The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek

by Rhett McLaughlin

  I can’t believe I’m doing this, he thought as the water reached his chest. But somehow he wasn’t that scared. He bounced off the bottom of the spring, only a few yards from where they’d seen Whitewood disappear. Soon his feet moved freely through the water. Too deep to touch. He hadn’t thought through how he would swim while holding the camera pole, but the rising bubbles made it relatively easy to float in place. Relieved he wasn’t sinking, he swiveled the camera around in a slow circle. I’m gonna be the one who captures the game-changing footag—

  He felt a tug at the camera.

  Startled, Leif pulled at the pole for a few seconds, and it loosened up. He exhaled. Maybe it had just gotten caught on some underwater plants or something. He pulled the camera higher, then started another swivel.

  “Everything okay?” Rex shouted, sounding far away as he competed with the gurgle of the bubbles.

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” Leif shouted. “I think the camera just got caught on some—”

  He screamed as something yanked the camera pole down sharply, nearly pulling him underwater.

  It was no plant.

  Rex stood frozen in terror as he watched Leif struggling in the water.

  He was snapped out of it by an owl hoot.

  Then another one.

  Ben. Signaling them.

  Rex looked over to the school, where a light had turned on in a first-floor window. “Oh crap,” he said. “Somebody’s coming! Leif, somebody’s coming!”

  Leif heard Rex shouting something but he had no idea what. He was somehow still holding on to the camera pole, barely keeping his head above water as he played tug-of-war with this invisible force.

  He had to hold on. He could almost hear Alicia telling him not to let go.

  There was a sharp tug, and the pole was pulled completely out of his hand.

  “We gotta get out of here!” Rex yelled from the shore.

  “But…the camera!” Leif said between heaving breaths.

  “Forget about it!” Rex said. “We got bigger problems!”

  There was another owl hoot. Then three more in quick succession.

  Leif looked toward the school, where he saw a figure, holding a torch, steadily walking in their direction. He began a mad paddle back to shore.

  “What’s happening?” Janine asked in a panic as she returned from the woods without Donna. “And where the hell is my camera?”

  Leif tumbled out of the water onto the muddy bank. “I’m sorry,” he said, catching his breath. “I—”

  There was a violent splash from the center of the spring as the camera pole, with camera still attached, shot out of the water and landed nearby in the shallows.

  “There it is,” Rex said.

  “Fuck,” said Janine, her astonished mouth hanging open.

  Rex saw the person was about fifty yards away, now trotting and closing the distance quickly.

  Janine grabbed her camera from the water, and the three of them sprinted back to the woods.

  “What’s the rush?” a voice shouted from behind them.

  Rex burned forward, the first to make it to the woods, where he shouted ahead to a petrified Donna: “Go! Go! Go!”

  She ran side by side with him, twigs crunching under their feet as they darted through trees and dodged branches.

  The fence came into view. Rex found the gap and practically dove through, landing on his knees in the damp grass before holding it open, first for Donna, then for the camera and its lengthy pole, then for Janine, and then for…

  “Where’s Leif?” Rex asked.

  “I don’t know,” Janine said. “I thought he was right there with us.”

  Rex began to freak out and was climbing back through the fence when he heard someone running through the woods. Leif materialized out of the darkness. “I slipped,” he said. He was holding his side, completely out of breath as he came toward them—more of a jog than a run, really—but he was going to make it.

  Rex pulled the fence back.

  “Come on, Leif!”

  As Leif kneeled down to slide through the hole, Rex saw another silhouette.

  Wayne Whitewood was only a few yards behind, in full sprint.

  Leif. Come. On.

  Leif began to slide through the fence but was abruptly jerked to a stop.

  His shirt was stuck.

  Rex reached down, grasping at Leif’s collar, trying to rip the fabric. They locked eyes as Leif lurched backward.

  Whitewood had him by the leg.

  “Let go of me!” Leif said, writhing back and forth.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that,” Whitewood said.

  Rex started to pull the fence back and go through, imagining that together, maybe he and Leif could somehow fend Whitewood off.

  But then Whitewood pulled out his knife.

  “Come on over,” he said. “I’ll take both of you.”

  Rex didn’t know what to do.

  So he did nothing, watching as Whitewood tied Leif’s hands behind his back and walked him deeper into the woods. “Don’t worry, I’ll see you again soon,” Whitewood said.

  “Rex!” Leif shouted. “Help! Please!”

  Rex desperately wanted to, but he knew that if he had any real hope of helping him, he couldn’t be captured too.

  “I will,” he yelled, slowly backing away from the fence, “I promise!”

  19

  REX WAS JARRED out of a deep sleep by the phone ringing in the kitchen.

  He’d forgotten to close his bedroom door.

  Understandable, considering the night he’d had.

  He’d also neglected to remove the decoy punching bag from under his covers, which meant, once again, his five or so hours of restless attempts at sleep had been spent crammed onto one half of his extra-long twin bed. He leaned in to the massive bag, pushing it off the edge of the mattress. It slammed to the floor, making more noise than he’d expected and taking his top sheet and comforter along for the ride. He lay there in his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boxers, which were still slightly damp with the mysterious waters of Bleak Creek Spring.

  The phone rang again. He buried his head beneath his pillow.

  It wasn’t just the phone he wanted to block out.

  It was any thought about what had happened last night. He felt the way characters in movies looked when they had a hangover. Like he’d been run over by a truck.

  The minuscule amount of sleep he’d gotten had been dominated by dreams of Leif, Rex abandoning him in every single one—riding away on a bus that Leif had just missed, seeing Leif drowning and doing nothing to help him, releasing Leif’s hand and watching him plummet off a cliff.

  They were dreams it didn’t take a psychologist to interpret.

  Leif had been taken by Whitewood, and Rex hadn’t even put up a fight.

  He knew he’d probably done the right thing, that taking on a grown man who had a knife wouldn’t have ended well, but that didn’t prevent him from feeling more guilt than he’d ever experienced. He couldn’t stop cycling through the night’s events, questioning each disastrous decision. He should never have let Leif go into the spring to begin with. It was supposed to be him.

  At the very least, he should have made sure Leif—who’d just exhausted himself tussling with that thing in the spring—was following him to the fence. But no. He was too selfish to even look back. What an asshole.

  And now what?

  What had Whitewood done with Leif?

  He couldn’t just keep him there. Admission to the school required parental consent, and Leif’s mom wouldn’t agree to that, would she?

  Then it dawned on him. The ringing of the phone.

  It was Whitewood calling. Of course. He was gonna tell Rex’s parents that he was also there last night, trespassing.

&nb
sp; They would both end up at the Whitewood School.

  This was the worst-case scenario.

  But no. Whitewood wouldn’t push to get Rex into the school so soon after the public accusation at the funeral. Too obvious.

  It hit him. The real worst-case scenario: Whitewood had already killed Leif. He was a madman, after all. Maybe he’d dragged him right back to the spring and drowned him, then called Leif’s mom saying there had been an accident.

  “Are you up?” Rex’s mom said, peeking through the doorframe in her nightgown, seeing him lying there uncovered. “Is everything all right? Where are your covers?”

  “I was hot,” Rex said in a sleepy voice, trying to hide his full-blown panic attack.

  Rex’s mom stepped into his room, shutting the door behind her.

  “I just got off the phone with Leif’s mom.”

  Rex shot up in bed so fast the room spun a little. He was having the worst kind of déjà-vu, remembering his parents walking into this same room to break the news about Alicia.

  “It seems Leif got caught trespassing on the Whitewood School property last night. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

  Rex exhaled as his entire body relaxed. Leif wasn’t dead. Thank God.

  “Rex?” It was clear his mom knew, or at least strongly suspected, he’d been there. He decided to stall anyway.

  “Trespassing?” Rex asked in his most incredulous voice.

  “Cut the act,” Martha said, her eyes looking furious even as they filled with tears. “I just…What in the world were you thinking, Rex? First saying all that nonsense at the funeral, and now, even after your father and I warned you about it, you’re gallivantin’ around in the middle of the night on Mr. Whitewood’s property? This has to stop!”

  “I’m sorry,” Rex said.

  “You know Bonnie got called out to that school at two in the morning? Mr. Whitewood strongly encouraged her to send Leif to the school, and she agreed right there on the spot. Just as I—”

  “She agreed?”

  “Of course she did! And you better believe your father and I have talked about it too! I don’t know why you can’t seem to understand how serious—”

  “How could you even consider that after what happened to Alicia?”

  “Rex, that was an accident! And it looks like it was her own fault. You’ve got to stop with these ridiculous stories—”

  “I can’t believe you’re that stupid!” Rex yelled, jumping out of bed. “You want me to die there too?”

  His mom looked taken aback. Rex had never spoken to her like this. She steadied herself on the doorframe, her expression quickly transforming from shock to anger. “What do you think your father would think about you talking like that?”

  Rex knew he’d gone too far. Things never turned out well once his mom asked that question.

  “I’m sorry, Mom,” he said. “I’m really sorry. It’s just ever since Alicia died…” He had the thought that he should make himself cry to garner sympathy, but then realized he was already crying. He sat back on his bed, his face in his hands.

  His mom’s face softened. “Oh, sweetie,” she said, sitting down next to Rex and putting an arm around him. “I know how hard this is.”

  Rex leaned in to the snot and the tears and the mess of it all. “I just miss her so much, Mom. And now Leif is gone too…I didn’t mean to misbehave. Leif didn’t either, I swear. We just…we don’t know what to do, so we come up with these stories. I’m so sorry.” It was both a performance and not a performance, as most of what he was saying—and all the underlying pain—was more or less true.

  “I understand,” Martha said. “I’m sorry I was so harsh with you. But you understand why you can’t keep behavin’ like this, right?”

  “Of course. Of course I do.”

  “Good. Now, Dad’s already over at the home—got a rush job funeral this afternoon that I need to get over there and help him with—but are you gonna be okay gettin’ to school?”

  Rex stared at his mom and, again, the emotions were all there to support his case. “Is it…Is it all right if I stay home today?” he asked between sniffs. “I just…I feel so awful.”

  “Rex, now, I don’t want people talkin’ when they hear that Leif has been sent to that school and see that you’re absent too.” Rex nodded as he let out a sob. “But then I don’t want people talkin’ when they see that you’re a total mess, either.” Martha puzzled it out for a moment. “All right, you can stay home, but you are not to leave this house, you understand?”

  Rex nodded.

  Martha hugged him. “All right then,” she said as she stood. “You take it easy today, okay? Call us if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  Martha walked out of the room, and Rex gingerly rolled over and laid his head on the pillow, immediately beginning to brainstorm ways to take down the Whitewood School and save Leif’s life.

  * * *

  —

  REX DIDN’T KNOW he’d fallen back asleep until he was again abruptly awakened.

  It wasn’t the phone this time.

  It was a tapping. At his bedroom window.

  Rex tried to steady his breathing even as an internal voice said oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit.

  He suddenly understood why his mom had been so easily convinced to let him stay at home.

  His parents were sending him to the Whitewood School and the goons in coveralls were outside his window, moments from crashing into his room to abduct him.

  How could he have been so stupid?

  There was the tapping again.

  Rex stepped out of bed—as quietly as he could—thinking his best bet would be to grab a baseball bat from the garage.

  Just as he was about to leave the room, though, he heard a voice.

  “Rex! Are you in there?”

  It wasn’t the voice of a goon in coveralls.

  “Ben?” Rex asked, cautiously lifting the shade, not quite believing that the wild boy from the woods was standing in the shrubs next to his bedroom window.

  “Can you let me in?” Ben asked. “No one else is home, right?”

  “Uh…yeah. But do you want to go around and use the front door?”

  “Not really,” Ben said. “I’ve had too much exposure as it is. Can you just open the window?”

  “Sure, sure.” Rex slid the window open and helped Ben negotiate his way over the sill. He was still in the dirty jumpsuit and, without the woods as a buffer, his stench was much more apparent. Rex left the window open but pulled down the shade. “What are you doing here?”

  “Who’s your favorite?” Ben asked.

  “What?”

  “Your favorite Ninja Turtle. I see you’re a fan,” Ben said, gesturing to Rex’s underwear.

  “Oh. Can we discuss that later?” Rex grabbed a pair of jams from his drawer and slid them on. “Why are you here?”

  “Yeah, okay. Well, as you know,” Ben said, “I saw everything that happened last night.”

  “Yep, thanks for the hoots.”

  “I did what I could. And it still wasn’t enough.” Ben shook his head, as if feeling deep regret. “So I thought it was time for me to…emerge. To help.” Ben picked up a book from Rex’s desk. “Deep Thoughts. I love these. Jack Handey is hilarious.”

  “Uh, yeah, definitely. How did you know where I live?”

  “The phone book,” Ben said. “They had one at the Short Stop.”

  “Weren’t you worried about being seen?”

  “Desperate times.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Only one person saw me. A woman power walking. I told her I was going duck hunting.”

  “Smart.”

  “So. Whitewood took Leif,” Ben said, shifting his voice into “let’s get dow
n to business” mode. “Which means Leif could be the next sacrifice.”

  Rex was grateful to have someone to talk everything out with, but even with the window open, Ben’s smell was overpowering. “Hey,” Rex said. “Do you want to maybe take a shower?”

  “Oh,” Ben said. “Is that an option?”

  “Yes, definitely. You can borrow some of my clothes, too. Maybe ditch the jumpsuit.”

  “That is incredibly generous,” Ben said.

  Thirty minutes later, with Ben looking and smelling like a regular human being, outfitted in sweatpants and a baggy orange 1990 rec-league basketball T-shirt and fresh gauze on his hand, the two of them stood in the kitchen, staring at the contents of the McClendon family fridge.

  “Really, help yourself to whatever,” Rex said.

  Ben’s eyes greedily roamed over everything before grabbing a carrot from the produce drawer.

  “That’s what you want?” Rex asked.

  “I’ve missed carrots so much,” Ben said, taking a huge chomp.

  Rex was mid-shrug when he heard a car pulling into the driveway. “My parents!”

  He rushed Ben and his carrot into his bedroom closet and ran to the front window to see if it was his mom or his dad.

  It was neither.

  It was a Grand Marquis with a red stripe of paint on the side.

  Janine bounded out of the car, camera bag in hand, and by the time she made it to the front doorstep, Rex was waiting for her. “Hey,” he said. “How’d you know I was staying home from school?”

  “Oh, right. School,” Janine said. “I didn’t even think about that. Can I come in? There’s something you need to see.”

  “Yeah, definitely,” Rex said. “So Leif is officially a student at Whitewoo—”

  “Where’s your TV?” Janine asked, already striding past him into the house, unzipping her camera bag.

  “Uh, in the living room,” Rex said, pointing. “Hey, Ben,” he called back to his bedroom. “It’s not my parents, it’s Janine. The filmmaker.”