The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

by Rhett McLaughlin

  Whitewood dunked her again.

  Alicia’s brain was still racing to catch up to her new situation. She’d been forced to one-eighty so quickly from the anticipation of seeing Josefina to the dread of encountering Whitewood that it hadn’t sunk in yet.

  And almost worse than the abuse she was currently suffering was the thought that had occurred to Alicia moments after she’d entered the bedroom:

  Did Josefina set me up?

  Was that what their friendship was the whole time? A con?

  It was too painful to contemplate. Could it be that the only real human connection she’d made since arriving at Whitewood wasn’t real at all, that she was even more alone than she’d imagined?

  Just when she thought she might gasp in a lungful of water, Whitewood lifted her up.

  “Now are you ready to follow?” His tone remained calm, but Alicia thought she saw a flash of desperation in his face. She stayed silent, though she was beginning to question how long she could keep it up.

  Whitewood shook his head slowly, tightening his grip on her throat, and pushed her down once more.

  Aside from the horrible smell coming from the cloudy water, the sinewy hands pressing on her windpipe, and her arms being tied behind her back, it wasn’t too unlike her actual baptism, performed by Pastor Mitchell when she was ten. Just like back then, she was in waist-deep water with a fully clothed man who wanted to hear some very specific words. Pastor Mitchell had told her ahead of time that he would be asking a number of questions about Jesus, and all she had to do was say yes to each one. Whitewood hadn’t mentioned Jesus once, but he seemed to be after a similar answer. She wondered now, as she had then with Pastor Mitchell, if the best strategy was simply to go along with what the adult was looking for.

  As Whitewood again lifted her from the water, her head woozy and vision blurry, she questioned how much it would really hurt to just say, “Yes, I will follow.” She could spend the rest of her time at the Whitewood School in hushed defiance.

  “Candidatus,” Whitewood said, his voice oozing with charm even as his eyes conveyed the exact opposite, “I have to say, I’m glad we’re gettin’ this chance to talk. Had my eye on you since you got here. Every day I’m wonderin’ if you’ll see the light. If you’ll let us save you. But that doesn’t seem to be on your agenda.”

  Alicia didn’t know how to respond, but it didn’t matter, as it was evidently just a dramatic pause. “You feel these gloves on my hands?” Whitewood asked.

  Alicia nodded.

  “You know why I have to wear these?”

  She nodded again.

  Whitewood smiled. “Of course you do. I have to wear these while my hands heal. Because of what you did to me. Let me ask you, Candidatus: Do you know how difficult it is to play the organ with gloves on?”

  Alicia shook her head, a genuine response.

  “Pretty darn difficult,” Whitewood said. “You can still do it, sure, but you lose the subtleties, the nuances. I can convey the basic message of the music to all the congregants, but it’s like I’m…It’s like my music is screamin’ the whole time. And sometimes I don’t want it to scream. Sometimes I want it to talk. To converse. To whisper. You understand?”

  Alicia didn’t. But she nodded anyway, water dripping from her hair into her eyes.

  “And you’ve taken that from me,” Whitewood said. “Because you think the rules don’t apply to you. That you’re…special. So what I want to know is…Was it worth it? Is it worth it?”

  It was a very good question. But Alicia couldn’t fully consider an answer because she was transfixed by Whitewood’s flawlessly coiffed hair. The way it maintained its signature swoop despite the strained expression on his face, it almost looked fake.

  “Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “It’s not. So I hope you’re ready to fall in line. Are you? Are you ready to follow?”

  Whitewood stared coldly, his hands still wrapped loosely around her neck. “I asked you a question, Candidatus.”

  Alicia was on the verge of saying yes.

  She decided to split the difference between rebellion and submission.

  “Whose room was that?” she asked. “Who was that girl, Ruby?”

  A cloud of rage passed over Whitewood’s features as he dug his thumb into her neck, his face reddening. He scream-grunted through gritted teeth as he again shoved her underwater.

  Alicia immediately regretted asking. She should have just said yes.

  But it was too late. Whitewood was screaming things above the surface.

  For the first time since arriving at the Whitewood School, it hit her: She could die here. Is this what had happened to the students who’d been in those freak accidents over the years? Had they just pushed Whitewood too far?

  When he brought her to the surface again, she would say yes. It was time. She would rather be a living Alicia with a compromised sense of self than a dead Alicia with no self at all.

  But Whitewood was still yelling, showing no indication that he’d be lifting her anytime soon.

  Her entire body was flooded with the panic she’d been holding back since the moment she’d seen Whitewood in that room instead of Josefina. She squirmed, twisted, and thrashed her legs, striking Whitewood’s shins and calves, which only inspired him to stiffen his grip.

  She realized with horror that she might have missed the moment to save her own life.

  And then, suddenly—just like she’d seen in movies but had always doubted could actually happen—her thoughts became a patchwork of disjointed memories.

  She remembered her family watching Honey, I Shrunk the Kids on movie night, her mom and sister cracking up the whole time, her dad bemoaning the irresponsible parenting of the Rick Moranis character.

  She remembered daring Leif and Rex to shoplift a Krackel bar from the Short Stop and neither of them being able to go through with it.

  She remembered the day earlier that summer when she’d gotten so angry at them, the day she’d decided to show up uninvited at their island of stupid rocks in the Cape Fear River—the one place where their group friendship didn’t seem to extend to her, a reminder that no matter how close the three of them became, Rex and Leif would always have their own special, impenetrable thing—and overheard them coming up with the idea for PolterDog, laughing and high-fiving and congratulating each other on their brilliance. Another genius plan that the boys’ club had devised without her input. She’d lost it, getting back on her bike and pedaling furiously away. Then, when she’d seen the dopey mannequins in ridiculously puffy pleated khakis in the storefront of the Belk and realized they vaguely (ever so vaguely) resembled Rex and Leif, she’d gone inside and pantsed the crap out of them. And three others, too. It had felt very cathartic.

  But even the most frustrating parts of her friendship with Rex and Leif were a billion times better than everything that had happened since she’d arrived at the Whitewood School.

  She was going to miss them.

  And there was something else, too.

  About Leif.

  She was finally allowing herself to think it. Seconds away from death—the world around her beginning to blur into hues of yellow—but still.

  It had started that summer as they froze in position, Rex figuring out camera angles for the scene where Jessica tells her father that Mr. Bones has been run over. They were staring at each other so Rex could get the eyelines right, and Alicia was struck by Leif’s eyes. Had they always been so blue? Leif gave a goofy grin to break the inherent awkwardness of holding eye contact for so long, and Alicia smiled back, horrified by the part of her brain that was imagining what it might be like to kiss him. She’d pushed the thought away, then and always, for a billion reasons, one of which was that Leif definitely didn’t reciprocate the feeling, as he’d started to seem very irritated every time she was around. It was a ridiculous idea
anyway. And now Leif would never kn—

  Her head was lifted up out of the water.

  Air.

  She tried to consume as much as her lungs could handle, loud, greedy gulps that still weren’t enough. Her head pounded.

  It took her at least a minute to even understand where she was, that Wayne Whitewood was still holding her by the neck, that she was alive.

  She was alive.

  Whitewood was saying something.

  “…to follow?”

  Alicia stared at him.

  “Come on, Candidatus! I said: Are you ready to follow?”

  She’d been given a second chance.

  She nodded. She said, “Yes.”

  Whitewood looked surprised. “What?”

  Alicia nodded again, as vigorously as she could with hands clamped around her throat. “Yes,” she said for the second time.

  Whitewood didn’t seem satisfied; he seemed taken aback. “Well, you— It’s too late!” He dipped Alicia back into the water, a quick dunk this time, but shocking nevertheless.

  He wasn’t understanding her. Alicia must be miscommunicating somehow. She tried to get her mouth working, to tell him as clearly as she could: “I…will…follow.”

  “No!” Whitewood practically screamed into her face. “You’re too late! It’s done, all right? It’s done!”

  Alicia didn’t understand. What kind of a heinous mind game was this? Maybe she was dead. Maybe she was dreaming. Maybe her brain had been severely compromised by her time underwater. “But…I’m…” She searched for the right words, in case she wasn’t dead yet. “I…will follow.”

  Whitewood looked at Alicia, really looked at her for the first time, and took his hands off her neck. He began to quietly giggle to himself, more unhinged than ever. “Well, that’s very sweet, but again: You’re too damn late.” He shook his head, as if thinking fondly about a scene from his favorite sitcom. “You think this school is all about reforming kids, helpin’ out ‘troubled youth.’ ”

  Alicia’s head still throbbed. She was fairly certain Whitewood had lost his mind.

  “It’s about so much more than that—you have no idea,” he said, one last chuckle before he flipped back to rage. “Now let’s do this again, and this time you ain’t gonna give in. You understand?”

  Alicia didn’t. She really didn’t. But she nodded anyway.

  “Are you ready to follow?” Whitewood asked.

  Alicia nodded.

  “No!” Whitewood screamed. “You’ve come this far, and now you’re just givin’ up? What about your friend, your little trespassin’ buddy, who’s in the Roll right now? You’re gonna let her down?”

  Josefina. It hadn’t been a setup.

  Why was Whitewood telling her all this?

  He looked like he might cry.

  “Here,” he said, reaching behind her and struggling with the twine for a minute before he got it untied. “You’re free. What’re you gonna do? Escape? Hit me? You wanna hit me?”

  Alicia had no idea what was happening. Her wrists burned and her arms ached and all she wanted to do was nestle up in the cozy purple bed in Ruby’s room.

  But she wasn’t dead.

  And Josefina hadn’t betrayed her.

  And Wayne Whitewood was encouraging her to hit him.

  “Come on,” he said. “Shove me like you shoved me into that grill. Wouldn’t that feel good?”

  “I…I don’t know what you want from me!” Alicia said.

  Whitewood grunted again before charging at Alicia, his hands back on her neck, this time choking her above water.

  With her hands free.

  She still had no idea what to do, but she knew she wanted to live.

  Her adrenaline surging, she dug her nails into Whitewood’s face as hard as she could.

  He removed his hands from her neck and smiled, a thin streak of blood appearing on his cheek. “That’s more like it,” he said. “Now: Are you ready to follow?”

  “Guess not,” Alicia said. If playing along with this lunatic’s mind games was what it took to stay alive—to see her family again, Rex, Leif—then that was what Alicia would do.

  “Good,” Whitewood said, grinning as he placed his hands back on her neck. He thrust her under the water, pushing her all the way to the bottom of the tub.

  Alicia hadn’t gotten a good breath, and after only a few seconds she felt herself beginning to black out.

  The darkness closed in on all sides.

  15

  LEIF GROANED AND keeled over onto his side, having just been hit with a Nerf basketball in the groin.

  “Yeah!” Rex said, laughing and lifting his arms in triumph.

  “Aw, man,” Leif said, in the fetal position on the carpet of Rex’s bedroom. “I really feel that in my stomach.”

  “That’s because I’m very skilled at this. You ready to forfeit?”

  Still shaken by what they’d witnessed at the spring—not to mention constantly worrying about what might be happening to Alicia at that twisted school—Rex and Leif were trying to distract themselves by playing a game they’d made up during elementary school. It didn’t have a name, but it involved sitting six feet apart with their legs spread and throwing a Nerf basketball at each other’s testicles as hard as possible. The only rule was that you couldn’t protect your testicles.

  Leif reached out an arm, grabbed the soft orange ball, and pushed himself back into sitting position. “I don’t even know how to spell ‘forfeit.’ ” He flashed Rex a sly grin, then froze in thought. “Actually, I really don’t know how to spell it!” They both laughed.

  Since their expedition Friday night, Rex and Leif had devoted hours of time to figuring out what they’d seen, what their next steps should be. It was now Monday, and they’d walked to Rex’s house together after school. Above his desk, Rex had repurposed his cork bulletin board for the cause; it was covered in Post-it notes with words and phrases in black marker: CULT, BLUE LIGHT, BLUE ROBES, STAR SYMBOL, SPRING, ABDUCTION, SACRIFICE, BEN’S ESCAPE, BEN’S SQUIRREL CONSUMPTION.

  Leif lifted the Nerf and focused hard, steadying his breathing the way he’d learned in the one archery class he’d taken before dropping out of Cub Scouts. “Get ready,” he said, winding up. “This one’s gonna be especially nutty.”

  “I’ll believe it when I feel it,” Rex said.

  The words were innocuous enough, but the way Rex said them triggered something within Leif. They reminded him how he’d been letting Rex take the lead on everything, constantly pushing aside his own reservations—even his own crush—to go along with what Rex wanted. He harnessed that resentful energy and flung the orange sphere toward Rex’s crotch harder than ever before.

  Direct hit.

  “Ohhhhhh,” Rex said, eyes bugged out and mouth literally forming an O—a genuine response, even though it seemed like he was mimicking something he’d seen on America’s Funniest Home Videos. He slowly tipped over onto his side, like a huge oak tree toppling toward the forest floor.

  Timber! Leif thought, feeling immensely satisfied with himself.

  “Wow,” Rex said, letting out a mix of groaning and laughter. “Didn’t know you had that in you.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Leif said in a jokey voice, even though he sort of meant it.

  There was a knock at the bedroom door.

  Rex winced as he quickly got himself back upright. Leif closed his legs. This had been known to happen during their Nerf-to-the-nuts game, an interruption from an infuriated grownup—usually Rex’s dad—wondering what the hell was going on up there. He didn’t often concern himself with formalities like knocking on doors, though.

  “Uh, come in,” Rex said.

  It was, indeed, Rex’s dad. Both boys braced themselves for his wrath; it usually came in a q
uick, powerful burst and then disappeared, like a brief afternoon thunderstorm. No wrath was coming, though, and when Rex looked up he was surprised—shocked, even—to see his father on the verge of tears. His mom had come into the room, too, fully in the act of crying, her makeup splotched and runny.

  Rex had pushed it too far. He and Leif had been told repeatedly to stop making a game of hurling foam balls at each other’s jewels, but they’d never listened. His parents’ worries about his future infertility had finally come to a head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry. We will never throw the ball at each other’s…balls…again.”

  “Yeah, sorry, Mr. and Mrs. McClendon,” Leif said. “Never again.”

  “What?” Rex’s dad said. “No, we’re not— That’s not…that’s not why we came up here, boys.” He put an arm around Rex’s mother.

  “Oh,” Rex said, looking to Leif, as if he might understand why Rex’s parents were both crying. “Why did…What’s goin—”

  “It’s Alicia,” Rex’s mom said in between sobs. “We just heard from the Boykinses. She’s passed, boys. Alicia has passed.”

  The words didn’t make sense to either Rex or Leif. She’s passed what?

  “Like…a test?” Rex asked.

  His mom’s face crumpled further, her entire body sagging into Rex’s dad, who hugged her to keep her from falling to the floor.

  “No, Rex,” Rex’s dad said. “She’s passed away. Alicia is…dead.”

  Alicia is dead.

  Alicia.

  Is.

  Dead.

  Alicia. Dead.

  Rex couldn’t comprehend the words, no matter how he arranged them in his mind.

  “Oh God, oh no.” Leif thought the voice was Rex’s but realized it was actually his own. He couldn’t stop. “Oh God. Oh no. Oh, God.”

  “I know,” Rex’s mom said, crouching down to hug Leif. “I know, sweetie. It’s so awful.”

  Rex still couldn’t register what he was hearing. “What happened?” he asked.