“The three of us went to play ball yesterday.”
“What time and where?” Detective Benny pulled a notepad and pen from his pocket.
“I guess it was about six-thirty when they picked me up. We went to Franklin Park.” I stuffed my trembling hands under my legs, paranoid that my body language was all wrong.
“How long were you there?”
“An hour, I guess. I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Did either of them display any odd behavior or say anything to you about plans to harm themselves?”
“No, sir. They seemed fine.”
My mind felt like it was in a blender set on high. I couldn’t decide if it was in my best interest to fess up about the water-drinking incident or conceal it at all costs.
“Owen, Marshall’s truck was seen headed into the woods behind Masonville High yesterday evening. Why is that?”
“Well, we went to the woods after we left the park.”
“What for?”
“We wanted to jog. There’s trails back there.”
Detective Benny rubbed his chin. Nearly closed his eyes. “So after playing basketball for an hour, you wanted to go for a jog? In the woods?”
A ridiculous alibi, I realized now, but it was too late to change it.
“Yeah. Walt and Marshall wanted to race.” Still weak, but it’s what came to me.
Detective Benny responded to a call on his cell, then lowered to one knee in front of me. I felt hot splotches expanding on my neck.
“Wanna tell me why you sent both boys a text at 6:04 this morning asking if they were okay?”
“Well . . .”
Lying to my mom was easy. Lying to teachers, not so bad. Lying to the cops? Think tightrope walking between skyscrapers in Dubai.
Blindfolded.
Buck naked.
“Yesterday Marshall said he’d pick Walt and me up early so we could go grab breakfast before school. When they didn’t show, I asked if everything was okay. I had no idea they were . . .”
Officer McFarland received a page on his radio, summoning him elsewhere. It seemed fate had dealt me a get-out-of-jail-free card. For now, anyway. But my heart still hammered like a nail gun.
Detective Benny assured me he’d be in touch. He looked at me the same way Ray Anne’s father had.
Not good.
I quarantined myself in the bathroom and eventually showered, letting the steamy water clobber me in the face. The more I thought about it, the less doubt there was in my mind that neither Walt nor Marshall committed suicide. The cause of death was undetermined because there were no outward signs of injury. But the water had ravaged them from within. I was sure of it. The water I had scooped out and told them to drink.
I didn’t mean to kill them, but that didn’t make them any less dead. I was guilty of manslaughter. That was a tough one to swallow. I had no idea why the water hadn’t killed me, but right now . . .
I wished it had.
It occurred to me to go to the police and confess everything, but how would I explain? If I hadn’t lied to Ms. Barnett about where I’d gotten that water sample, she could have vouched for me, assuring the police I genuinely believed it was clean. But I had lied to her, and to go back now and try to explain the situation would only expose what a liar I was, making me a prime suspect.
To make things worse, I’d told Lance and Jess that the water in the woods had made me deathly ill. How would I defend my decision to serve it to Walt and Marshall? I’d clearly acted with malicious intent, and I was sure a prosecutor could spin that into a believable motive for murder.
I had no choice but to keep my mouth shut.
Call it a hunch, but I had a feeling prison would be crawling with Creepers. Getting locked up was not an option.
I turned off the shower water, then stood there, misery weighing so hard on me it seemed impossible to step up and out of the tub.
So this is what survivor’s guilt feels like.
I was responsible for the deaths of two guys, two young people with their whole lives ahead of them. I tried to think of a way to make things right, as if life offers a miraculous Undo button when you really, really need it. But there was no undoing this. No last-minute hope or second chances. Just unbearable guilt and a skull-splitting headache.
I slid my towel off the shower rod and wrapped it around my aching head—face and all—pressing it against my ears in a useless attempt to silence the voice in my head:
“May this moment haunt you every day, for the rest of your life.”
Walt’s toast. A premonition of some sort? Or a well-deserved curse?
At some point, I talked myself into leaving the bathroom. I made it to my room, where I threw on some boxer shorts, then wrapped myself inside my sheets like a tortured mummy.
I basically stayed there for a week, eating just enough to keep my body functioning. Not that I believed I deserved to live—I just couldn’t endure the pain of starvation.
My mom nagged me to go to school and ordered me to keep up with chores and acted appalled at my messy room, but I tuned her out. Maybe she’d realize now how much I’d always done for her.
I had no desire to speak to anyone during my self-imposed house arrest—well, except for Ray Anne. I made up an excuse for staying home all week, and she bought it. She talked about Walt and Marshall and at one point asked my opinion about the cause of death.
“There’s a rumor,” she said. “It may have been murder. Do you believe it?”
“No,” I said, scrubbing the word guilty on my living room wall with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser. “There’s no way that’s true.”
The black letters weren’t coming off.
Unfortunately, during my seclusion, I couldn’t stop people from coming to see me. Detective Benny came by and asked a whole lot more questions. I did the best I could to give reasonable answers, but I was sure he picked up on the rotten stink of my deception.
That counselor lady from my school, who liked to talk obnoxiously close to my face, came to see me twice. She let me know that no matter how my grades tanked or my absences stacked up, any senior who stayed enrolled and alive at Masonville High until the end of May would graduate. That was good to hear, since I had no intention of doing schoolwork ever again.
She wanted me to talk about my feelings, my grief, and all my newfound phobias triggered by the suicides, so I just played along. I would have liked to confide in her, but those days were over. I couldn’t tell a single soul what was really going on in my head, including Ray Anne. I kept up my charade with her, acting like I was grieving Walt and Marshall’s deaths just like everyone else. Yeah, I broke my promise not to lie to her, but what choice did I have?
My seclusion brought zero comfort. Hard as I tried to get rid of the sickening thought, I couldn’t stop imagining Walt and Marshall on autopsy tables. Scalpels probing their cold bodies inside and out.
On Sunday night, exactly one week after I’d led my buddies to guzzle down killer cocktails, I felt just as miserable as the moment I’d learned they were dead.
Walt’s funeral was the next day, and Marshall’s, the day after that. I killed them—the least I could do was pay my respects. Besides, skipping out on their funerals would make the police even more suspicious.
I had no idea how I’d keep it together while their parents and everyone sobbed, begging for an answer.
One minute I wanted to punch my own face, and the next, I was stressing over keeping my butt out of prison. If I’d thought my future was wrecked before, now it was totally annihilated. My dream of becoming a doctor went from majorly threatened to a definite no way. Saving lives is not an acceptable career for a murderer.
I didn’t know what my future looked like, but words like dark, lonely, and major depressive disorder came to mind.
It seemed like our entire school was at Walt’s funeral, along with half the city. Things almost got violent when protesters had the nerve to show up outside the funeral home, shouting their sens
eless accusations. Walt’s dad nearly went to fists. I didn’t blame him.
The press was there, of course, but I hadn’t expected my mom to want to come. She smelled like alcohol, but oh well.
The front section of seats, behind family, was reserved for track-team members, so my mother and I had to sit there. So much for my plan to hide out in the back. A crowd spilled into the foyer and out the door onto the street. Detective Benny was there too.
I tried not to look at the shiny, gray elephant in the room: Walt’s casket. It was open, and that really bothered me. I focused on the rolled-up program in my clammy hands, my mom’s overstuffed purse on the floor, flowers lining the room—anything but his embalmed body.
While I watched the slide show of Walt’s life, my chest felt like it was being severed in two with a dull knife. Baby pictures. Swimming lessons. Birthday parties. His senior cap-and-gown picture.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
If I felt this bad, how were his parents surviving? Walt’s little sister looked just like him. She buried her face in her mother’s lap and bawled. Walt’s mom glanced over her shoulder and narrowed her eyes. At me? Did she know something?
I kept my head down for most of the funeral and made zero eye contact with Mrs. Davis, almost drowning in the mucus running down the back of my throat as I strained to hold in my emotions.
At one point, I felt a wave of chilled air hit my neck. Sure enough, a quick glance over my shoulder and I realized there was a Creeper looming in the back, too far away for me to read its name. It seemed like its dead eyes were fixed on me. I tried to put it out of my mind.
By the time Walt’s uncle finished sharing some final words, I had slid to the very edge of my seat, ready to jump up and get out of there. But the usher signaled for our row to stand, then motioned for us to approach the casket in a single-file line, following the family.
I’d heard that when you hyperventilate, you’re supposed to breathe into a paper sack, but I didn’t have one. I cupped my hands over my mouth and heaved air into my palms. My mom looped her arm through mine, tugging me forward.
I stared at the dark-red carpet, dreading each step like a steer being led to the slaughter, only I was the executioner, forced to face my victim—a defenseless lamb.
Another step. The casket invaded my peripheral vision. I thought I might faint and honestly wanted to. My heart ached. It burned as if someone had beaten and bruised it, then set my chest on fire.
The line moved forward again.
“I’m so sorry,” I heard a lady say into the coffin.
And just like that, an epiphany.
I’d never get this opportunity again, to come face-to-face with Walt. I had to suck it up—be a man and say what needed to be said.
Another step.
I wasn’t willing to look at him until the moment. I took in every detail of the flowers draped over the bottom half of the casket, mostly white blooms that struck me as pale and stark and cold.
One more step and it would be my turn. My mother’s voice broke with emotion as she whispered something. How was I going to get through this?
She stepped away. The guy behind me bumped into me, expecting me to move. It took me a second. I closed my eyes and slid forward.
“Walt . . .” My voice was soft as a breeze but shaking like an earthquake. “I know I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but—”
I opened my eyes.
And jolted backward, nearly falling.
NINETEEN
WALT’S BODY LOOKED atrocious—mutilated and horrible—but I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. My arms reached and flailed, even though I wasn’t falling and there was nothing to cling to.
Walt’s chains and cords were coiled meticulously around his neck, encircling his shackle, but that wasn’t the bad part. What took my breath away was his midsection. It was gone—I’m talking completely caved in, like a grenade had detonated in his gut, disintegrating his suit and stomach. And it left a filthy hole, not lined with blood or body parts, but with what looked like dirt.
Thick, grungy, dark powder.
I scanned the room. Why hadn’t anyone warned me? Why was the casket even open?
“Son?” My mom reached up and gripped my arm, leading me through the sea of gawking, red-nosed faces toward the door.
“Mom, you should have told me that he . . . that he looks so . . .” I didn’t know what to call it.
“I know it’s hard.” She started weeping again. “Seeing him lying there, like he’s sleeping. So handsome.”
“Mom, he looks terrible!” I pulled my arm away. “What happened to him? Why does he have that huge hole?”
The lines on her forehead deepened. “What are you talking about?” She gave polite smiles to all the eavesdroppers, then glared at me.
“Mom, he had that disgusting—” Oh. I finally got it. One more thing only I could see.
“Forget it.” I shoved past the crowd and out the door, then wove through the masses until I made it to my mother’s SUV. I looked back to see if she was coming, and she was—and so was it. That Creeper had tracked me all the way from the building. It was a few steps behind my mom.
“Hurry!”
She used her remote to unlock the vehicle for me, and I was inside with the door shut in seconds.
“Come on!” She couldn’t hear me, but I yelled anyway. She got in just in time, and I locked the doors, then peered out the rear window. It was standing there, staring at me.
We pulled away, but not before I saw its name:
murder
A chill crept around my neck.
I went straight to my room and grabbed my laptop. I turned again and again and again to look behind me, officially suffering from OCD now. Once I pulled up my timeline, I made my strangest entry yet.
Monday, April 9—Walt’s dead body has gross gaping hole. Chains and cords appear to have been removed and spiraled around his neck. Cuffs at the end of chains are gone.
I also documented how the Creeper had followed me. My guilt had probably led it to me, like bloody chum enticing a shark.
No way I was going to Marshall’s funeral tomorrow. I hoped it didn’t raise any red flags with the police, but I had to sit this one out. I couldn’t face that a second time.
I was slumped over the desk in my room texting Ray Anne when my mom barged in and dropped a bomb on me. “Coach called. They need one more pallbearer tomorrow, and they thought of you. I told them you’d do it.”
“By pallbearer, you mean one of the guys who carries the casket?”
“Yes. It’s the least you can do.” She turned to leave, dragging her chains along.
“No freaking way!”
She spun around, jaw dropped.
“Mom, you saw how I reacted today. It’s too much. I can’t do it!”
She crossed her arms, then proceeded to give a mouthful of clichéd advice. “Life isn’t always easy, Son. You can’t run from difficult situations.”
I jumped up. “You’re going to lecture me about not running? Not taking the easy way out? You, the woman who spends every day drowning her secret sorrows in alcohol and useless men?”
She jerked, like my words jabbed her. “I don’t know who you think you are!” Her bottom lip quivered.
“Well, I don’t have a clue who you are! You won’t tell me anything. Your past, my grandparents. How do I know they were really the monsters you’ve made them out to be?”
“Excuse me!” Her eyes pooled now—an explosive mix of anger and pain.
“And what about my father?” I’d really marched into forbidden territory now. “You won’t even talk to me about him.”
She gasped. “How dare you! I’ve told you everything you need to know, Owen.”
“Have you?”
Now I’d done it. She shouted so loudly and furiously that white foam gathered in the corners of her mouth. “How many times have I explained to you that I had a horrible upbringing and a terrible relationship with my parents? I never
would have dreamed of introducing you to them. And I’ve told you over and over how your father walked out on us.”
Because of me. I understood that.
“What more do you want to know, Owen? Come on!”
“For starters, how are you able to pay cash for things? Your Infiniti. Our house in Boston. You work, like, two hours a day—maybe.”
I walked toward her, shoving my finger in her pouty face. “And why don’t you have a single picture of my dad?”
“Like I said the last ten times you asked me that, it was too painful to hold on to that stuff. I got rid of it and started a new life.” Her voice softened. “With you.”
She put her hand on my shoulder, but I stepped back.
“You’re hiding something, Mom. I know it.”
“Well, you would know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t think I’ve noticed the way you’re acting lately? That you’re hallucinating? Delusional? You’re on drugs, though we both know you’d never admit it.”
I felt my veins bulging in my neck. “So help me, if you accuse me of that one more time—”
“Quit denying it!” she shouted in my face, her arms stiff, fists tight.
I had to put some space between us, had to walk away from the urge to curse in her face. I leaned back against the wall. “I’m not gonna let you do this anymore, Mom.”
“Do what?”
“Turn the microscope on me in order to take the focus off you.”
“Just stop it! I’m leaving. I have plans with Frank.” She stormed out of my room—the woman who’d just told me we can’t run from difficult situations.
I heard the front door slam. Daisy was barking her head off. I looked out my window, and my mother was still crying. But she was no longer my concern.
Murder hovered at the end of my driveway. Peering up at me.
TWENTY
I SPENT MOST OF THAT evening staring out of my window. At sunset the monster—Murder—vanished. Still, I hardly slept that night. By morning, Daisy was sitting at the foot of my bed, panting like always, but with her eyes fixed on my window. I lifted a corner of the blinds.
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