The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(67)

Rex looked at Leif, wide-eyed. “Really?” he asked.

“Yes.” Leif reached down to take the camera pole.

“Okay, yeah. All right,” Rex said, handing it over. “Just…be careful.”

Leif didn’t like the sound of that, but he took a step into the bubbling spring without looking back. He lowered the camera into the water, barely a foot deep. He pivoted it around in a half circle, doubting that he was filming anything other than bubbles, seeing as he was still so far from the middle of the spring, where Whitewood had descended. He decided to walk farther out, slowly and methodically panning the camcorder back and forth like he was operating a metal detector, the muscle memory kicking in from the many hours he’d spent doing just that during the lonely summer before seventh grade.

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.