"But why?" I ask.
"Certain things just are around Solitary. Certain things are just accepted. That's the way this place is."
"Like what?"
"Like Gus, for one. He gets away with so much simply because of his father."
"So his father is some rich guy who everybody wants to brown-nose?"
Newt shakes his head. "No. It's more than that."
"What then?"
"There are adults that act like-I don't know. They act like they owe Mr. Staunch something."
"What?"
"I don't know. Even my parents. We don't talk about him, but when his name comes up, they act almost ..."
"Almost what?" I ask.
"Almost scared."
I think of the figure I saw on the deck, the feeling of dread that came over me. Of course I was temporarily trespassing on his land, so I had a right to feel a bit scared.
"I overheard my parents talking-people don't ever think I'm listening because I'm little, you know, but I do-and someone mentioned Mr. Staunch in an angry way. Probably because they were drinking. And my father told the other man to be quiet. To stop talking like that. As if they couldn't say anything bad about him. It was really weird."
"Tell me something. What does this have to do with Jocelyn?"
Newt sits on the edge of the couch and looks down.
"Newt?"
"It's another unspoken thing. For the most part."
"Unspoken? Then how do you know enough to tell someone like me to stay away from her?"
"My parents told me the same thing. And someone told them."
"Why?"
Newt shrugs. "I don't know."
"You have to know."
"I don't. But the same thing happened with Stuart-the kid who disappeared-the one I showed you the article about. It was almost as if the very mention of his name was almost-well, like it was blasphemous. Before and after he disappeared."
"What? Why?"
"It's secrets. This town is full of them. Everywhere you go, every person you see, every corner-they're all full of secrets."
"What kind?"
"I don't know."
"You have to have some ideas."
"I have a lot of ideas, Chris. But the biggest idea is to keep quiet and to keep to myself. Just like my parents. Just like everybody else."
"But surely there has to be someone-some people who can do something."
"Who?"
"Your parents?"
Newt laughs. "No, no. My dad serves on several boards. He's Mr. Respected. And Mom is busy and-no. They're not going to say anything."
"But this kid-he just disappeared."
Jocelyn says he was murdered.
"People who have asked questions have disappeared too."
"Like who?"
"Rumors. That's all I know."
"Newt, listen to me. Jocelyn can't disappear."
"How are you going to stop it from happening?"
"How? I don't know. You gotta help me."
Newt looks around the room and fidgets. "I'm helping the best I can. The only way I can."
"But does this Ichor Staunch have something to do with these secrets-and that guy's disappearance?"
"Nobody will say that."
"I'm asking you."
"Yeah. Totally. But there's no way to know. No way to prove it."
"That guy lives right down the street from me."
"Then you need to be extra careful."
I laugh and let out a curse of disbelief. "What is going on here? I mean-where in the world is this place? Isn't this America? Things like this don't happen. Can't someone put out a rumor on the Web? Tweet about it?"
"This is a tiny town in the mountains of North Carolina. There aren't a lot of people around here. They're friendly, but they don't like outsiders. They all know each other, and they all keep their secrets to themselves. A lot of things can happen in a place where people live out lies."
"But why would someone-what does someone want with Jocelyn?"
Newt stares back at me.
"Tell me," I say.
But he doesn't. He can't. Or he won't.
He looks back at me, and I wonder if the scar on his face was there at birth.
I want to ask him, but I can't.
He's already helped me enough, and I don't want to pressure him anymore. To pressure him or to remind him of something that surely he doesn't want to be reminded of.
I sit on the floor and put my arms behind me and let out a sigh.
"One other thing you need to know," he says.
"What? What else can there be?"
"It's about Jocelyn."
I wait for him to tell me.
"That guy who's around her-the creepy guy who looks like he belongs in prison-Wade, is it?"
I nod. Newt continues speaking in his matter-of-fact way, no emotion clouding his face.
"Guys at school say that he does more than just hurts Jocelyn. That he does a lot more."
"That's a lie."
"I'm just telling you what I hear."
I curse, calling it vicious gossip.
"Maybe it is," Newt says. "Doesn't mean it doesn't happen."
"He's not going to touch her."
"You can't watch her all day long."
I leave his house feeling bewildered and confused and angry, but I should probably feel frightened.
There is a small area in the library at Harrington High that has a computer area attached to it. It's laughable compared to the computer lab back at my old high school. I'm on a computer a little older than my laptop searching for something on the Internet.
I'm doing it here because I don't trust my computer. Someone already seems to know my every move, including any type of communication done on my laptop. If I start doing searches on it, that someone might find out.
I start my list with the following words: missing people Solitary, North Carolina. I narrow the search and use other words, like students and children and disappeared. After spending most of the study hall searching random news blurbs and articles, I've come up with a list.
Suddenly I feel nervous. I glance behind me.
Big Brother watches and always will, Chris.
If they did watch, they certainly wouldn't be able to read my scribbles on the piece of paper. That I'm sure of.
I look at the list.
STUART ALGIERS (17)-MISSING DURING CNRISTMAS BREAK
LUCY PEMMER (13)-WENT MISSING DECEMBER 2q YEAR EARLIER
PARRY MARSHALL (16)-DISA'P'PEARED ON CHRISTMAS DAY TWO YEARS AGO
There are others, too, but none directly related to Solitary. At least not in bold letters. A guy who dies in a hunting accident. A man found frozen in his car after it broke down during a winter storm. An elderly woman shot by a burglar.
Three missing students in three years.
All between the ages of thirteen and seventeen.
All disappearing around the Christmas holidays.
The list looks way too long to me. Way too long to be coincidental.
If I knew someone to go to, I would.
How about Mom?
I fold the sheet of paper up and put it in my jacket pocket. Maybe I'll tell her about it, but she'll probably just tell me to stay out of it and be careful and all that. Or she might go to the police and spill the beans and get us into even more hot water.
I'm trying to avoid the hot water.
I slip a note to Jocelyn on the way to lunch, though I don't sit with her:
WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT LUCY PEMMER AND PARRY MARSHALL?
At the end of lunch, she hands me her response:
As our class together begins, I shoot Jocelyn a look and nod at her. I can see the paleness of her skin, the blankness in her eyes.
7bats fear, Chris. And its something you probably smack of too.
All throughout that class and the rest of the day, I try to figure out what to do.
Who to tell.
Where to go.
Somethi
ng's wrong with all of this. And Jocelyn might be next.
It sounds absurd, but so do many things that happen every single day. They're absurd until they show up on your doorstep knocking.
What about telling Dad?
The voice comes out of nowhere, and I squelch it quickly. If I could punch whoever said it, I would. There's no way I'd ask my dad for anything. Mom could be going to a Turkish prison and I still wouldn't reach out for his help.
Well, maybe if it was Turkish I would, but only then.
After last-period PE, I'm changing my clothes in the locker room, absorbed in thoughts. I don't even hear the guys behind me until it's too late. One second I'm by my locker staring into it, and then the next I feel arms grab me at both sides and something go over my head, and for a second I think it's a plastic bag that someone's going to suffocate me with. The room goes dark.
My arms are pulled and my hands are tied behind my back. I wrangle and wrestle and thrash, but whoever is holding me down is too strong. My scream is stifled by someone's big hand.
Its Gus. Its gotta be Gus.
Then I hear something tear and realize it's tape. They're tying my legs together now.
I manage to break my mouth away from the hold and howl out, "Stop it! Somebody help me! Somebody!"
But then I cough and choke as the hand cups something else around my nose and mouth. I inhale something strong, bitter, gagging. I cough more and then suddenly feel light and groggy.
In seconds, I'm out.
"Wake up. Come on, boy. Wake up."
I open my eyes but feel like I'm still dreaming. My body feels like it's moving, my head swaying on the top of the surface of the ocean. Is it nighttime? Everything is still pitch black.
Then something hits the side of my face, and I open my eyes and know I still have something-a cloth of some kind-over my head.
"You there? You awake?"
I don't recognize this voice, but I know it doesn't belong to Gus.
"Yeah." My voice sounds scratchy and stuffy.
"Good. Very good."
I try to move my arms, but they're still behind me. My legs won't move either.
And I'm cold. I'm very cold.
"You're some kind of stupid, aren't you, boy? Don't you get it? Don't you even remotely care about things, boy?"
"What?"
"Now you shut your mouth, but make sure your ears are open and listenin', got it?"
I don't say anything, then feel a hand grab my head and shake it.
It's the equivalent of riding the roller coaster backward with the lights off after taking cough syrup.
"You got it, boy?"
"Yeah, yeah, got it."
The voice sounds older-Southern. No-nonsense. I'd want to say that it's an elderly voice, but the hand that just grabbed me felt like someone strong and big.
"You know what I hate, boy? It's headaches. I hate when they come on. I used to get them all the time. These brain-poppin' migraines. The kind that would make the lights go out. The kind that made you see ten thousand stars in yet head. You ever feel something like that?"
I shake my head, then utter "no" out of fear.
"And you know, that's what you're becomin'. A headache. A really annoying headache. But I'm not gonna let it get worse. It's not gonna be a migraine, I'll promise you that. You got that, boy?"
"Yeah."
He laughs and then mumbles a curse.
I hear shuffling. We're not the only people here, wherever here is.
The man's voice echoes the way it might in a small room. But it's cold. It's too cold to be inside.
"Eyes are on you a bit too much, and I gotta account for that. But sooner or later they won't be. And believe me, if you don't stop all this nonsense, you'll disappear like the rest of them. You got it?"
Yes.
A blinding block of pain bashes against the side of my head, sending me to the floor. I feel hands grab my arm and pull me back up. I'm still wincing, still woozy, still trying to understand what's going on, when I hear the voice again.
"It's hard to know which you value more, Chris Buckley." The way the last name comes out sounds like someone picking food from his teeth. "Your mother's life or your own. We'll take both; it's fine with me."
I close and open my eyes, but it doesn't do any good. I still can't see anything. The ache in my head is like a mutating alien throbbing to get out.
"You stop trying to play Boy Scout, Chris. Stop trying to be a detective. Stop asking questions and snooping around. And stop everything-and I mean everything-with your little girlfriend." Something presses against my ear, and I realize it's the man's lips. "Stop all of this or I will kill you, Chris. The same way I killed your uncle. You got it?"
I nod and say "yes" or think I say "yes," because sometime shortly after this I black out again.
I'm fifteen and riding in a convertible with my friends and my tunes surrounding me.
Sophomore year is over and life is ahead of me and nothing really matters. It doesn't matter that things at home are crumbling or that my father's filling me with stories about heaven and hell or that I'm starting to do things I shouldn't be doing or that I have this sinking feeling every now and then that things are suddenly going to get bad.
But on this night they can't and won't because the music's much too loud to let it.
I can block it out with the volume.
The glowing skyline of Chicago in the distance speaks of opportunity.
The bass throbbing against my gut speaks of the wild adult world I want to join.
Yet the shadows still seem to follow even in the dead of night.
For some reason I'm thinking of this summer night when I wake up shivering in the darkness.
My head aches.
My hands feel numb. I find they're still tied behind me, yet they don't feel as tight as they were before. I wrangle around my legs and find that they're free. One of them stomps against the wall-a wall that's particularly soft.
Feels like dirt.
It not only feels like dirt, but smells like it too. If dirt has a smell.
I feel a sense of deja vu.
I keep blinking and realize there's still something covering my eyes, something wrapped all around my head.
I pull, tug, try to bend and slip out of whatever's holding my arms behind my back.
Breathe in and relax and figure this out, Chris.
So I do that.
I calm down as much as I can. My heart doesn't exactly cooperate, but at least my mind starts to function.
I slide backward as far as I can, my fingers reaching out like a piano player jamming a tune. Leaning against the wall, I manage to guide myself up so I'm finally standing. Then I keep feeling the wall behind me, a dirt wall in a hole that I must be in.
A hole that seems very familiar.
Something hard and cold brushes against my knuckle and I touch it, realizing it's a rock. A rock with a sharp edge.
In a matter of a few minutes, I've worn out whatever bind is keeping my hands behind my back.
It's easy. Too easy, in fact. As if whoever tied me up deliberately made sure I could unfasten the rope. With my hands free, I tear off the cloth from my eyes.
It's still almost pitch black in here, but as I look upward I suddenly recognize this place.
And I wish that I had kept the bandana on.
The cabin.
It's the same square hole, with the faintest of light coming from the opening above me.
I was always going to come back and check it out, see where the dark opening led to.
A cold breeze seems to whisper at me in response.
I stare in its direction.
Something's there.
It's a crazy thought, and I know that I need to get out of here. But my arms are just starting to get some feeling in them, and my head is only slightly out of its foggy hole.
Get out of here now, Chris.
I massage the dirt walls to find that ladder again. I soon lock on t
o a railing and start to pull myself up.
That's when I hear the voice.
"Chrisssssssssssss."
I'm so freaked out that I grab onto the railing above me in the wrong way and then I find I'm not grabbing anything.
My fall back to the ground knocks the wind out of me.
I cough and stand and search for the railings again.
"I see you, Chrisssssssssss."
The voice is low and soft and sick and evil.
And it sounds like it's five feet away.
My skin is crawling with bumps and my mind is tearing off in fear and I'm reaching and climbing and slipping and holding and in what seems like an hour I make my way up and out of that hole.
I scramble away from its opening like some tiny animal escaping the jaws of death. I knock over a chair and find myself tumbling again, my body landing on the dull edge of something that scrapes my side.
It's dark outside, but I can see the windows and slight gray opposed to the black of the hole.
I see the door and open it and scramble outside into the woods, sucking in air and gasping and probably looking like someone possessed.
All I know is that I need to get back to my house.
It's downhill.
I know I shouldn't be sprinting through the woods because I might trip and fall onto something really, really sharp, but it's better than whatever is behind me in that cabin.
Underneath that cabin in that ungodly hole.
I'm back home before I know it, and I'm in my living room for several minutes breathing in and out before I notice the blood on my shirt.
"Mom?" I call out several times.
But she's not here. Fortunately.
I don't have to explain something I can't.
Sooner or later it's going to hit me how much trouble I'm in.
I'm listening to The Smiths and wondering if life can get any worse.
I don't want to find out.
I know what I have to do.
I make mental notes of the situation.
There's Mom. Trying to work her away around the sadness she's been left in.
There's Dad. Somewhere else far, far away with whatever God he believes he knows.
There's Jocelyn. This beautiful girl, inside and out, who somehow finds herself in all this trouble.
There's Gus and his friends who want to pound my face into the ground.
Solitary: A Novel Page 21