Bad Creek, page 6
But I’m not eighteen yet, Gum almost replied. They had to know that. Even if they forgot his birthday, they knew it came after Hudson’s, and Hudson was still a minor. A mysteriously absent minor. Hudson wouldn’t fall from grace after one fight with his dad. That would be insane. No, it had to be something more.
Gum took a small sip of the beer. It tasted like bread-flavored vomit, but he tried not to show it. He had to act grateful. And he kept acting grateful as they pulled out the bows. Gum had given up on archery before he was old enough for an adult-sized bow, yet they had one ready for him. Or maybe it was Hudson’s. They were both left-handed.
Bruce shot arrows into the targets on the haystacks and apologized for being rusty despite coming close to the bull’s-eye nearly every time. To be a Clavey was to be humble, after all.
It was hard to believe this was the man who stole a golf cart with Joanna Garren. Did he even consider her when he ranted about the “erosion of family values”? His childhood best friend was queer, but now he gladly donated to politicians who wanted people like her eradicated. Somehow, over the years, Uncle Bruce had transformed from Disaster to Clavey. How did it happen? Did he wake up one day with the overwhelming desire to get a crew cut and go the speed limit? He was all Clavey now, neatly trimmed dirty blond hair and a golf shirt worn like a second skin. When he retired, he would build his own mansion up north. And then, when his son retired, the cycle would repeat.
Bruce gave Gum instructions as Grandpa watched from the porch, though Gum didn’t need his uncle to remind him where to put his fingers. He nocked the arrow in place and lifted the bow, closing his eyes. He drew back as far as he could, hoping no one noticed his muscles quivering. When it was time to aim and let go, he opened his eyes and nearly screamed.
Glory Garren was standing directly in front of the target. She looked even worse than yesterday: her skin swollen and peeling in some places, her eyes lifeless.
She’s not real. He thought the affirmation over and over again. This was his subconscious. Or maybe it was God, after all, punishing him for his sins. Either way, Gum wanted her—needed her—to move. Her chest was blocking the bull’s-eye. He closed his eyes again, praying she would be gone when he opened them. But, nope. Still there, gray and dripping and wearing a perfume that could only be named Essence of Horrific Corpse.
“Whenever you’re ready,” Bruce said, tapping his foot.
Gum had been standing with the arrow drawn for almost a minute, but it wasn’t like he could say, I’m hallucinating my dead friend right now, so, rain check?
He pointed up on the release. The arrow bounced off the top of the target instead of on Glory.
“Again,” Grandpa said from the porch, voice low and even. Bruce handed Gum another arrow. Glory kept glaring at him. He tried to will her to move. If she was in his head, he should have control of her, right? But she didn’t listen. She only gazed at him from fifteen yards away, pissed like she too was disappointed in his archery skills.
The second shot soared over the target, disappearing in the line of pine trees.
“Again.”
Bruce handed him a new arrow. “You’re overthinking it,” he advised.
Gum figured he could aim for the side of the target, but there was still a chance he would hit Glory. There were still a few dozen arrows left in Bruce’s quiver. Would they keep him here all day until he hit a bull’s-eye? Until he pierced Glory in the heart? They wouldn’t make him do this if they knew what he was seeing. Though, if they knew what he was seeing, they’d probably have him committed.
His hands were so clammy he almost dropped the next arrow before nocking it. He pulled back, arms shaking. Glory stared at him, a smile easing onto her purple lips. She was just in his imagination. Why would it matter if he hit her? Avoiding her was going to make Grandpa and Uncle Bruce disappointed. This was a test, and they expected him to fail it. This could be his one chance to impress them. To prove he wasn’t just the spare grandson.
“C’mon!” Glory yelled. It didn’t sound exactly like her. It was a harsher, meaner impression. She pounded on her chest and said, “Right here! Right to me!” as if she were trying to teach him how to jump-serve a volleyball again.
“You gotta get out of your head,” Bruce told him. If only he knew.
Glory was still demanding he shoot her. “C’mon, Gum! I know you want to!”
His breathing was ragged; tears welled up in his eyes. But he had no choice. He let go of the arrow. It sailed forward, fast, and made a loud squelch as it pinned Glory to the target.
Bull’s-eye.
Chapter 7 Gum
“You look like shit,” Iris said. She was sitting on the picnic table between their cabins, wearing a Prince T-shirt three sizes too big. With her hair wet, and without her ponytail, she almost looked like Glory. That couldn’t be lake water on her, though; she’d probably just gotten out of the shower. Still, Gum shivered.
Iris’s attention turned to the Cadillac leaving the Landings. “What was that about?”
“Mandatory archery practice.”
“Isn’t that a Hudson thing?”
He shrugged. Usually he’d take any chance to complain about the Claveys, but not today. Not when every thought rotted into that image of Glory, with the arrow bloodlessly piercing her chest.
“Can I show you something?” Iris asked. She led him inside, where her moms were making sandwiches and dancing to an eighties pop song. They waved and smiled at Gum.
Most summers, Gum spent more time with the Garrens than with his own family. Joanna and April didn’t tell him to tuck in his shirt or ask about his grades, and they didn’t call him Daniel. They never made him go to church or feel guilty for existing. They would probably believe him if he said he saw a ghost today, but he didn’t mention it. That’d just be cruel.
Iris practically pushed Gum into her room and closed the door behind them, before rummaging through the wooden dresser in the corner. Gum never bothered to completely unpack in Bad Creek. Not only did Iris actually use the drawers and little closet, but she brought extra pillows, blankets, candles, and her Magic 8 Ball. It was a very Garren thing to be extra-prepared, but it was an Iris thing to treat Cabin 4 as a second home.
Gum picked up the Magic 8 Ball. Part of him wanted to tell Iris about the weird shit he had been seeing. Part of him wasn’t ready for the I-hallucinated-your-dead-sister conversation. Talking to Iris used to be as easy as breathing. She was always safe. Forgiving. Understanding.
Should I tell Iris? Gum silently asked the Magic 8 Ball. Every time he shook it, the twenty-sided die didn’t rise to the surface.
“Your 8 Ball is broken,” he said.
“It’s not broken.”
“Not seeing any words . . .”
“You’re not shaking it right.”
“I know how to shake it!”
Gum handed her the Magic 8 Ball. She closed her eyes and shook it forcefully. When she looked into the circular window where the fortune should be, her whole face scrunched up.
“You can get a new one,” he said.
“I don’t want a new one.” She cradled it in her hands. For a second, Gum worried she was going to cry. He hoped not. Glory was the one who dealt in tears. She was usually the one who caused them, but at least she cleaned up after herself.
Thankfully Iris recovered. She placed the formerly Magic 8 Ball on the bedside table and retrieved a red notebook from the top drawer of her dresser.
“I found this,” she said, laying it on the bed. She flipped through it quickly, flashes of drawings going by as she turned the pages. This was Glory’s sketchbook from last year. Gum vaguely remembered the cover. He probably wasn’t in this one very much. He barely saw Glory last summer. She was always disappearing and reappearing. Why was Iris showing this to him? Oh God, Gum thought. Does Iris want to use this for the Project? Couldn’t they just make another group playlist or something? Did everything have to be about Glory?
“Look,” Iris instructed, stopping him on one of the last charcoal-smudged pages.
The house wasn’t well drawn by Glory’s standards, or maybe he remembered her as a better artist than she was. People do that when someone dies. You’re supposed to hype up the dead. It’s like one of the main rules of Catholicism. So why was Glory so much worse in his visions of her? She’d looked at him with such contempt today. Asking—demanding—he re-kill her.
I know you want to, she had said, confirming his suspicions that everyone and God could see all the worst things in his brain.
“Have you ever been to this place?” Iris asked.
“Uh . . . no?”
It was kind of a generic house. And the drawing was so rough, all its features blended together.
“I woke up here today,” Iris explained. “I sleepwalked, half a mile from the Landings.”
“Have you ever—”
“No. I haven’t done that before. I don’t think I’ve even talked in my sleep. But get this: Glory was sleepwalking too. According to Savi Traxler, she tried to walk off her dock last summer.” She flipped a few more pages to a double spread of a dock and a girl, who he assumed was supposed to be Glory. She looked terrified in the drawing but still better than how she’d looked that morning.
“So, that’s weird, right?” Iris said.
I got you beat on weird, Iris. But he couldn’t tell her. He didn’t need to transfer whatever was happening to him over to her.
He couldn’t deny that the coincidence was strange. What were the chances that Iris would sleepwalk to the exact same house that Glory drew? If Savi was telling the truth, it had terrifying implications. Glory mysteriously sleepwalks to Savi’s dock, and only a few days later she drowns at her party. Near the same spot.
Except, it was entirely something that Savi could make up.
Savi never was a Disaster, and Gum was grateful for it. She had a frustrating tendency to lie about mundane things. She was already wealthy and beautiful; she didn’t need to fabricate anything to get people to like her. It was always simple, inconsequential half-truths too; like she would lie about where her family went to dinner, for no reason.
But even Savi wouldn’t make up something about Glory, would she?
Gum watched Iris pull her damp hair back into a loose ponytail. Now she looked like herself. Mostly. She still had this desperate look in her eyes that he didn’t like.
“Can I be honest for a second?” Iris said, as if she needed permission. Garren girls were only honest, painfully honest. Especially Glory. She would be the first to tell you if you had a zit budding on your nose or if your joke didn’t land.
Iris was honest because she was sincere. She wore her heart on her sleeve and on her face. She couldn’t mask her excitement. Her disappointment either. Even when she said she was fine, Gum could tell the moment her mood changed.
“I never believed the official story,” Iris said. “I think there’s more to what happened. And . . . I think she’s trying to tell us.”
“She, as in . . .”
“You think I’m crazy.”
I’m definitely crazy. But you might be too.
“I didn’t say that,” Gum muttered. But he’d thought it, and maybe, like the giant crucifix, she could see inside his soul.
“There’s an episode of Dark Unknown where Max Malitz receives messages from a spirit in his sleep,” Iris said. “The spirit tells him where their body was buried. And, boom, Max goes there and finds it. Ghosts have solved murders before. What if that’s what’s happening?”
What happened to Glory was an accident; that had never been up for debate. But Iris resisting the truth made perfect sense. Glory couldn’t die like a regular person. Her death had to be special. Supernatural.
Iris’s theory was batshit. Full guano. But she seemed more energized than last night. More determined. More alive. How could he take that away from her?
“I think we should go back,” Iris added.
“Where? To this house?”
“Glory wouldn’t draw it if it wasn’t important. And, who knows? Maybe we’ll find a clue. But we need Aidan first. If he cares about Glory, he’ll come. What about you?”
She was looking right at him, waiting for him to say something. The Gum she knew would probably find a way to make a dirty joke right then, because the Bad Creek version of him was the comic relief. And he had always been okay with that. He preferred that.
What about you?
He cared about Glory, she just wasn’t the star he orbited around. And anyway, that was all in the past. Glory was dead. She was really, really dead. It was too late; she couldn’t be saved.
But he couldn’t deny her power. Whether she was a real ghost or a new flavor of Catholic guilt, Glory was haunting him. And helping Iris get closure sounded like the best way to get rid of her. And then, hopefully, the Glory that lived in his brain could disappear for good.
So Gum said, “Okay.”
Chapter 8 Aidan
Paul decorated his cabin on Wahbee Drive like a preteen with an unlimited budget. Model spaceships hung from the ceiling in the living room. Collectible cards and Comic Con meet-and-greet photos covered the walls. The kitchen wasn’t much of a kitchen because there were more vintage action figures than forks and knives. Vinyl records were scattered everywhere, stacked on bookcases, leaning against shelves, some in mint condition and some scratched to hell. Paul meant to display them properly, but he hardly got around to completing anything.
Aidan had to duck under a screen-accurate model of the Millennium Falcon to go up the two flights of stairs to the attic, the only room free of Paul’s collection of movie memorabilia. The walls were plain beige. The ceiling ran along with the slant of the roof, so the middle of the room was the tallest and the sides were short enough for some people to bump their heads.
Aidan, of course, was one of those people.
Clothes spilled out of two open suitcases Aidan hadn’t bother to completely unpack. There was no point. He only had forty-eight hours to go, and he’d planned to spend them lying on the bed with the AC on the coldest setting, listening to records so loud, he couldn’t hear his thoughts. But this room was too full of memories. Distractions didn’t work in Bad Creek.
He couldn’t stop staring at the board games stacked haphazardly on the bookcase. The last time any of them were touched was two summers ago. On days it was too hot to be outside, the Disasters sat cross-legged on the rug playing Sorry! Aidan preferred the games where he could make decisions, not the ones where you’re at the mercy of whoever shuffled the cards. The only good thing about Sorry! was screwing over your opponent, until two summers ago, when Aidan had pulled a three. He’d scooted his yellow pawn three spaces and settled it next to a red one.
“You can’t share spaces,” Gum had said. “You have to kill her.”
Iris had butted in, “It’s the rules, yeah.” She’d only backed Gum up because Glory was about to send that piece home and win the game.
“Half the rules we made up,” Aidan had protested. “They’re stupid.” He could have been referring to the sing-when-you-shuffle rule or the five-push-ups-when-you-pull-a-five rule, but really, he was protesting the no-crushes rule, and everyone knew it.
“You can’t change ’em midgame just ’cause you feel like it,” Gum had said.
This was the summer when his friends had discovered the crush on Glory and tried to dissuade him from doing anything about it. Glory liked Aidan back, but it would take another year for that to become official. Still, the other Disasters had acted like it was a death sentence.
Maybe it had been.
If it wasn’t for Aidan, she would still be alive.
“I think the rules are outdated,” Aidan had said. “We made them up when we were eight.”
Glory had picked up her red piece and sent it back to start. “Well, the game’s called Sorry!”
Aidan had looked at her sympathetically. “Sorry for killing you, then.”
Glory took the minor defeat in stride. “You didn’t kill me. The rules did.”
She’d ended up winning the game anyway.
* * *
Aidan found Paul in the “screening room,” aka the living room. Movie posters covered the windowless black walls. Instead of a couch, there were mismatched theater seats. Paul collected them from old theaters going out of business, sometimes driving long distances to pick them up. He had several hobbies that involved anything other than getting on with his life, and that was one of them.
Paul sat in his favorite of the orphaned chairs. It was bigger than the rest, with a blue-and-green-checkered pattern.
“Dad?”
At first Aidan didn’t think Paul had heard him. His father’s eyes were glued to the screen that devoured the north-facing wall. The projector was the most expensive toy in the house. Supposedly, it was better than the one at the drive-in, but Aidan couldn’t tell the difference.
Paul patted the seat beside him. Aidan knew he had no choice but to obey. Since the day Aidan first met his father, Paul would sit him down in the home theater and feed him a movie that was strange or beautiful or horrible or hilarious or terrifying. It was the only way Paul knew how to bond with his son. It was also the cause of the only fight he witnessed between his parents. They’d divorced before Aidan had been born. They always seemed civil when they talked on the phone, except right after the summer he was ten. He’d overheard his mom chewing out his dad for letting him watch a scary R-rated film, though Aidan didn’t think Silence of the Lambs was that scary.
“You need to apologize,” she’d whispered to Paul during the phone call. “He doesn’t understand it’s wrong. He keeps defending you.”
“He’s allowed to like his father, Linda,” Paul had said.
His mom had her cell on speaker since her hands were busy pouring cupcakes. She hadn’t heard Aidan come downstairs. “I don’t want him exposed to that,” she’d replied.
