to slowly and deliberately walk counterclockwise along the row of chanters, his left hand extended to hover over each head, like some perverse game of duck duck goose. When he reached the end of the line, he turned around and walked back the other way, now holding out his right hand over the kneeling subjects. He then abruptly stopped and gently placed his hand on one of the heads.

  The goose stood, and they both stepped forward to the spring as the chanting increased in volume. Whitewood reached into the folds of his robe and produced a knife, which he held aloft like the Statue of Liberty’s torch.

  The chanting grew louder.

  Leif took a deep breath. “Maybe they’re just practicing for Hallow—”

  “It’s a cult!” Rex said, having trouble keeping his voice at a whisper. “They’re not carolers or Episcopalians, and nobody practices for Halloween! It’s clearly a cult.” Leif looked very much the way he had looked in second grade after Rex had told him the truth about Santa Claus.

  They watched now as the robed woman chosen by Whitewood—at least, Rex was fairly sure it was a woman—extended one hand, palm up, from her robe. As the chanting intensified to near shouting, Whitewood slowly lowered the knife to the woman’s hand, then pulled back sharply across her palm. She shouted out in pain but also sustained a specific pitch, as if it were a continuation of the chant.

  “What the crap!” Leif said, covering his eyes. “Did he cut off her hand?”

  “No, it was just a slice,” Rex said, horrified but also grinning. Sometimes he inexplicably smiled when awful things happened.

  Remembering the nasty, bloody bandage on Ben’s hand, Rex asked, “Is this what they did to you?”

  “Pretty much,” Ben said. “Just watch.”

  Leif reluctantly parted the fingers he held over his eyes just in time to see the woman kneel by the spring and dip in her wounded hand.

  “That’s a great way to get an infection,” Leif said.

  “Shut up and watch!” Ben whispered firmly. “This is the best part!”

  The woman kept her hand in the dark water as Whitewood stood on the bank of the spring, motionless. The cult continued their chant. It seemed like they were waiting for something.

  A faint blue light began to glow from deep under the water.

  A few bubbles floated to the surface, as if some underwater creature were being stirred. Slowly, the light began to fill the pool as more bubbles rose. Within a minute, the spring was glowing bright and bubbling like a boiling cauldron.

  “Holy shit,” Rex and Leif said in unison. Normally one of them would have said “Jinx.” But not today.

  The woman rose and receded back into line as one of the other chanters stood and approached Whitewood, assisting him as he unfastened and pulled off his robe. Underneath, he wore an old-fashioned one-piece swimsuit. His untoned body spilled out of it, while his white mane of hair-sprayed locks held their ground in the gentle night breeze. None of the boys said a thing. The weirdness had reached a level that rendered snarky remarks about an old man’s body untenable.

  Whitewood waded into the blue spring. He stepped forward methodically, sinking deeper as he made his way to the center. But instead of beginning to swim, he slowly marched forward until his head disappeared completely under the water.

  Rex was expecting Whitewood to come up quickly, a brief dunk.

  But he didn’t.

  A minute passed.

  “What the hell…?” Rex said.

  The chanting continued, but Leif noticed that the words had changed. “Elect-us in-trot ah-qwam sank-tum,” they now droned.

  Another minute passed. Whitewood did not reappear.

  “Did he go into a cave or something?” Rex asked.

  “I think we just watched a dude drown,” Leif said.

  “Just wait,” Ben said.

  Another minute.

  Leif tried to distract himself by picking out some more peanuts from the bag he’d been gripping, but he’d entirely lost his appetite.

  By the time five minutes had passed, Rex was more confused than ever.

  Finally, Whitewood’s head broke the surface and he slowly came toward the water’s edge, not swimming but instead moving as if he was being propelled by an underwater motor. When he reached the shallows, he groggily stood up to walk out of the spring. His perfectly shaped bouffant had wilted, his wet hair hugging his skull, making him seem almost feeble. He stumbled onto the shore, then bent over and began to heave. A massive amount of spring water spewed out onto the ground, Whitewood repeatedly convulsing, ejecting fountain after fountain onto the muddy bank.

  After he’d emptied himself completely, the blue light faded to nothing and the chanting stopped. Two of the robed people grabbed Whitewood under his arms to steady him. He said something weakly to the group, though it was hard to make out what it was. Rex thought he heard the word prophecy.

  The torchbearers took the torches from the stands and led Whitewood and his followers back toward the school.

  “I just…” Rex said. “What the hell did we just witness?”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out,” Ben said.

  “I mean, that can’t be real, right?” said Rex. “The glowing water, the bubbles? I mean, like, he’s rigged some lights and air tubes or something under there…It’s like a big Jacuzzi.”

  “I don’t know…seemed pretty real to me,” Leif said. “I think this is some straight-up evil stuff. Like when Pastor Mitchell played Led Zeppelin backward and it said ‘my sweet Satan.’ ”

  Rex noticed that Ben was staring silently out at the now-dark spring.

  “What do you think, Ben?” Rex asked. “It’s not real, right?”

  “I think they were trying to sacrifice me,” he said without emotion, not looking at them.

  “What? No,” Leif said.

  “This ceremony had no students. Therefore no death. But after they cut my hand, I could have sworn they were going to drown me. Those kids who died…I think they were sacrificed.”

  Rex’s eyes widened. All traces of fear had been replaced by exhilaration, like after the first time he’d ridden the Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens. Whether or not the spring was Satanic or just some wild illusion cooked up by Wayne Whitewood, Bleak Creek had just been transformed from a dull town into a genuinely interesting place. They’d stumbled onto something huge. A
nd he had it all on tape.

  “How did you get away?” Leif asked, completely terrified by everything that had transpired in the past twenty minutes.

  “I did some moves,” Ben said. “Martial arts stuff. Jean-Claude Van Damme saved my life.”

  “Wow,” Leif said.

  “People need to know about this,” Rex said. “We can show them the footage.” He held up the camera and was horrified to see that it wasn’t recording. Oh no. He’d committed the cardinal sin of videography: stopping the recording when you think you’re starting it. He would later realize that he’d accidentally hit the record button when passing through the fence, and the only thing of interest he’d captured was an argument about trail mix.

  He didn’t think Leif or Ben noticed. “But not right away,” he backtracked. “Maybe…yeah, maybe we’ll wait on showing them the footage.”

  “Definitely,” Ben agreed, getting to his feet, seeming eager to leave. “We shouldn’t assume we can trust anyone. Only each other.”

  “Right,” Rex said. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “I don’t want Alicia to be sacrificed,” Leif said quietly.

  “We won’t let that happen.” Rex was completely serious, and yet he could feel it: He was still smiling a little. He dug a hand into the trail mix Leif was still holding and threw a bunch into his mouth, thinking it might suppress the smirk. It did, but that was mostly because he realized he was chomping down on nothing but raisins and M&M’s.

  14

  ALICIA COULDN’T BREATHE.

  Wayne Whitewood’s gloved hands were gripping her neck.

  It took everything she had not to panic, to resist the water from pouring into her nose as the headmaster leaned her back, her face just below the surface.

  This was her third time in a Thinking Shed, but instead of being compressed in the unforgiving coils of the Roll, she was now immersed in a grimy basin filled with the so-called healing waters of Bleak Creek Spring.

  “Are you ready to follow, Candidatus?” Whitewood asked after lifting her out of the water. Alicia coughed and sputtered, her curls heavy and matted to the sides of her face. Then she just stared at him.