Vance and Mitch are at it again. It is a rare occasion for them to agree on anything. But that’s just how they are. There are different types of friendships —gym friends, school friends, best friends, and the list goes on. Each friendship has a thing, and theirs is…arguing.
Not like at each other’s throats, circling each other like wolves fighting. More like they’d rather drop dead than be forced to admit the other is correct. I think we’d enter the grounds for World War Three if they hated each other.
Tonight’s topic of discussion is, well, I’ll just let you discover it yourself.
“No, I would not, because that’s weird,” Vance excimed emphatically. I can just make out the outline of his profile, his eyes fixed on the feet Mitch has firmly pnted on his dashboard. Not watching the road, we hit a pothole, and the truck lurches a bit.
He’s going to kill us all one day, I swear.
His hand flies out to sweep Mitch’s legs off the dash. “Mitchell, get your grubby wubby feet off the dashboard, or I swear to every living female that you have set eyes on, I will murder you!”
Okay, so maybe they are the type to have hand-at-throat quarrels, but nothing too dire. I think… “Grubby wubby?” I mutter from my banished spot behind the driver’s seat, raising an eyebrow.
They don’t hear me.
Mitch kicks at Vance’s reaching hands. I grip the overhead handle hard as the car swerves violently. “But why?” Mitch cries. “You’re telling me that you wouldn’t wear dresses to school for a month to date Margo Robbie? She’s like insanely hot!”
I slump back against my seat and stare at the scenery passing outside my window, resigned to the fact that they’re not stopping. The horizon swallows the sun very slowly. The waning light blurs the outline of trees, turning them into blobs of bck. A sudden sm of the brakes has me lurching forward and blubbering like a fish out of water. My hand presses to my chest, feeling my heart hammering against my sternum and the shock tingling along my skin.
“Sorry guys, there was a squirrel,” Vance expins sheepishly. And then, because Mitch can never admit defeat, they dive right back into their argument.
For the sake of posterity, (and, well, your suffering) here’s a summary of their stupid conversation:
Vance: “Dude, it’s weird. Why would I willingly humiliate myself every day for a month to date Margo Robbie?”
Mitchell: “Because she’s like really really hot—”
Vance: “Okay, but I’m not gay or anything.”
Mitchell: “Who said anything about gay people?”
Vance: “Gay dudes wear dresses.”
Mitchell: “Sam Smith wears dresses. Besides, it would obviously prove you’re not gay if you were doing it to date Margo Robbie.”
Vance: “Sam Smith is literally gay! And I have a girlfriend!”
Me (smirking): “Actually, Sam Smith is genderqueer. There’s a difference.”
Vance: “What the eff is genderqueer? Is that even a thing?”
Mitchell: “Stop trying to distract me from the subject. Don’t think I didn’t notice that!”
Vance: “Mitchell, Imma kick you out my car if you can’t shut your ass up.”
Mitchell: “I’m just saying, real men adapt. It’s called commitment. You just wish you had the guts.”
Vance: “At least I have a girlfriend. You can’t flirt to save your life.”
Mitchell: “Irrelevant.”
If you had to listen to this every day for your entire high school career, you’d have a throbbing headache, too. Which is why, after several more minutes, I eventually got tired of it and yelled, “Who the hell cares! Can we talk about something else?”
They went quiet for a moment, other than a quiet “Damn” on Vance’s part. Then the only sound left was the hum of the air conditioning and the tires rolling beneath us. Vance shot me a look in the rear view mirror, but I kept my eyes glued on the dimming sky. Apparently, they didn’t want to talk about anything else. Or maybe I just robbed their opportunities for new topics with my outburst. I dunno, but I don’t really care. They were getting on my nerves with their incessant chatter.
After a minute of this, Mitch, probably itching to get something out, casually said, “Did you know that female leopards have pseudo-penises?”
I turned my head slowly, staring at him incredulously, a small smirk curling over the corner of my mouth. This was his dumb way of apologizing. “Where the hell did you learn that?”
Apology accepted.
__________
Arriving at a party feels like a fever dream. That first rush of stepping out of the car is always the most vivid. You remember the first brush of air against your arms, you remember the swarms of people pouring in and out of the entrance, you remember chaos. But the rest is hazed over by the fuzzy quality of alcohol, bits and pieces torn away from your memory. I don’t like alcohol. It tastes medicinal and it smells like dehydrated piss, but you can’t expect me to come here and not drink any.
But it’s not so much the beer I distaste rather than the woods. I mentioned earlier that I didn’t want to come, but it’s one thing to say so, and another to feel so. My stomach keeps cramping and I keep wanting to scratch my arms, but that might just be from the mosquitoes.
Also, I’m sitting on an old wooden swing outside an abandoned orphanage, where I’ve been for the past half hour. I had not been aware it existed, but some kids in my grade thought themselves to be genius horror hunters or something and decided this was to be the optimal location for hosting a party. What idiots. It’s a stupid idea, honestly. But of course, I’m not going to go and prove that I’m still the same kid who saw my best friend’s body mangled by a “monster.”
The sunset fades to purple as the spring night creeps in. I’m tempted to pull my shirt off my head, but the mosquitoes have been drawn out from the allure of fresh teenage blood, and their hum is getting under my skin, so I decide against it. I can feel the weight of the air, thick and mucky like tar, the scent of stale beer permeating through the humid atmosphere. Kegs are set up in the building and out in the wn. The bass thumps so hard it feels like my ribs are vibrating. Occasionally, some kids will think it’s funny to fsh lights in my eyes and cim it’s because they “were trying to see who was on the swing.”
My friends have abandoned me. Vance went to find Lynn, his girlfriend, and Mitch to who knows where, probably to go chug beer. I’ve had a couple drinks myself, but it’s not worth it without the appeal of being drunk. Which, no way am I doing that in the near future, not with what happened st time.
I fish my phone out of my pocket and scroll pointlessly through TikTok, but am unsatisfied with anything I’m seeing, so I stow it away.
I curl my fingers around the frayed rope and push back onto my heels. I can feel the tension pulling taut and I can hear the creaking of the branches above head. Kicking my legs forward, tilting my head back and letting my eyes fall shut. The hot breeze sifts through my hair, offering some relief to the growing puddle of sweat on the small of my back. I try not to let myself worry that this swing could snap at any second, that I don’t know how old it is. I just focus on the motion, and the leaping of my stomach with each swing. Back and forth. Back and forth. Backandforth and backandforth…
My mind swings too, like a pendulum, fading from my surroundings.
Earlier, when we entered the party, the fleeing traces of daylight hung desperate and gold from the horizon. Vance greeted every person that walked by, and I just stood behind. The thing about Pemberton High School is that it’s small, but it doesn’t feel so small when nearly every student is packed inside a rotting building.
The music rattled my bones, and I could feel the bass in my toenails, if that’s even possible. The interior was exactly what you’d expect from an abandoned orphanage. Wooden pnks y derelict in corners, once blue walls had eaten at themselves, the paint peeling. The ceiling sagged and fked. Definitely a safety hazard. Just strap some LEDs on there and call it good.
The pce groaned with creaks every few seconds, and I had to bite back the instinct to flinch each time. A rge group had formed a loose half-circle by the wall, exchanging stories and ughter for drinks and whatever else they were passing around. Couples pressed into each other, moving in time with the music, while other clusters of people huddled together in smaller, more intimate circles. I gnced to my right and caught sight of Jonah Hoffman, hunched over the keg, sucking from it like it was the only thing keeping him alive.
It was awkward, standing there, rocking back and forth on the heels of my feet. With Vance already off in search of Lynn and Mitch telling me he’ll be back with drinks, I was left alone.
Mitch didn’t come back with drinks. Actually, he didn’t come back at all. I’m pretty sure he just got drunk off his ass and went off to bother some girls. At that point, I decided to stop wasting time and just dive in, so I grabbed a drink and downed it quickly. The liquid burned as it slid down my throat, sharp and bitter, with a sickly aftertaste that clung to the back of my tongue. It was like swallowing fire. I then coughed into a girl’s hair.
Two or three drinks ter, I could feel my soberness beginning to blur, so I stopped. But I was bored. People kept crashing into me like waves, and the noise was so loud that I’m sure I’ll have hearing damage.
Suddenly, a heavy thump emanated from the ceiling, and a hush fell over the room quicker than lightning. Fragments of pster and dust rained down on people’s heads. Somebody paused the music. It’s a universally acknowledged truth that scary things are preferred when you have somebody to ugh it off with, but considering the location, nobody was ughing now. A few people exchanged uneasy gnces, their intoxicated brains unable to process whether they should be freaked out or brush it off.
I was one of those people. My breathing had changed pattern, and a lump formed in my throat as I strained to hear for another sound. Nothing came but the whistling wind. The atmosphere was almost tangible, and I was edging a mental break-down, when…
“Sorry guys, I fell!” came from upstairs.
“Oh my-” somebody started, and the noise picked up right where it left off, the tension scattering in every direction. Conversations resumed and the music once again gained dominance, shaking the walls.
My skin still felt tight.
I looked around, hoping to see other expressions that mirrored my own, but there were none. If there was any fear at all, it was gone then. I couldn’t find my friends, I was surrounded by people I had known since childhood, yet I felt alone. Awkward. Like a fish in a birdcage. I didn’t belong. I couldn’t breathe.
A shriek of ughter cut through the air, and, choking on my own breath, turned just in time to see Jonah Hoffman tipping backward, beer cascading down his chin as he attempted to do a keg stand solo. His friends howled as he nded on his ass, and he just grinned, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand like it was some great achievement.
The heat became entirely unbearable. My mouth was sticky, and my chest burned, and I felt wrong, like I’d been turned inside out and my internal organs, now external, were being exposed by too many stressors at once. I turned on my heel, pushing through people, separating couples that were in my way, and bursting through the groaning door.
I need this motion in my life.
Backandforthandbackandforthandbackandforth…
The swing chains groan as I rock, my shoes scraping zy arcs in the dirt. The wind whispers through the trees, rattling brittle leaves like old bones.
The thump from earlier still reverberates in my mind. I’m still a bit jumpy, but at least out here I can pretend I’m not.
That’s what I like about being alone. No one to see me flinch. No one to hear me, either, as I listen and catch all the details I need.
Then I hear it. The ughter. Rolling through the woods like a wave.
Distant, drunk ughter, floating through the trees. I stiffen for a moment, my grip tightening on the chains, but then I decide it doesn’t matter. I’m still hyper-aware of how loud the creaking must sound, and a piece of me wishes I hadn’t moved at all. But the longer it occurs, the more I rex, and I exhale. It’s just some idiots messing around. Nothing unusual.
Still, my stomach compresses.
I turn my head slightly, and watch them through the gaps in the trees. Shadows shift in the moonlight—kids pushing each other, stumbling, ughing. It looks like they’re egging each other on. Probably daring someone to run into the woods naked or some other dumb shit. But I keep seeing them, the ropelike arms moving in the dark, fingers pointing, gestures sharp and deliberate. Bobbing heads.
I frown and squint, my bad eyes unable to catch what they’re hunting.
Maybe a deer. Or a raccoon. Or some poor skunk that would only result in the entire party reeking.
I expel a breath and push off the swing, my feet sinking in the dirt. I’m not about to smell like pot for days because some idiots thought it was funny to chase a damn skunk.
My legs carry forward, slow and cautious. I just need to see what they’re looking at. But then I notice how they hesitate. How their steps slow and their ughter thins. The noose in my gut pulls tighter. I lose sight of them for a moment, but now I can hear them pretty well.
“What the hell is that?” someone murmurs.
“Maybe we should get back,” a girlier voice slurs, tighter, more uncertain.
My skin prickles.
Of course this is the time some jackass snorts, “Don’t be wimps. It’s probably just—”
I yank my foot free from a tangle of roots and peek beyond my hiding spot. I don’t catch the rest because I’m already moving, my heart hammering against my sternum. I knew, obviously I knew, that they were getting too close. I recognize that pulling at my stomach, and how it suddenly snapped tighter.
Because I saw it. Past the intoxicated bunch, approximately twenty-ish feet.
I’m eleven-years-old again, whining in my head about how my feet ache, when I look straight at it. Pale. Bony. Skin stretched too thin over an unnaturally long frame. Sharp joints. Head tilted too far, like a marionette with its strings cut wrong. Hollowed sockets. A sickly sheen resembling grayish milk.
One thing hasn’t changed since that night. I still want to barf.
The shadows in front of me are still hesitating as I hobble, still debated, still stupidly and completely blind. Too focused on proving they aren’t scared to realize that they should be.
My body moves before my brain catches up, and I’m sprinting towards the action, my voice crackling as I shouted—
“RUN!”
Heads whipped in my direction, but they didn’t realize. They never do. I can only guess what they were thinking before everything exploded. Oh, there goes Eddie again. Wonder what monster he’s seen now. If only they’d look, would they understand? I can’t get my legs to move fast enough, my voice to scream loud enough, can’t get my thoughts to line up the way I need them to. Don’t worry about that boy, they’re probably thinking, he’s troubled. He’s still dealing with trauma. Weird fucker, that kid.
My legs threaten to give out, and I’m still screaming, and that thing is jerking all odd like it’s having a seizure, but before they can react further
my world goes up in fmes.
Heat swallows me whole, a wall of orange, red, gold, and an unholy white bursting up around me. For a second, it’s almost beautiful, flickering, dancing around me gracefully. But it rages further, twisting into something demonic. I must’ve been knocked off my feet, because I’m on the ground, my skull shaking, and my ears ringing like bombs had gone off inside them. I cough, my throat sounding like a death rattle. All I can do is blink, confusion clouding my head like fog. It’s like shattered gss, and the pieces have flown so far that my senses can’t pick them up off the ground.
Where am I?
What just happened?
Gosh, these are both questions I’m dying to have answers to.
And then I hear the crackling. Fire was spreading, eating up the dry kindling like a starving man, swallowing the horizon whole. There’s a snap nearby, and one of those long, skinny trees comes toppling over. I yelp and army crawl as far away as I can.
Then I remember the kids. Shit, the kids. Finally, adrenaline pours through me and I’m on my feet again, the ache in my ankle subdued to a dull throb.
My heart thundered. “HEY!” I yell, throat hoarse. “Where are you?”
The only answer is the growl of the fmes, greedy and insatiable, curling around the trees like a fat man devouring dessert, chewing through the underbrush with ravenous haste. It devours everything in its path, always hungry, never full. I struggle to keep up with the hunger, wheezing harder and harder through the ash.
My feelings are always the hardest to describe. Like the panic, for instance. How do I expin to you the way it gnaws at my skin, worms its way under my ribs and pokes at my chest from the inside, like someone trying to stretch open an impossibly thick balloon? Does that sound normal?
I can barely see. My retinas feel like they’re melting, my vision narrowed to the slits of my eyeshes. I spin in a frantic circle, searching desperately for movement, for any sign that those drunk idiots aren’t dead.
There.
Maybe it’s a trick of the fire, a figment born from the heat and smoke, but I swear I see a figure wavering through the rippling air, turning just as desperately as I am.
“Here,” I call out to them, my own voice barely recognizable over the roar of the fire. “I’m over here!” Their top half flickers, distorting like liquid, and I lunge out to grab them.
I pull back just as quick and cry out. A searing bolt shoots up my arm the second my hand grazes the heat. I leap back with a cry, squeezing my eyes shut. My teeth grind against each other.
And then something smmed into me.
I don’t realize I’m rolling until the fmes are gone. I knock against dirt and leaves, gravel scraping my raw skin. Everything is disoriented. The world tilts on its axis, and my head spins faster than light. The stench of my own charred flesh chokes me, and my stomach lurches.
A weight pins me to the ground. My chest convulses with hacking coughs. I wipe my eyes with my unburned hand. My fingers come away wet—before that hand is shoved hard into the dirt, too.
I’m alive (I’d never say this out loud, but for a second, I wish I wasn’t). And yet, I can’t move. Noise bubbled in my ears, distant and muffled, like I’m submerged in water. Nothing makes sense.
I gasped for clean air, blinking rapidly to clear the haze from my vision. Something looms over me. A shape—two eyes, a nose, and a gaping mouth—all blurred just a few inches from mine. A grip crushes my shoulders, and little needles dig into my skin.
I fight to focus on sights and sounds, to ground myself, but I whimper instead. I don’t know who they are, but they must think I’m pathetic. I can’t bring myself to care. I don’t feel like being strong.
A voice emerges from my garbled thoughts. “Why can’t you just understand when to stay away?” It whispers, and it feels familiar. Hardened, but fraying at the edges, like cotton unraveling. Like a feather brushing against hot coals—fury ced with a subtle softness.
I groan in response. My brain throbs, too big for my skull. My breath shudders out.
The feather hard voice snaps again, sharper this time. “Damn you,” it pounds, accompanied by a harsh exhale, “you cost me a lighter!”
I stared up at them, dazed. My vision swims, my thoughts drifting. My shoulders burned where they held me down, my skin hot. A croak escapes my lips as I hear, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
And then I slept.
