The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(95)

“Really?” Leif asked.

“Sure!” Rex said, awkwardly lowering himself to a third, much smaller rock, his long limbs jutting out at strange angles. “This is actually pretty comfortable.”

Leif saw how hard Rex was trying to sell this lie, how intent he was on making life okay for his two best friends, and this time, he felt deeply moved.

Then he started cracking up. “That’s just stupid, man.”

Alicia laughed too. “There’s no way that’s comfortable.”

“Yeah, no,” Rex said, joining in the laughter. “It’s a lot more painful than I thought it would be.”

“Come on, get up,” Leif said, helping Rex to his feet so that he could take the medium rock and Leif could take the tiny one.

Laughing had opened something up within all three of them, as if allowing them to fully access the sacred space of the island. Once they’d settled on their respective rocks, Alicia spoke first.

“Are we gonna feel like this forever?” she asked.

“Like what?” Rex asked.

“Bad.”

“I hope not,” Rex said, staring out toward the woods, toward Ben’s Tree.

“I hate that we can’t tell anyone the truth,” Alicia said. “I hate that so much. And I hate the way people look at me.”

“I know,” Leif said. “I hate that people all feel so sorry for us, but they don’t even know what actually happened. And if we told them, they’d think we were nuts.”

“I hate that there’s nothing left we can do,” Rex said. “That we can’t save Ben. And your friend Josefina. And the other kids. Maybe I should try again.”

Leif sighed. “But why? There’s still nothing there.”

It was the horrible truth. Rex and Hornhat had returned to Bleak Creek Spring multiple times, with the scuba gear and more blood—pig’s, human’s, even goat’s—hoping they’d open the gateway, reveal the heads of children and teens protruding from the spring wall, and get to work digging them out. But it never bubbled and glowed the way it once had.

The spring was never anything more than a spring.

“Yeah, but…” Rex shook his head. “So they’re just stuck down there forever? In the Void, or whatever you guys called it?”

Alicia shivered on her rock, wrapping her arms tightly around herself.

“Maybe,” Leif said. “Who knows.”

They sat in silence for a moment.

“Still can’t believe Janine and Donna’s movie won the audience award,” Leif said. “It’s mind-blowing that everybody thinks it’s a giant stunt.”

“I know,” Rex said. “I wish my parents would’ve let us go see it.”

“I don’t,” Alicia said. “Then we would’ve had to listen to everybody tell us what great actors we are.”

“Yeah,” Leif said. “That woulda sucked.”

“Should have been our movie at that festival,” Alicia said, staring down into the water.

Leif and Rex generally refrained from ever mentioning PolterDog, seeing as they still, consciously or not, held it responsible for all the terrible things that had happened. But hearing Alicia mention it now, on the very island where the idea had first been conceived, was actually nice.

“I agree,” Leif said.

“For sure,” Rex said. “Hornhat still really wants to see it.”

“Who’s Hornhat?” Alicia said.

Leif and Rex looked at each other, alarmed.

“I’m kidding, guys,” she said. “I remember Mark Hornhat. We see him literally every day at school.”

“Oh, too bad,” Leif said. “I was gonna say this was the one case where it’d be advantageous to forget someone.”

“Come on,” Rex said, laughing. “Hornhat is cool now! He helped save our frickin’ lives.”

“Yeah, but he’s still very annoying,” Alicia said.

“Also true,” Rex said.

As the three of them again burst into giggles, Leif realized it didn’t matter if Alicia never felt about him the way he did about her. Because sitting there laughing with the two people he loved most in the world, he suddenly felt so lucky.

They were still here.

Still alive.

Still together.

And maybe that was enough.

Leif adjusted his body on the tiny rock.

It really was quite uncomfortable.





EPILOGUE


“LATER, GUYS,” ALICIA said, pedaling away in the dusk as they broke off at their usual spot, the corner of Creek and Pritchett. Alicia had overcome her fear of the water, the Triumvirate having now visited their island nearly every day for a few weeks, each time helping Alicia to piece together her life from before the Void.

They’d determined that this would be their last trip until next year, the depth and temperature of the river having made reaching the island nearly impossible. Rex and Leif had asked, as they always did, if she wanted them to escort her home, and, as she always did, she’d told them no.

She was actually somewhat relieved to part ways, both because she and Leif had to slow down considerably for Rex to keep up on his scooter, and because she’d come to relish riding around town by herself on her bike. Something about the constant motion, the not having to talk to anyone, made it the place where Alicia felt most at ease in her new life. She always stayed out till the very last minute of her parents’ strict sundown curfew, exploring random streets, enjoying the solitude.