Bad Creek, page 27
Iris trudged toward shore as fast as she could. She had cheated her fate. She was okay, somehow. Gum had to be okay too. The Disasters deserved a win.
Aidan took off his flannel and tried to wrap it around Gum’s arm, but his hands were shaking. “It’s fine, you’re fine. I know how to tie a decent tourniquet,” he said. Gum laughed like it was a joke. Iris hoped the gashes didn’t really need a tourniquet.
Hudson glanced back at the water, like he was waiting for the beast to pull itself back together, then said, “We should call 911.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and swore. “Shit.” He tried to swipe the screen, but it wouldn’t light up. Aidan offered his phone to him. Iris was a little selfishly pleased to see them cooperate.
She helped Aidan pull Gum off the flooded beach and walk him out of the cropping of trees. “Iris,” Gum called. He looked like he was going to say sorry.
“It’s okay,” she told him. She ought to say sorry too, for last night. Cutting off the bracelet was a little melodramatic, even for her. They all owed each other apologies at this point. Better to call it even, instead of keeping score.
Meanwhile, Hudson hung back, talking to the operator. He didn’t mention the thing that had actually inflicted the cuts. “Yes, Bill and Bruce Clavey,” he said into the phone.
“I thought you were a rabbit,” Gum told Iris, laughing dryly. He was delirious. She hoped it was because of the absurdity of the situation and not blood loss. He was bleeding through the flannel already, and Iris didn’t know if it was a dangerous amount.
He pointed his good arm forward. “She was a rabbit too.”
There was a girl on the Landings’ dock. She looked like she was thinking about jumping. Iris was about to warn her not to, but there was something funny about her. She didn’t match. The shadows hit her differently, like she was affected by an unseen light source. Then Iris realized that it was one of the faces she’d seen underwater.
She stepped off the dock, disappearing the moment before she hit the surface.
Right behind her was another girl. Then another. And another. All taking their turns. Some diving, some cannonballing. Then she recognized one: older, unmistakably lovely. The young woman from the house in the woods. Rex’s late sister. Helena.
She gave them all a big smile, then cannonballed in.
And then there was Glory. Actual Glory, not a trick from the beast. It wasn’t a hunch. It wasn’t blind hope. It was really her, watching Iris with a close-lipped grin. It was the look Glory would give her when she thought her little sister wasn’t that bad, after all. A silent approval she was too cool to speak out loud.
Iris had fought the universe until it had let her make new rules. Ones where she got to say goodbye.
Glory dived off the dock like she always did. Gracefully. Unafraid. Swimming to the next place, wherever that was.
Chapter 41 Gum
It took thirty-one staples to fix him.
Gum hadn’t count them all; the nurse had just declared the number, and he had chosen to believe it. Fact-checking sounded like too much work anyway, especially under the haze of painkillers. He couldn’t wait for them to wear off. For his brain to be his again. It had been far too long.
When the cops came into the hospital room, Gum told the story the Disasters all quickly agreed on, before the red-white-and-blue fireworks were replaced with red-and-white ambulance lights. It was all the truth, but in this version, the deity the Claveys worshipped wasn’t actually real.
Therefore, its claws hadn’t injured Gum.
“What kind of knife?” the cop asked.
“A big one?” he answered.
“A kitchen knife? A bowie knife?”
“I don’t remember.”
That last line got him through most of the interrogation. I don’t remember. It was hard to argue with a kid in a hospital bed. The cops thanked him, wished him a speedy recovery, and were on their way, leaving through the flimsy curtain.
When his dad finally came in, he didn’t look all too concerned. The doctors probably had already told him his son would be fine. Surgery went well. Future mobility of his arm shouldn’t be affected. He needed rest, and he could go home with the extra-strong meds if the right waivers were signed. The staples were to be removed at a later date.
Gum knew he looked like hell. There were wires everywhere. His forehead and entire right arm were covered in bandages. Surely there were dark circles under his eyes, and he had to smell like death. He didn’t know how many hours had passed since he had arrived in the hospital. It felt like it should be daylight outside, though he didn’t have the luxury of a window.
His dad sat on the chair beside the bed, leg bouncing. “Feelin’ all right?”
“Yeah, they let me do drugs.” Though they weren’t quite doing the job like they were a few minutes ago. All of him ached, especially his head, where he only had two measly little sutures.
Still, his father laughed at the floor. His leg was still bouncing. It was the same thing Gum did when he was nervous. “Sorry I wasn’t in sooner. I have . . . news.”
That was what Gum had been afraid of. What if the Spirit had pulled itself together and snuck into their cabins, slicing all the Claveys’ throats?
“Good news or bad news?” he asked.
“I’m just gonna say it. Rip off the Band-Aid.”
“I don’t think the doctor would want you to do that.”
His dad cracked a smile but didn’t laugh. “They’ve arrested your grandfather and uncle Bruce.”
Gum was relieved, though that wasn’t a guaranteed victory. The Claveys could afford any kind of bail. They could flee the country and never face trial. And there were others wrapped up in it: his six-year-old cousin wouldn’t understand why her dad was in jail tonight. And then there were the aunts and Brian, who had known but hadn’t stopped it. Gum wasn’t sure if he owed them anger or sympathy. He almost hadn’t stopped it either. He’d almost let it corrupt him too.
Gum was starting to wonder if Hudson was even the one who killed Glory in the first place. When he thought about it, it made less and less sense. And he was starting to see more meaning in all the weird things Hudson had said this summer.
“Did you know?” Gum managed to ask his dad. “I mean, what they’ve been doing?”
“I knew they were rotten, but not this kind of rotten.”
“They never let you be part of the family because they knew you wouldn’t go along with it,” Gum said as the epiphany came to him. He was afraid that if he didn’t put it into words, it would slip away. “Because you’re better than them.”
“Maybe.” His father could never take a compliment. He shifted in the chair. “There’s more. It’s . . . big. This one’s the good news.”
Gum could use some good news. There were so many loose ends, still. This Spirit might be destroyed, but there could be others, or more pieces of it, living in different little towns, controlling different families. Then there was this giant hospital bill. Clearly Grandpa wouldn’t be helping them out with money anymore.
Worst of all, he worried his friends would never speak to him again.
His dad looked like he had been crying and any minute now the tears would flow again, which didn’t feel like good news, until he said:
“Mom’s awake.”
* * *
Gum had thought the girls at the end of the dock were a false memory. When he had eventually passed out, he had the strange, wobbly remnants of dreams. Rabbits and antlers and black water. His hands, wildly fighting toward the surface. At one point his arm was gone, replaced with the Spirit’s bloated, gray limb, ending with sharp talons.
He’d chalked up the strangest of his memories as part of those dreams. But now he knew one part that was real. There were girls jumping off the dock, and there was a reason his mom hadn’t been with the rest of them. The Spirit held no claim on her soul any longer. The difference between her and the other victims was that she had a living body to return to.
He let his dad believe it was a miracle, though.
“We were at the beach, watching the fireworks, and she taps me on the shoulder like it’s nothing,” his dad explained as they walked down the hospital’s long hallway, dodging nurses with carts and people looking for rooms. “Then we got the call about you and . . . Well, she’s here now. They’ve been doing tests. It won’t be a full recovery. Even with physical therapy, there’ll be lasting paralysis, but—”
“Is she talking?”
“She hasn’t stopped asking for you.”
Gum wished this weren’t happening so fast. The fluorescent lights were aggravating his headache. He needed time to take a nap, to rinse off the bloody water in his memory. Of course, his father was eager to see his wife again, but Gum didn’t know exactly who he’d be meeting. He didn’t know his mom, even if all his life he had ached to travel to a universe where he did.
He wasn’t sure if she retained memories from the past sixteen years, otherwise, she’d remember her son as a one-year-old. Infants didn’t have to meet very high standards. They could cry and shit their pants and vomit all over you. As long as they were cute, they were forgiven. Teenage Gum didn’t exactly check every box. His mother was probably expecting a Hudson type. Great report cards and medals and potential girlfriends and potential college acceptances waiting for him. He didn’t want to disappoint her.
Then they turned the corner, and there she was. Though Gum had seen her face nearly every day of his life, she looked different now that she was emoting. Her eyebrows furrowed as she talked to Uncle Brian. She looked annoyed. A new expression for her.
She noticed him then, and her face melted into warmth. Gum wasn’t sure if he deserved it, after all those times he’d walked right past her. He stopped two feet from her wheelchair. He still hadn’t thought of what to say. He didn’t need to. She put her arms out, pulling him into a hug. She was awake. She was hugging him, and it didn’t feel real.
“Brian said they tried to get you too,” she whispered, her words a little slurred. It wasn’t like she sounded different than what he’d expected, because he hadn’t expected anything. He hadn’t let himself imagine her voice. He had never imagined this moment at all. Hope wasn’t a luxury he could afford. “He said you killed it.”
It was more of a group effort. If Iris and Hudson hadn’t distracted it, if Aidan hadn’t exploded the thing, Gum would have been torn to pieces. That was a lot to explain, and his throat was all tight, so he just said, “Yeah.”
“That’s my boy.”
She pulled back to look at him, her smile only faltering when she noticed the stitches on his forehead. She brushed some hair out of his face, and he stopped trying to fight the tears.
He had survived the worst day of his life, and now he got the best, single moment. He was tired, and starving, and had total mental whiplash. But he let himself accept it. The Spirit had detached from his spine; he wouldn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to.
And now he had his mom. She was a Clavey, but maybe she was a Clavey the same way he was. Maybe, like Gum, she kept her eyes open during prayer, waiting to see if anyone else had their eyes open too.
Chapter 42 Aidan
There was a big difference between having a formerly famous parent and a currently famous one.
On the sixth of July, strange vehicles loitered the driveway. Locals wanted to know if it all was true; reporters wanted exclusive interviews. They asked Paul if he had any prior suspicions about his next-door neighbors: the Killer Claveys.
Bad Creek, Michigan, a village of 500, is the home of the World’s Largest Crucifix, and reclusive horror director Paul Ross.
That was how the first article began.
Aidan laughed out loud when he read it. First of all, it was the Second Largest Crucifix. And reclusive was a new word. Paul called himself retired. Aidan’s mom called him washed-up.
“Reclusive?” Paul also commented, chewing on his egg roll. “Does that sound good-mysterious or bad-mysterious?” He had used the cars crowded in their driveway as an excuse to pay an exorbitant fee for delivered Chinese food.
“I think it fits your brand,” Aidan said. Paul was under no suspicion, but his name had been dropped in a few articles. Maybe in a few months he’d be in a documentary. They’d name it something gimmicky like, Bad Creek: A Real-Life Horror Movie.
“You know I’m proud of you, right?” Paul asked suddenly. There was a beat of silence; neither of them knew what to do with the confession.
“Thanks,” Aidan said. “I’m . . . proud of you too?”
Paul’s research had surprised him, just when he thought he knew his dad. Maybe it had taken Paul too long to change, but some people never did.
Aidan kept reading. There were lies in the article, and most of them he had helped to tell. A few pissed him off. Social media was sure that this was proof of the Illuminati, of an organized secret army of baby-killing Devil worshippers. They conveniently ignored the evil in plain sight.
“They weren’t even sacrificing souls to Satan,” Aidan pointed out. “It’s the opposite. The Claveys acted like it was God’s will. It’s not fair to blame this on the Devil.”
“Trends are cyclical. ’Bout time we have another Satanic panic.”
Aidan told himself he was checking for any news on the arrests, but it’d be months before any trial. There was already plenty of physical evidence revealed to the public. The same symbol from the carvings was found in a few places around the Clavey estate. There were Bill’s journals. And then there were more than enough witnesses. The Claveys had been united when all was going well, but once arrests were made, they had turned on each other.
For once, Brian Clavey had plenty to say, as he was likely getting some kind of legal immunity. He confirmed that his brother killed Glory. Though, he added, he had believed the Spirit would bring back Beth, to reward his loyalty.
The other victims didn’t receive nearly as much attention, unfortunately. Even though Glory’s name appeared in every article, she was more a fact of the case than a whole person.
The world wouldn’t know about her near-perfect putt-putt scores, or the way she scrunched up her face when drawing. Aidan was probably the only person who knew she couldn’t actually tie a cherry with her tongue. Maybe she would have told him more secrets, had she lived. Revealed all her embarrassing flaws. Explained the magic tricks. Maybe she would have told them to someone else. She probably never intended for Aidan to be her only love. They weren’t supposed to be forever. Yet Aidan couldn’t forget her, even if that meant remembering Bad Creek.
Aidan closed out of the article to finish his lo mein. He had a text from his mom, asking how much longer he planned on staying in Michigan.
He typed out, Until my friends leave.
She sent him a thumbs-up emoji.
He hadn’t seen them the last day and a half. Iris had a lot of explaining to do for her moms, who also needed time to process and grieve all over again. And Gum was in the hospital that first night. He’d sent a few vague texts about how his mom was doing, while Iris sent updates every time she talked to the cops.
He had almost lost them both to that horrible family. He had been right about Bad Creek being stuck in a time loop but wrong about his role in it. He wasn’t at the mercy of whoever shuffled the cards. At any point, he could have said no. No to games of Monopoly or campfires that lasted too long. He could have asked Iris to make him a different-colored friendship bracelet. But now that it looked like it might be over, he wanted it back. Well, parts of it.
Aidan scratched at the back of his leg. Yesterday he had convinced himself it was a bug bite, but today there were bright pink welts snaking up his calf. Poison ivy, of course. He couldn’t leave this place unscathed.
What if we had a bonfire tonight? Aidan sent in the group chat. There was no response for a few minutes. Maybe he had the wrong idea. No one had the energy or the urge to hang out again. They really were over, and the Fourth was just an extra helping of trauma they’d have to heal from separately.
Then a text from Gum: Blowing up a demon wasn’t enough??? Ur turning into a pyro.
And one from Iris: ok!
A wave of a relief hit Aidan. It wasn’t over. It never was.
Chapter 43 Iris
Sometimes things just happen. It’s not always the universe giving signs.
Iris had to remind herself of that while she tried to hook her bicycle to the back of the van for the third time. It was like the bike demanded to remain here. Stay, stay, stay, it said. Like the Spirit had. Like the regulars at the Landings when they’d heard the news that the Garrens would definitely not be returning next summer. Or ever, probably.
Joanna held a quiche on her hip. To the untrained eye, she was having pleasant small talk with the Richardsons, but she kept glancing back at her wife and daughter like she was thinking about homicide.
“This thing looks like it’s fifty years old,” April grumbled. She was trying to see if she could retrieve instructions for the bike rack on her phone but wasn’t finding anything useful. Rex had let them take the bike, along with the rack. But instructions weren’t included.
Tomorrow morning, when they returned the cabin key to Rex, Iris would ask him to help secure the bike, and she would give him back Helena’s stolen possessions.
“I have to ask,” April said to Iris, “why not the green one?”
Because the green one had a flat. Because Iris had always liked the red bike better anyway. Because even if she was leaving Bad Creek, she still wanted a part of Glory with her.
“This one has streamers,” Iris said.
“Understandable.”
After Joanna escaped with another Tupperware of Mrs. Richardson’s baking experiments, they funneled into Cabin 4. They were leaving in the morning. “First thing in the morning,” according to April. But they still had tonight.
