You Saw Something You Shouldn't Have (Part 1)

So I'm posting this on here understanding that most people will think this is some unfinished story, a piece of fiction written like it really happened. I understand and accept that. I’m familiar with this reddit, and while I haven’t read a ton of stuff on here, I’ve enjoyed what I read, and I think I “get it”.

 

But I also don’t know who to ask about this, especially without seeming crazy or turning to some weird forum that will get me unreliable answers from pranksters or crazy people. So if someone has ever heard of something like this before, or you have some thought or suggestion, please post it. Or if you think I’m making it all up, I get that too and no hard feelings.

 

I work as in-house legal counsel at a medium-sized, pretty profitable real estate company based in the southeast. I’ve been an attorney for nearly ten years and the closest I’ve come to a courtroom is when I go to a courthouse to do land title searches. I’ve been married for eight years and we have a four year old little boy. I say all this so you have some idea that I have a good but pretty ordinary life. I don’t have strange hobbies or friends, I don’t typically go outside of the normal boundaries of my day to day existence to meet odd people or experience dangerous things.

 

But last Tuesday, I woke up to a strange text message. My alarm was set for 7am, but my phone buzzed about 640, and it stirred me out of sleep enough that I checked it. It said, “You saw something you shouldn’t have”. Being half-asleep, I kind of stared at it for a minute, trying to figure out what I had seen before the overall weirdness of the message dawned on me.

 

First of all, the sender was blank. No name, no number, no symbols, no indication that there were blank spaces like someone had hit a spacebar repeatedly and it had taken the input as characters. I couldn’t even highlight anything in the sender space. Second, the font of the message was different. Not like it was a different font than normal, but there were several letters that shifted noticeably higher or lower than the letters around them in a given word. Third, I haven’t seen anything. Aside from going to work, a parent-teacher conference, and out to pick up a pizza, I can’t think of anywhere I’ve even gone in the week prior to that message, and I sure haven’t seen anything weird or criminal or whatever.

 

I show it to my wife, and she just laughs it off. Says its probably some marketing thing or maybe a wrong number. That seems like a reasonable possibility, so I push it aside. Two nights later, last Thursday, I start having bad dreams.

 

When I was little I used to have night terrors. I’d wake my brother up screaming my head off, and it got so bad that even though my parents couldn’t really afford it, they took me to a sleep clinic for a few days when I was eight. I don’t remember what help they really gave me, but I know it stopped or I grew out of it, and aside from the occasional normal nightmare I’ve never had any problems since.

 

But this dream, while it was unpleasant to some degree, didn’t feel like a nightmare or even a dream. It felt very real and strangely mundane. I was at a dimly lit library, going through old books, and while I can’t say what I was looking for, I know I felt a growing sensation of frustration and unease that it wasn’t there.

 

When I woke up, instead of feeling relieved I felt panicked, and in my sleep-addled stupor I tried to force myself back to sleep, but of course that never works. After a few minutes, my phone buzzed. It was another message in the one-sided conversation from the mystery sender.

 

“You saw something you shouldn’t have and you need to stop before your life”. The message stopped there, but there was a photo attached. It was a dark picture of a man squatting down in an aisle, peering intently at a row of faded books on a low and dusty shelf. The heavy, metal bookshelves and the long aisle made it clear it was a library, and while the picture was at a bad angle and poorly shot, I could tell it was me. Not me from any library I'd actually ever been in, but me from my dream.

 

I felt sick as the idea bloomed and took root in me, and I considered waking my wife to show her, but something in me resisted the impulse. Maybe it was fear that she would look at me with worry, or worse, sadness and fear, in her eyes. I don’t know. But I haven’t told her yet. I haven’t told her about the last of it either.

 

The dreams have continued. Me at some strange place I consider home in the dream, me at a restaurant, me walking through some unknown town on a stormy afternoon with patches of hail coming down intermittently, thudding against an umbrella with a heavy, wrought metal handle. All these things seem real, and I wake in a strange panic. No more messages for the last few days though, and while I’ve grown to dread and hate my phone when it buzzes, my hope was that whatever strangeness had been happening was fading and would eventually take the dreams with it. This morning I found a coin on my nightstand.

 

I call it a coin because it is a small flat disc in the shape of a coin and with a heft as though it was made of metal. But its surface is not metal. It seems to be some kind of mottled gray leather or scales, almost like shark skin. But it is solid and sturdy, and it has some kind of embossing, but it is hard to make out due to the thing's color and texture. And its probably my imagination, but it feels like its warm.

 

The message buzzed through a few minutes later. “You saw something you shouldn’t have and you need to stop before your life is consumed”.

 

I think I need help, I just don’t know what kind. Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I don’t know what is going on and I don’t think the message is fucking finished yet. Please respond if you know anything.  

Brief update: I appreciate the responses both public and private. Some helpful information and suggestions. I've considered trying to text back, but I didn't at first out of concern it was a phishing scam, and later because I was honestly scared and wanted to ignore it hoping it would go away. Worried it might provoke a reaction. But it is good advice and I will try it. My wife is taking our son to her parents tomorrow, so I'll wait and try it when I'm alone just in case. I do know I'm not imagining the texts though. Both my wife and a guy I'm friends with at work read them too. Haven't shown anyone the coin yet. Idk. Anyway, thank you again and Ill post an update in the next few days.   

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Credits

 

Mystery (Part 7) [FINALE]

 

"I love you so much."

 

I grinned at Sara, drumming my fingers on the steering wheel as we waited for the light to change. "I love you too. We're going to have such an awesome time, you know it?"

 

She smiled back and nodded. "Yep. You were right. This trip was just the graduation gift we both needed. I'm glad we gave it to each other." Laughing, she started fiddling with the radio stations, trying to find something that wasn't dire news or country twang. After several minutes she settled onto an oldies station, singing along softly to herself. I looked over at her, seeing that underlying disquiet that was always with her now. It saddened me to see her troubled, and I hoped this trip would help with that.

 

The past two years had been hard on both of us, but it had worked out for the best in the end. We were together now and in love, and whatever we had given up to get here, I knew that it would be worth it. Rubbing my forehead, I tried to push the background noise from my mind and enjoy the drive. That was the key, right? To not be a prisoner of the past, but to instead focus on the future.

 

That night, after we had made love and fallen asleep, I began to dream. Or rather, I began to remember. I was back in the clearing, calling out to Mystery. Telling it I needed help. I was ready to set my rock down when it was suddenly right below me, looking up and regarding me silently. I was frozen in terror, images of being drug away into the cave flooding my mind as it looked at the rock in my hand and then back to me, letting out a short wailing sound.

 

Not the rock. Beyond that now.

 

I understood, hearing words that were not words, seeing images in my mind that were disorienting and yet signified. In the dream, as I had in real life two years before, I knelt down, leaning my head forward as Mystery opened its razor maw to expose a long whip of a tongue, black and malignant. On the center of the tongue, just an inch above its narrow tip, a small yellow spur of bone jutted out of the flesh around it, a tiny iceberg floating in a sea of darkness. The tissue around it was red and swollen, giving me a moment of pause. Then I thought of Sara and braced myself.

 

I expected terrible pain or worse, but there was none of that. Instead, all I received was the gentlest of touches as Mystery's tongue pressed to my forehead for a moment before drawing back. The spur of bone was gone, leaving behind a raw, wet socket of flesh that was already filling in. Reaching up to my forehead, my fingertips brushed the last edge of the bone as it disappeared into my head, leaving no mark behind. A few seconds later I began to notice a background buzz in my head, feedback from the link that now existed between the monster and myself. It didn't bother me much then, but it wasn't long before I grew to hate it.

 

When Mystery spoke this time, I understood her clearly. I say "she" because now when she spoke I could sense her uniquely feminine presence and power as it filled my mind. It both comforted and terrified me, but I kept my gaze steady on hers as she asked her question without making a sound.

 

What do you offer as tribute for your need?

 

In life, I was prepared for this question, holding the image of Roberta in my mind until I could feel that Mystery was satisfied. Why I thought that mere selection would be enough of a tribute, and why I picked Roberta, I can't say for sure. I was half-crazy with losing Sara for one thing. But for another, I think I had already come to realize that the bigger the thing you asked for from Mystery, the bigger the thing you had to give up in return. And Roberta...well, it would probably have pained me less to give up my own mother. Two years before though, my guilt and sadness over losing Roberta had been consumed by my anguish over having already lost Sara, and I was filled with relief when Mystery responded.

 

Very well. Your tribute is accepted.

 

I woke up weeping and afraid, Sara still sleeping peacefully beside me. The next morning I asked her to marry me.

 

 

Some people say that life is a straight line through time. That you’re born, you travel through a series of events, meeting people and learning things as you go, and at the end you die, either ending the line or heading off in a new direction, depending on your theology.

 

Another common theory is that life is a circle—a cycle that loops without end. History repeats itself and all of that. Or how some people say that you start life and end life with others having to take care of you, or that you are born and die alone.

 

I remember reading a poem once that talked about coming back to the same place that you started from and finding it new. I always took that to mean that it’s not that the place that’s different, but that you’ve changed yourself, and because of that change you see everything from a new perspective. That’s a nice idea, but I don’t think it’s right.

 

I think that life is a spiral. You move along, heading up or heading down, and you’re always some place new, even if you never leave the town you were raised in. Always moving forward, unable to touch or change the past except in your memories. Yet at the same time, your life is curving, always curving, coming back to near where you once were, almost close enough to touch. You’ll see places and faces you knew. You’ll glimpse what you once were.

 

Sara and I were happy for nearly twenty years. For most of that time I ran a website design company out of our house while she built on the real estate business that her mother had started before she passed away. We were successful, and for the most part, we were happy. We had our troubles, just like anyone does, but our love for one another always pulled us back together in the end.

 

I wondered in those first years if she knew about the tributes I would make periodically to Mystery. I was always so careful, and I would only get the call for another every few months—no more than two or three times a year. Later I could see it in her face when she looked at me. I would glance at her when she didn’t know I was looking, and it was in her eyes. At first I was scared, and then I was angry. In time, when she never mentioned it, never accusing or questioning, I realized that she had accepted it as part of what was necessary to maintain our life, our success, our love. And that made me cherish her even more.

 

Of course, I wasn’t naming things that we needed any longer. Other than paying tribute when it was asked, I had no ties to Mystery in those days. Well, that and the noise in my head. I would always feel her rustling in the back of my brain, that just-audible hum and crackle that I could never entirely adjust to or block out. Once, only once, I think I shared a dream she had. It was black and terrible, full of faces I knew and things that made no sense. Impossible things. Impossible.

 

Still, what reason did I have to ask for things? We had everything we needed, and we were happy. Then the trip came.

 

Sara had met Gladys Merl back when the two of them were working towards their real estate licenses, and ten years later when Gladys moved out-of-state, Sara promised she’d come to visit. It was one of those absent promises that you always intend to keep but never do. Then she did.

 

She had been gone two weeks, far longer than we had ever been apart since Roberta had died, when she called me crying. She said that it wasn’t working any more, that it hadn’t worked for a long time, but that she guessed she had needed to get away to see that. She said she loved me, but that she couldn’t stay with me. She said that the fucking cunt Gladys was giving her work, and that she was going to stay out there for awhile.

 

Six months passed, and then a year. One day I found myself putting the house up for sale so that I could move into a sprawling old Victorian on the edge of the northern woods. The feeling in my head was stronger so close to the cave, but I didn’t mind. I had no friends any more. No collegues. My father was gone eight years, my mother four. I had devoted all of my time to building a life for Sara and myself. Now I found myself with nothing.

 

I kept making the tributes. Most of the time I would use drunks or children. They were the easiest to control, and as long as you went far enough out and never to the same place twice, no one would put it together. Besides, she was always looking out for me.

 

By the time I snatched April Moreland, I had grown bold. I pulled next to her in a mall parking lot as she walked to her car in the middle of the afternoon, yanking her in before she could scream. I knew that Mystery would keep anyone from noticing what was happening, even if she had screamed a little. It was such an easy thing.

 

April was sixteen, seventeen maybe, and had the face of a girl that was only pretty due to the glow of her youth. In another ten years it would be a different story, the girl’s fleeting beauty and best years both behind her. In my twenties I would have carried a gun to hold on her and keep her from trying to escape. Now I knew that the fear would be enough.

 

She cried softly the entire way back to the cave, but she only asked to be let go once, her voice dying when I gave her a hard glance. When I got her out to walk up the trail, she made a half-hearted attempt to run, but a quick swat against the side of the panel van I used for these trips ended her resistance.

 

The walk to the cave was silent, and when we reached the clearing I moved her quickly to the stone lip. I was about to shove her over when she turned to me, her eyes red and shining.

 

“Please…Please. Don’t do this. You don’t have to. I’ll never tell, and just pleaaaaase!” The last word stretched out into a wail that would have been comical in another situation. I paused for the moment, the raw emotion in her voice disrupting the routine that I had established over the years. She grabbed the front of my shirt as her knees threatened to buckle under her.

 

“You’re a good m-man….I can tell. Please don’t do this. Let me go.”

 

Swallowing, I gently pried her hands away. “I can’t. I don’t have a choice.”

 

She shook her head, sobs overtaking her again and muddying her words. “Why? Why are you doing this?”

 

“Because this is what I am.” Smiling sadly, I gave her a solid shove in the chest, sending her tumbling into the darkness. Taking a deep breath, I whispered, “I bring you tribute,” before turning away and heading back to the van.

 

 

I have always been in control of what happened. I realize that. The thing she put in my head is just a link to me. It doesn’t allow her to influence me or take me over. I know, because a year and a half after Sara left I sat on the edge of my bed with the barrel of a shotgun I had only used once before pressed against the soft flesh behind the line of my jaw. I thought about using my toe to work the trigger, but dying barefoot always seemed undignified to me for some unknown reason. I ended up using a small plastic pool cue that had come with a gag mini pool table I had gotten as a Christmas gift years before. It was just long enough to slip against the trigger.

 

Of course, I didn’t go through with it. I don’t guess I was ever going to. But I learned something from it. Mystery couldn’t have stopped me if I had wanted to do it. I don’t think she even knew it was happening. I found that strangely comforting later on.

 

But that day, after storing the gun away and returning the little pool stick to its tiny patch of green felt, I was far from being comforted by anything. There was nothing special about that day. Just months of loneliness and grief and guilt hounding me as I spiraled and spiraled on, all of it coming to a head on a random day in the middle of spring. That’s what had made me reckless enough to pull out the gun. That’s what made me fearless enough seek out an answer to what I had been doing for nearly thirty years.

 

It was dark by the time I reached the clearing and the cave. I didn’t hesitate, because hesitation would have required thought, and I had burned through the last of my desire to think weeks before. I didn’t want to live. I didn’t want to die. Mostly, I didn’t want to think or feel. In the end, I settled for understanding.

 

The cave was large and cool, the temperature dropping as I moved further into its depths. A dozen steps left behind the little moonlight that survived in the darkness, and in a dozen more I noticed I was going down a gentle slope. I kept moving forward, my heart slow and steady, my breath unhurried. No thought. No fear. Just one foot in front of the other, hand trailing along the wall as a guide.

 

A few minutes passed and then I felt…resistance. It was as if the air had suddenly grown thicker in front of me—an invisible membrane that worked against my passage. I pushed harder and was through, the air dropping suddenly from cold to freezing. It took me a moment to realize that I could see now.

 

The air was suffused with a faint blue glow, a shining haze that gave just enough light to see what surrounded me. Bodies. Hundreds of them. Maybe more, given that they stretched around corners and out of sight. Impossibly preserved and lined up in a fairly orderly fashion, a path wound between them, a scarred up strip of stone that led off into the shadows. It was out of that darkness that Mystery came crawling out to face me.

 

Why are you here? The screeching whine was a blade of ice in my brain.

 

“Because I want to know what this is all for. Why you exist.”

 

Mystery stared up at me, her blue eyes blazing at me like a nightmare. Seconds passed as we stared at each other, my teeth gritted to stop them from chattering as I held my ground. Then finally,

 

My why is unknown and unknowable. But if you wish to witness purpose, I will show you.

 

I nodded. “Yes. I want to know.”

 

As the last words left my mouth, Mystery stood. She rose like a magic trick, four legs sprouting impossibly from the tattered ruins of her flesh’s end. In a breath she stood a head taller than me, supported on four sickle moons of white bone. She moved forward and I felt my first stab of fear as I watched the tips her ghastly limbs slicing into the stone beneath her as she moved along.

 

Mystery came to stand over a nearby body, one that I recognized as a homeless woman I had brought her a few weeks before. She crouched down slightly over the corpse, her eyes burning into me as a shadowy form snaked its way from between her legs.

 

I was brought close to two memories at once. The first was of a scorpion killing a lizard on a nature show I saw once, striking it savagely with its tail. The second was the one time I saw my father naked. He was stepping out of the shower, his penis fully erect.

 

She stabbed it into the dead woman’s stomach. A few minutes passed as the thing shifted and pulsed, and then it withdrew, the tear it had made in the flesh closing up behind its passage. It was like nothing had happened.

 

Then I realized that wasn’t true. The stomach was swollen now, the flesh tight and occasionally shifting almost imperceptibly, as if something inside had moved in its sleep.

 

You’ve seen. Now go.

 

The full flush of fear had blossomed in my chest as I watched what Mystery had done, and I ran back the way I came without questioning or looking back. Yet in the second before I passed back into the normal cold darkness of the cave, I noticed something. Most of the bodies I passed bore the same swollen, unnatural look, with whatever lay inside their body cavities dreaming restless dreams.

 

Two weeks later, Sara called me.

 

 

“This is the first time I’ve been back, you know?”

 

My breath had caught in my throat at hearing her voice. She had been nervously rambling for close to a minute, and I still didn’t know what to say.

 

“I just came back to get some things I had had put in storage. In and out in half a day. I never liked this place, not really. I only stayed all this time because of you.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Well, so I get here, right? And I’m not here an hour and I start wanting to call you. I can’t stop thinking about you. Instead of leaving yesterday afternoon, I stayed the night at a bed and breakfast that wasn’t here a year and a half ago.”

 

“Well, you could have…”

 

“I…I want to see you. I need to see you. I love you. I love you so goddamned much.” She was crying now, and when I said okay, I heard her drop the phone, a door slamming close by a few seconds later.

 

 

It was so good having her back. That first night…I never knew I could be that happy again. Every day she would talk about leaving to go back and settle all her affairs, pack and move back so she could stay with me forever. But every day she would grow reluctant to leave me, even for a little while, and she would put it off for another day.

 

On the fifth day after her return, I stared down into her beautiful blue eyes as we made love. My mind was calm and untroubled, and my heart was so full. So full.

 

Then it came.

 

Tribute.

 

For a second it was a source of irritation, a chore that could wait awhile longer. Then I realized that it meant more than usual. It was a specific request. Mystery wanted Sara.

 

Tribute.

 

I rolled away, running to the bathroom to be sick. I told Sara after that I thought it was food poisoning, and she seemed to believe me. Hours passed, and then days. I didn’t sleep from the worry and fear that filled every moment now. Periodically Mystery would repeat the word, the tone (if such a word could be applied to our communication) growing more insistent. I tried to ignore it, tried to block out the growing roar that filled my head. After a week, I thought my head would burst from the pressure.

 

Then it stopped. I felt relief, holding on to a dim hope that she had grown tired of badgering me and would pick someone else. I debated carrying her someone unprompted, but I was afraid to leave Sara for long.

 

Then, late one night, as Sara lay softly snoring beside me, her head tucked into the crook of my arm, Mystery spoke to me again.

 

Her. Or you.

I cried silently until the night slipped into the blue-grays of morning, and then I got up and started packing. I had to get everything right. Everything had to be perfect.

 

When Sara woke up, we were ready.

 

 

That day was beautiful, and despite the knowledge that I bore, it was a wonderful day for both of us. The picnic lunch I had packed was delicious, which was a miracle given how inept I usually am in the kitchen. And Sara….Sara was so happy, so beautiful even after all those years. Just looking at her made me ache.

 

That night, I carried her inside, the sleeping pills I had slipped into her dessert having taken her into a deep sleep. I lay her gently down on our bed, smoothing her clothes and brushing the hair from her face. Looking at her one last time, giving her one final kiss. Then I went downstairs and unlocked the front door. I moved to the living room and sat in my chair, just out of view of the foyer. I waited.

 

It was about nine-thirty when I heard the handle turn and the door swing open. The strange sounds of Mystery moving through my house, up my stairs, to my wife. Then, quicker than seemed possible, the door had closed shut again.

 

 

Two days later I thought I was dying. My brain was on fire, and I started bleeding from my ears and my nose. If it had lasted three hours, I’m sure I’d have died. It only lasted two, and at the end, I found myself staring at the small bone spur, the seed that Mystery had given me the day Roberta Parks died. Picking it out of the sink basin where I had spit it out in a glob of blood and gore, I absently wiped off my face and hands on a nearby towel as I stumbled to bed. The last thing I remember is sitting the small piece of bone on my nightstand, thinking that I’d decide what it meant when I woke up.

 

As it was, I slept for nearly a day, and when I awoke, the spur was gone.

 

 

Weeks went by uneventfully. I kept to myself more than ever, staring out at a world that seemed more alien and hostile to me with each passing day. Something had changed when I lost Sara. Something had changed in me. Mystery hadn’t asked for a tribute in months, but it would happen eventually. She always wanted more. Even if I couldn’t really hear her anymore, I still knew her. She always had her need.

 

Time was running out. If I was going to change things, if I was ever going to make things better, now was the time. So I started preparing.

 

 

Tommy Johns was a fat kid, but he was smart, and I liked him. He reminded me a lot of Everett and somewhat of myself as well. I first met him three months ago when he came around selling magazines for some school drive. When I had first opened the front door to reveal the red-faced eleven year old, my first reaction was surprise. My house was a little off the beaten path, and I knew a lot of the town’s children thought it was haunted. So I listened to his muttered sales pitch, and I ended up buying a couple of subscriptions, clearly surprising him. As I wrote the check out wheels were turning, and as I handed it to him, I was smiling and inviting him in for something to drink.

 

He looked nervous, the warnings of teachers and parents no doubt thundering in his ears, but I was smiling at him and nodding, giving him the warm, friendly look that had made me so popular back when people mattered to me. After a moment’s internal debate he stepped inside, and after I ushered him in and got him the promised drink, we spent the next two hours just talking.

 

And a remarkable thing happened. I had been so alone for so long that I had forgotten what it felt like just to be around people. How good it felt just to talk, even if you were just talking about stupid little boy things. I would have listened to him rhapsodize about video games and who thought they were “the King Shit, uh, sorry, King Crap, I guess” all day long. I thirsted for words, voices, noises that weren’t my own.

 

He came back a few days later, and a few days after that. As his stories began to peter out, mine began. I told him about growing up in Tulset County. I told him about things I had seen and stories I had heard. I told him jokes that I would look up before he got there just so I’d be entertaining enough.

 

And, of course, I told him about the cave.

 

I saved the story for his fifth visit, and by that point I truly liked Tommy. He was a good kid, and a smart kid. He got picked on at school some, but underneath he was strong-willed. His biggest strength though, at least as far as I was concerned, was that he loved a good story.

 

From the start the legend of the cave fascinated him. At first I kept it vague, only telling him a generalized version of the story that Everett had told us so many years before. Over time I leavened it with more details, eventually admitting that, yes, I had been there before. And yes, the cave really did work.

 

By that point he was on his eighth visit and was desperate to know more. Where was it? How did it work? I was joking right? Did it really work? He begged and begged for me to take him to the cave.

 

So today I did.

 

We walked the trail that I had made from the house years before, the air hot and oppressive as we worked our way towards the clearing. My heart began to hammer as the drop-off came into view. I looked down at Tommy, and he looked both excited and scared. He was thrilled to touch something that had been a legend just a few weeks earlier, but he felt the wrongness of the place too. I felt a surge of fear that he would turn away, that he would not follow through. So I reminded him of what to do.

 

I told him to get a rock. To write his question and tie the paper tight with the twine that I had given him. And then, when he was ready, to throw his question into the dark of the cave.

 

He did as I asked, and when he was done, I crouched down before him, my smile genuine. “You did good, Tommy. Real good. And we’ll come back tomorrow for your answer, right?”

 

Tommy nodded, his eyes nervous but steady.

 

“Good boy. Just remember. This place…this place is special. It’s your place now. A secret place.” I looked around the clearing, before staring into the black below us. I thought I could just see two blue specks of light in the shadows. I turned back to the boy. “It’s a secret just for you.” 

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Credits

 

Mystery (Part 6)

 

Stellar Thompson was a junkie and a drunk, at least when he was prosperous. Given that he was one of the town’s few long-standing homeless, that wasn’t often. No one hassled him much—the old man was amiably pathetic, tragic without seeming dangerous or making you too uncomfortable. Most days you’d find him watching squirrels as they jumped and played in the park, though whether his steady gaze signified deep thought or a mindless stupor was open for debate.

 

If you passed him on the street, he’d smile and nod, and only every other time would he ask for a bit of spare change. He asked in an easy, casual way that made it easier to refuse, but also made him asking less of an intrusion, less of a bother. And that was what he wanted. To blend in and go unseen. Living in the background meant no one noticed you or bothered you.

 

When we walked up to Stellar, he looked genuinely surprised. He was at the back of the hardware store, pitching a pair of pennies at the wall in some strange game of his own device, chuckling occasionally to himself. He smiled when he saw us, but he was wary underneath, wondering why we were there and why we were coming towards him. Sara spoke first.

 

“Hey, Stellar. Whatcha up to?”

 

He smiled again, ducking his head and stuffing the pennies and his hands in the pockets of his ratty brown overcoat. “Aw, nothin’ too much. Just pitchin’. Playin’ around. Nothing wrong with me bein’ here, is it? I can go…I’ll just go.” He was already shuffling away, and I panicked as I realized he might really leave before we could convince him.

 

“Whoa, Stellar. We don’t want you to go. We were just coming to ask you about something. See if you could do us a favor.”

 

When he turned back to us, he looked uncertain and curious. Then he broke into a brown grin. “Well sure, if I can help you kids.”

 

Sara nodded, giving him her most charming smile. “You can.” She pushed her hair behind her ear and leaned in conspiratorially, “You see, Dylan and I were wanting to get some liquor, but we’re still underage. We drink all the time at college, but it’s hard getting it when we’re home. You understand, don’t you?”

 

Stellar was already nodding, his eyes bright. He’d had this conversation dozens if not hundreds of times before. Kids would use him to buy booze, giving him money or a drink in return. I had friends in high school that recommended Stellar the way you would recommend a dependable accountant or mechanic. He was discreet, didn’t ask questions, and didn’t attract undue attention. He was perfect.

 

After he had gotten back into the car with the liquor, we drove north to the woods. Sara had thought up our stipulation that we would buy him a bottle of his own, but he had to go and drink with us afterwards. Stellar was only too happy to agree, licking his lips excitedly as his head bobbed up and down like a dashboard doll. His smell had not been noticeable in the chilly afternoon air, but after a few minutes in the car with the heat on, the garbage-stench that rolled off of him in waves was almost overpowering. I could tell that Sara was as grateful as I was when we were able to leave the car behind.

 

The entire walk to the cave, Stellar never questioned where we were going. One look at his face would tell anyone that he was desperate to snatch the brown paper sack from my hand, but he was old and patient. He kept his craving at bay and waited. When we reached the clearing he smiled, looking at me expectantly. Nodding, I took out a bottle of whisky and handed to him. He had spun the top off expertly and taken a long pull before I took out beers for myself and Sara.

 

For the next thirty minutes Sara and I nursed our beers while Stellar drank steadily, his back to the cave, happy and oblivious.

 

 

In my mind, I had pictured a long argument with Sara over my plan. I had prepared speeches and justifications, reasonable explanations and unassailable points. In the end, when I told her that we would use the cave…that we would use Mystery to save her, there was no surprise or outrage. Her first question was not how or why. It was who.

 

The choice had been obvious, though it had still taken me several hours of contemplation to arrive at Stellar Thompson. Someone who wouldn’t be missed. Who’s life was an utter waste. A man who had squandered any chances and talents he had ever had to live life as a homeless drunken druggie who would slit his own mother’s throat for a drink or a tweak. Compare that to Sara. Sara, who was still young and had her whole life ahead of her—a life full of promise. She had decided she wanted to become a doctor and help people. This, she said, was how she would make up for what we were doing. This is how she would make Stellar’s sacrifice worthwhile. She had cried as she said it, and I had known it to be true.

 

Stellar was a seasoned alcoholic, and I had honestly expected it to take longer to get him drunk. But after reaching the clearing, something made the old man nervous. Out of a nearly instinctive reaction to this sense of unease, he drank fast and hard, as though he feared we might take the bottle from him any moment.

 

The three of us spoke, but only occasionally, the sound of our forced laughter and idle chatter falling false on my ear. Once I decided that Stellar was “drunk enough”, but before he moved into the swiftly approaching area of “too drunk”, I stood up and nodded for Sara to do the same. I looked down at the old man, a smile hanging large on my face.

 

“Hey, man. Want to see something cool?”

 

Stellar looked up like a physicist interrupted during a complex equation. “Hmm? No, nah, I’m okay. Thanks though, man. This is good shit.”

 

I nodded, keeping the smile in place. “Sure. No problem. But seriously, I want you to tell me what you think of this. It’s right over here.” I paused and then added, “There’s another drink in it for you.”

 

He hesitated at that. Then he smiled widely. “You know, that sure sounds cool. But I just remembered, man. I’ve got a friend I’m supposed to be meeting. I got to go.”

 

I shook my head. “No worries. We’ll drive you back. Just come over here and see this thing and then we’ll go. Honest injun.”

 

He smiled again, nodding as he got shakily to his feet. “Sounds cool and all, but I’ll walk back. I could use the exercise. The fresh air, know what I mean? Be seeing…”

 

He had been so focused on me that he hadn’t noticed Sara behind him, a large rock held over her head. When she struck him in the back of the head, he tumbled forward without a sound, and I felt sure that he was dead, thinking fearfully that the thing in the cave wouldn’t take someone who was already dead as a tribute. Why I thought the last, I couldn’t say, but it seemed true as I thought it.

 

Sara must have thought the same thing, because she dropped the rock and rushed forward to check for a pulse. After a moment of groping around, trying to avoid the blood that was trickling freely from the back of Stellar’s head, she looked at me and nodded.

 

“He’s alive. It’s weak though.”

 

Without another word we began pulling him towards the drop-off. When we reached the edge, we looked at one another for the space of a second and then shoved him over. He rolled a long distance, thumping and bumping himself to the edge of the cave’s dark entrance. Then there was only silence.

 

After several minutes of hearing nothing, I called out in a loud voice, working to keep tremors out of it. “Tribute! We bring you a tribute!”

 

Before the final word was out of my mouth, Stellar Thompson had been drug away into the black. Afterward, we didn’t discuss whether or not we had done the right thing. We didn’t question the coincidence or bad luck behind both Roberta’s and Sara’s brushes with death so close together. We just waited. Two weeks later, Sara was given a clean bill of health.

 

 

She broke up with dear, sweet Chad during winter finals, and while she didn’t give me any details, I knew the reasons. One reason—at least I hoped—was me. But the real reason, I think, was that she saw herself differently now than she had before.

 

The following summer Sara and I were inseparable. The guilt that had pushed us apart before now bound us tightly together. We shared a secret that no one else knew, that no one else could ever know, and that made us unique as snowflakes—bright and shining and alone together. It might seem that this would make our relationship morbid or destructive, but it was neither. As the days grew longer and then shorter again, we spent hours talking and taking rides, going to movies and being bored together. I loved her so much.

 

Strangely, during all of this we did nothing that was overtly romantic. I was more than willing, but I knew enough to wait until the time was right. The moment would come, and I was patient enough to wait for it. I had been waiting for years, after all.

 

Sara kissed me for the first time on August 19th of the summer before our sophomore year, less than three days before she left to go back to school. We were sitting in the dugout at the old ballfield, the same place we had pondered the message that predicted Autumn Lester's death, the same place we had played and roamed for years before that. I was lost in that kiss, my body tingling and my mind racing as we finally pulled away from each other several minutes later.

 

I looked down at the ground, afraid my voice would betray too much if I spoke before clearing my head. When I finally did look at Sara, I saw tears glistening on her cheeks.

 

"What is it? What's wrong?"

 

She shook her head--two quick jerks in alternating directions as she wiped at her eyes. "Nothing. Nothing. Just...Thank you, Dylan. Thank you. You've always been there for me. Always helped me." She turned away, staring out into space. "And this last..." She fell silent, shaking her head again as she held her face in her hands.

 

I reached out and touched her arm lightly. "What we did was what was necessary. It was the only way."

 

She looked up at me, her eyes red and shining. "Was it? I...I don't know. We took his life so I could have mine."

 

"No. No, we didn't. That thing in the cave did. And even if we helped, so what? Is it better that some old bum that has wasted his life and will never do anything should live a few more years, or hell, maybe months, rather than you? You, who are young and beautiful, and have so much ahead of you?" When she sat silent, I went on. "No, it'd be a tragedy. That's what it'd be. A goddamned travesty. And if I had to do it over, I wouldn't hesitate. We made the right choice."

 

Nearly a minute passed before she nodded, turning to look at me one last time before standing up. "Well, I just wanted you to know. Thank you."

 

Unable to think of the right response, I just nodded and followed her off of the field. We only saw each other once more before she headed off for school, and then we only met for a quick goodbye lunch before she left. I wanted to kiss her again, to tell her that she should come back here to go to school now that things were over with Chad. Yet something kept me from it, telling me that it wasn't the right time. So instead I carried the last of her stuff to her car and gave her a hug, making her promise to give me a call when she got a chance.

 

She nodded and smiled, waving to Roberta and me as she drove away. When she had passed out of sight, Roberta turned to me, a solemn look on her face.

 

"You love that girl, don't you, Dylan?"

 

I was stunned, blurting out the truth before I could fabricate a lie. "Yes, ma'am. I do....I mean..."

 

Roberta smiled and gave a small laugh then. "No need to backpeddle with me. I've known that for a long time. And that's more than fine with me. Just..." She trailed off, several seconds passing before she began again. "My girl is going through alot of changes lately. The last year, well, she's just different. Have you noticed it?"

 

I shrugged and nodded. "I guess so. She's got alot going on, I guess."

 

"Well, I'm sure you're right." She studied my face, having to look up at me slightly since my last growth spurt. She put her hand on my shoulder. "Just be careful. Both for her sake and for yours. I don't know what I'd do if anything ever happened to either of you."

 

I smiled and gave her a hug, hanging around for a few more minutes before making up an excuse for why I needed to get back home. Weeks went by without a call from Sara, and I fought to maintain my resolve to not call her first. I knew from Roberta that she was safely back at school, but beyond that Sara's mother would volunteer little, a strange expression often passing across her face as she assured me that Sara was likely just very busy with school at the moment.

 

It was the middle of October when Sara's letter came. It was only two sentences, written in Sara's flowing cursive. My heart pounded as I opened the letter, full of hope and dread for what it might say. Then I read it. The world faded away and my breath stopped. It said:

 

Chad and I are engaged. I'm so sorry, Dylan.

 

I threw it away from me with fear and disgust, folding in on myself until I was sitting on the floor, too numb to yell or cry. What was I supposed to do?

 

 

Roberta watched the credits for The Thin Man, thinking not for the first time how much shorter movie credits used to be. She wondered if that meant that movies were more complex now, or that people just used to not get as much credit. Either way, it was hard to beat William Powell and Myrna Loy together, and her willingness to stay up so late was a testament to that. Since her miracle recovery, Roberta had gotten her real estate license and had been doing pretty well at it the last few months. Sighing, she stood up in the dark living room, wishing again that she hadn't scheduled a showing for eight in the morning. Still, she thought, it could mean a big sale, so I shouldn't bitch too much.

 

She felt around on the sofa until she found her cell phone, hitting a button to briefly turn on the phone's luminescent screen. She nearly always used this phone instead of her home telephone, and it was rare that it wasn't close by. The light flickered out after two seconds, so she hit it again and began moving out of the room.

 

Old movie or not, Roberta had always been a night owl. Sara, on the other hand, had always been almost annoyingly chirpy in the morning and went to bed early at night. Back during the bad times, Roberta had slept little. She would lie awake for hours, staring into darkness as she gritted her teeth in pain. Later, when she was better, she would still sit up late, enjoying time to herself without the pain and the fear that had been her world for so many years. Sara would usually be several hours asleep before Roberta went to bed, her daughter’s bedroom door always opened wide and on the way down the hallway to Roberta's own room. Not wanting to turn on a hallway light and risk disturbing Sara, and refusing to lug around a flashlight like some kind of lunatic, Roberta had taken to using her cell phone to light her way.

 

Even now, with Sara back at school for nearly two months, she still went to bed with the house dark and a soft blue glow to guide her. She moved into the front foyer as the light went out again. Light. Move to the bottom of the stairs. Light. Halfway up. Light. On the way to the top.

 

It was during this last stretch up the stairs that she thought she heard something. A tap, tap-tap sound so faint it seemed dreamlike in her sleepy state. She paused, listening for other noise. It had sounded as if it came from one of the rooms upstairs, but she couldn't say for sure. Noises sounded strange in the dark, and though it didn't sound like a noise she recalled commonly hearing, it was probably just the house creaking or settling or passing gas. She grinned to herself at this last thought, imagining the house turning on the air conditioner to try to mask its embarrassing flatulence. Satisfied with no repeat of the sounds, she started up the stairs again.

 

Light. Top of the stairs. Light. Past Sara's room and the bathroom. Light. Staring into the face of a monster, the icy pinpricks of light that served it for eyes outshining the phone's illumination. Its hands, cold and terrible, shot out to dig into the meat of her and pull her inside her bedroom, a tiny, gasping squeal escaping from between its impossibly long and sharp teeth. The door slammed shut behind her, and she had a final moment to stare at the glistening death's head drawing closer before the phone's light went out one last time, leaving her in the dark to scream. 

---

Credits

 

Mystery (Part 5)

 

Two hours later we were in my room, alternatively crying and yelling, comforting and accusing each other. We talked about what the monster could be and where it could have come from. We talked about Everett’s sacrifice to save us, and how we had no choice other than to leave him behind. We talked about how we should have never gone to the cave in the first place (or at least, I added, been more careful), and how we only had ourselves to blame. We talked about whether or not it was over now, or if it would keep coming until it had taken us all. We didn’t talk about rescuing Everett or telling anyone so they could help us. We both knew Everett was gone now.

 

Sara didn’t want to go home, so we asked if she could spend the night in the guest room. After the house was dark, my door opened as she crept into the room.

 

“Is it okay if I stay with you?”

 

My heart thudded as I whispered yes in the dark, and moments later her body was inches from mine, her breath stirring in my nostrils as I tried to rein in the thoughts that jumped and burned through my mind like wind-lofted embers before being replaced by the next red-orange cloud. Should I say something? Do something? Go to sleep? Hold her? Kiss her?

 

I sat for half an hour or more, frozen in a state of inaction and fear. My choice was made for me when I heard her softly snoring next to me. Smiling to myself, I buried my face in my pillow, eventually drifting off to sleep.

 

 

I’m convinced that the only reason that human beings have been so successful as a species is that we can adapt to anything given enough time and motivation. Yet whatever benefits that may bring, it also creates our worst monsters. It allows child abuse to become a routine and concentration camps a job. It allows violence and hatred to become background noise that only gets dialed up when it directly affects us. It was that same adaptability that allowed me to wonder what to do while lying next to Sara, despite the fact that just hours before I had seen my best friend get dragged away by a horror that shouldn’t even exist. That adaptability, and perhaps some hidden truth nestled in a dark corner of my brain, or some insight into what was to come.

 

When I awoke the next morning, my first thought was of Sara beside me, not of Everett. The second was that something hard was resting against my leg. Finally, the third was Everett—guilt, pain, and panic fluttering in my chest as I rubbed my eyes open. I looked over at Sara still sleeping, her black hair fanned across her face. So beautiful that it made me ache. I turned to look at her better and felt the hard object resting against my leg roll slightly. Looking down, I saw it was another message rock and nearly screamed.

 

After staring at it for a full minute like it was a snake waiting to strike, I gently sat up enough to grab it before lying back down as quietly as possible. Whatever it was, I wanted to read it and think about it before waking Sara. Pulling off the string, I eased open the dirty paper, thick and discolored like old parchment.

 

It said: Tribute accepted. Now name your need.

 

I kept re-reading it, my heart deafening in my chest. It seemed to be saying that it was satisfied with the “tribute”, and that in exchange it wanted us to name what we wanted? I didn’t know. And if so, why? Out of curiosity? So it could grant our wish like some kind of homicidal genie? So it could demand another tribute? Or was it simply playing with us for its own purposes? I didn’t know. Finally, I woke Sara.

 

She took it better than I had. Her face had gone pale as I told her, but within a couple of minutes she was concentrating on the note, her eyebrows bunched as she went over it again and again. I sat watching but unfocused, and I jumped a little when she spoke.

 

“Make sure there’s not a second rock anywhere.”

 

Nodding, I got up and checked the bedsheets and the floor, searching the entire room until I was satisfied there was nothing to be found. When I was finished, I went back to the bed and I asked her what she thought.

 

“Well, it looks like its saying that Everett….God….Everett was the tribute it wanted.” Tears welled up in her eyes and she wiped them away angrily, taking a deep breath before going on. “And that now it wants to know what we need. Maybe as a gift for the tribute, or maybe to start another round of us “owing” it something. I don’t know.”

 

I nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I think too. I don’t know which it is either, or if its something else we haven’t thought of.”

 

Wrapping her arms around her legs, Sara stared off at nothing as she spoke. “Two other things. I think that it’s meant for us to name what we need together. Otherwise, why not two rocks? Unless there’s one waiting for me at my house, I think it wants one request, not two. Which I guess makes sense if this is some kind of repayment for…for our tribute.” She started crying then, gentle sobs muted by her face being pressed up against her legs. I rubbed her back, trying to awkwardly comfort her while fighting back tears myself.

 

Then, to take her mind away from crying, I asked, “What was the second thing?”

 

She looked up, her eyes red and puffy. “Wha? Oh. Y-yeah. The second thing is that I don’t think it was asking us to tell what we need.”

 

“You don’t?”

 

She shook her head slightly. “No. I think it was telling us. Telling us to tell it what we want.”

 

I was going to say more when there was a knock on the door, followed a moment later by my mother sticking her head in, looking uncomfortable as she saw us sitting together on my bed. Then she noticed Sara had been crying and her expression turned to one of concern.

 

“Sweetie, are you all right? God, did you already hear?”

 

Sara looked up confusedly. “What? Did I hear what?”

 

My mother’s face fell a little. “Your grandmother just called here looking for you. It’s your mother, sweetie. Your grandma had to take her to the hospital last night. She’s real sick.”

 

 

Sara’s mother had been growing worse for months. It had reached the point where the woman could barely stand or walk at all, and Sara's grandmother had been staying with them the last few weeks to help out. Still, Roberta’s sudden downturn during the night came as a surprise to both of us, and as I drove her to the hospital, Sara just kept saying it was her fault.

 

“You couldn’t have known, and you couldn’t have done anything that hasn’t already been done.”

 

“But I could have been there. I haven’t been there enough. Instead of goofing off or spending time with you and…with you guys, I should have been taking care of her.”

 

I shook my head, not taking my eyes from the road. “No, that’s shit. You did help take care of her. But you had to live your life too. You couldn’t just lock yourself up in that house with her all the time. That’s no kind of life for anybody.”

 

I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye, more to end the argument than out of agreement. “Yeah, I guess. Just hurry.”

 

 

We were told that Roberta’s kidneys, damaged in the car accident years before, had failed and that her liver and pancreas were both on the edge of shutting down. She was on dialysis, and while the doctors we spoke with promised to do what they could, they indicated that it was more a matter of time than anything else.

 

I stayed at the hospital until midnight, and when I got home I saw that my mother had left me a note saying that Everett’s parents had called twice asking if we knew where their son was. I called them back the next day and began repeating the lie that Sara and I had worked out the night she had stayed over—we last saw Everett the morning of his disappearance, and yes, we sure were worried too.

 

It was three days later when Sara called me, her voice hoarse and trembling. She started in without saying hello. “She’s getting worse. I’ve been thinking, and I know what I have to do. What we have to do if you’ll go with me. If not, I’m still going.”

 

I asked her what, but I already knew. Had already decided that I would go with her. The next day we returned to the cave, our message rock already prepared so we wouldn’t have to spend any more time there than necessary. I made Sara stand at the edge of the clearing as I threw the rock into the cave, my eyes everywhere as I watched for a sudden attack. Everything was silent, only a lonely bird’s cry far above momentarily breaking the quiet.

 

Within three hours Sara’s mother began a miraculous recovery. Within twelve her kidneys were fine, her pain was gone, and she could walk as if the car accident had never happened. They kept her in the hospital another two days out of confusion and consternation more than any need for treatment, and when she was released, she drove us all home, laughing and making jokes as if the last few years had been a bad dream.

 

I smiled at Sara, reaching out to give her hand a squeeze. At that moment, we felt no fear or regret, despite everything that had happened. As everything does, we were moving on.

 

 

In the months that followed, Sara and I still spent time together, but I noticed a growing divide. As terrible as it was to think of it in such terms, there was no longer anything to keep us from being together, and yet instead of growing closer, we were moving further apart. That summer Sara and her mother went up north to visit relatives they hadn’t seen in years, and when they came back, I knew something was different. She came to see me a few days after she was back, dropping by casually even though it had been killing me to not rush over the second I heard she was back. It was a short and awkward visit, and less than five minutes into the conversation she tossed out that she had met someone on her trip—rotten meat thrown between us, greasing to a stop and making me want to vomit.

 

I nodded and tried to act interested, but we both knew that this was playacting. She acted as though nothing was wrong, which she probably justified as sparing my feelings but which was really intended to spare herself any discomfort. But then she hit me with her next news.

 

“Dylan, I think I need to take some time off from being around you.” We were sitting in my front yard, and she studiously watched the street as she spoke.

 

I felt my stomach fall further than it already had. “What? Why?” Then, after a pause. “Didn’t we just take a two and a half month break from seeing each other?”

 

She nodded, throwing me a sad smile before looking at the road again. “Yeah. I know. And that’s kind of what made me realize I need some time apart. We’ve been through so much…we’ve always been so close, and we always will be. But…I’ve been eaten up with guilt and worry the last few months. And while it wasn’t gone when I was away, it was a lot better. And I’ve realized that a lot of that is because I wasn’t around you.”

 

“Me? What the fuck did I do to…”

 

She held up her hand to stop me, turning to meet my eyes for a moment. “Let me finish. When I look at you, I see Everett. I see everything we’ve done. And no, maybe it wasn’t our fault, but it still doesn’t feel right either. I need time to sort through that.”

 

I wanted to scream at her and storm away, but I fought off the urge and kept my voice level. “What about your mom? Are you sorry we did that?”

 

She started tearing up and looked away. “No, of course not. But…”

 

“And what about me? Do you think there’s not anything that I wanted? But I didn’t say anything but ‘sure thing’ when you wanted to use our wish or whatever on curing your mom. I was happy to do it.”

 

Sara sighed and nodded, wiping her cheeks. “Dylan, I know that. I do. And I love you for it. But that doesn’t change how I feel.” She turned back to me. “It’s not forever, you know? I just need some time to clear my head.”

 

I stood up then. “Fine. Take your time. Let me know when you want to be my friend again.” I walked away purposefully, ignoring her calls for me to come back and slamming the door behind me when I reached the house. I thought she’d call me that night, hopefully having realized her mistake and begging for my forgiveness. She didn’t call that night, or the next, or the one after that.

 

Aside from chance encounters, during which I made a point of ignoring her attempts at greeting me, we didn’t see each other the rest of the school year. I found out through mutual friends that she had decided she was going to college in Michigan to be with her boyfriend, Chad. I had seen him once or twice when he had come down to visit during the past year. He looked like a stupid blond ape, always smiling and looking goofy as they rode around with her friends. Time of their lives, I’m sure.

 

I was staying local myself. My grades were good enough to go pretty much wherever I wanted, but I didn’t care where I went, so I didn’t see the point in wasting the money going somewhere far off. To “thank” me for my frugality, my parents gave me a month-long trip in Europe. My first instinct was to politely refuse, but then I realized the only reason I didn’t want to go was Sara. Some pathetic part of me was still holding out some hope of changing things over the summer. Once I knew that was the reason, I forced myself to accept. The trip was wonderful, and it gave me some perspective. I didn’t understand why Mystery had lied to me about Sara loving me, or at least tricked me as to what it meant by love, but I would have to accept it and move on.

 

By the time I got back in August, Sara was already gone to Michigan and classes started for me two weeks later. Months passed, and I never considered returning to the cave or feared finding message rocks waiting for me on my bed. Strange as it may seem, I rarely thought about Mystery or Everett in those days, and by the time that Christmas vacation rolled around, I was feeling more normal, more like me, than I had in years.

 

Then Sara called. She was crying, telling me that she was in an airport waiting for her flight home, but she needed to talk to somebody. Needed to talk to me. I said okay, my head swimming. I asked what was wrong.

 

“They say I’ve got non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Cancer. It’s…It’s already in the late stages.” She laughed bitterly, her voice brittle and slightly metallic over the phone. “They say they don’t understand why I didn’t show more symptoms earlier on. Guess I’m pretty hardy, huh?”

 

I couldn’t breathe. I sat down on the edge of my bed, shutting my eyes tight as I tried to focus on getting something out. “They can treat it, right? They’ll treat it, yeah.”

 

Her despair was palpable as she answered. “They’re going to try. But they’ve already let me know it’s pretty much a done deal. It’ll take a few months probably, but I’m going to die.”

 

I gripped the phone tight enough to make the plastic creak in protest. “No. No, you’re not. Just get here and we’ll figure something out. I swear to you we will.” 

---

Credits

 

Mystery (Part 4)

 

I was half-asleep when I heard something hit my bedroom window. I jerked up, looking around confusedly for a second before my gaze settled on the window that looked out into our back yard. A moment later another pebble hit the window. I knew who it had to be, as Everett was the only one that had ever done that, and even he had not done it for a couple of years or more. Still, I had already decided that I wasn’t going to talk to either of them. I wouldn’t cave in now.

 

Another pebble, tap-thump, as it hit the glass and then bounced away down the shingles below. I looked at the clock. 1:53a.m. Something wasn’t right. Even if Everett wanted to pour out his heart about Sara, he wouldn’t come this late to do it. He was too terrified of his parents catching him out that late. Cursing myself, I threw back the covers and went to the window, opening it just before he hurled another rock from the yard below. One look at him and I knew that something bad had happened.

 

I whisper-hissed, “I’ll be right down,” and closed the window back. My stomach churning, I pulled on my jeans and shoes, sneaking quietly down to the kitchen’s back door and finding Everett waiting there. Even in the weak illumination of the moonlight I could tell that he was pale and terrified. When he spoke I could hear he had been crying as well.

 

“What is it? What’s going on?”

 

He shook his head. “I…I need to show you. Come on.” Gone was the weak, placating tone of this afternoon. For the moment, something had grown so large in Everett’s vision that our little melodrama had dropped from view. “I’ve got my car. I’ll drive.”

 

I just nodded and followed him, already getting caught up in the state of dead panic that seemed to be baking off of Everett like a fever. We drove fast going back to his house, faster than usual for him, and never spoke during the ride. When we got out, Everett looked at me, his eyes still too wide and glassy as he beckoned me to follow. We went around to the back of the house, carefully easing open the fence gate to get into the back yard. I closed it softly behind me, and when I turned back around I saw Sandy for the first time.

 

The dog lay fifteen feet away, her body half on and half off of a brick patio that led out from the house’s living room glass sliding doors. She had been gutted, although that seems like far too clean and precise a term for what had been done to her. I had gone deer hunting with my uncle the previous fall, and I had seen him field dress a deer once, using a long, sharp knife to cut a narrow slit up the animal’s belly. This was different. I had a flash of a game show I had watched once where a family had to dig around in a pie until they found the key to their new car. They had plunged their hands through the crust over and over, bringing out fistfuls of blackberries every time before digging in again. I stifled a gag, realizing for the first time that Everett was talking.

 

“….so I came out to see if she was feeling better, and that’s when I found her like this.”

 

I tore my eyes away from the dog’s remains to stare at Everett. I didn’t know what to say. Then a dark thought bubbled to the surface. Did he think that I did it? I felt anger warring with fear as I tried to think of a response. Just then, he spoke again, his voice trembling.

 

“I…I was going to bury her. I didn’t want to wake anybody up, and I didn’t want anybody seeing her like this.” He swallowed, taking a breath before continuing. “But then I found that stuffed into her mouth.”

 

He pointed as he spoke, and I felt lightheaded when I turned to see the rock a few feet away on a clean portion of the patio. Without asking for explanation, I stumbled over to it, lifting up the rock and picking up the note and the tangle of string that lay below. I glanced at Everett before opening the note to read a single word written in the same spidery handwriting that belonged to the cave:  

Tribute.  

I read it at least ten times, as if eventually it would make more sense than it had the previous times. Finally I sat it back down as I had found it, slowly backing away before turning to Everett.

 

“What does it mean?”

 

He shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. Maybe Sandy was a tribute, a payment, for the answers we’ve gotten? Maybe killing Sandy was supposed to be some bizarre tribute to us? Who knows?”

 

“I…I don’t know. Fuck. This doesn’t make any sense.” I looked around, my skin crawling at the idea that whatever did this could be watching us, leaping out of the dark when we weren’t expecting it. “Have you told Sara?”

 

Everett shook his head again. “I came straight to you. I don’t know if we should tell her, either. It’ll just scare her for no reason.”

 

Letting out a long breath, I scrubbed my face with my hands and tried to clear my head. “I’m not sure….I don’t know what’s best right now. But we can’t leave this out like this. We have to bury her before anyone finds her, or there’ll be a lot more questions.”

 

With that we set to work. We gingerly placed the dog into an oversized lawn bag and put her in the back of Everett’s car. After grabbing a shovel from his garage, we headed south past the city limits before stopping at the edge of an apple orchard to bury her. It took nearly two hours to dig the hole deep enough, the two of us taking turns at the shovel. As I dug, I reflected on the fact that we never even considered telling our families or the police about what had happened. It wasn’t even an option anymore. We might tell ourselves it was because we didn’t want to get into trouble or have people thinking we were crazy or on drugs, but that wasn’t the truth. The truth was that good or bad, the cave and its Mystery were ours. Our secret and our treasure.

 

Even with this, we weren’t willing to give that up. So we buried Sandy in the dark, crying a little as we did it, both for her and for ourselves. When we were finished, Everett thanked me and we hugged. He dropped me back off at my house and I crept back upstairs, dirty, exhausted, and wondering if I’d even be able to sleep.

 

As I opened the door to my bedroom, the details of the room were fuzzy in the bluish glow of early morning that pressed against my window. Yet it only took a second for me to see the rock sitting on my pillow, the paper tied to it burning like a brand in the gloom.

 

My breath caught in my chest, I crept softly to the bed and picked up the rock, pulling loose the string’s bow with one tug. The paper fluttered to my bedspread, but I caught it as it landed. Opening it, I read the word written in that same, familiar handwriting:

 

Tribute.

 

 

“So what does it mean?” Sara’s voice trembled as she spoke, her hands clasped in front of her knees to keep from fidgeting. She had found the same message we had when she woke up this morning. That had scared her enough on its own, but once we told her about finding Sandy the night before and my own note when I returned home, we were all struggling to not give in to total panic.

 

I tried to think of something smart to say, or if not smart, at least reassuring. I had noted with more than a little satisfaction that she had directed the question towards me instead of Everett, and I had the sudden, insane conviction that I could somehow prove myself the better man if only I could find the right answer.

 

“It means that it wants payment for its services, that’s what it means.” Everett had barely spoken since we finished catching Sara up, and when he spoke now, his voice didn’t waver. I looked at him and saw anger mixing with the fear in his eyes. “It means that whatever the fuck is in that damn cave thinks we owe it something for it doling out a few answers to some stupid kids’ questions.”

 

I nodded uncertainly. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just trying to scare us for some crazy reason. Hell, it could be some kid we go to school with that is playing a stupid prank on us.”

 

Everett’s eyes locked on mine. “Do you honestly think anybody we go to school with, shit, anybody we know could do what was done to Sandy? Even if they could, why the fuck would they? She was…she was a good dog.” He looked away, his jaw muscles jumping as he wiped at his eyes. Sara broke in again.

 

“He’s right. Who could have gotten into both our houses and killed Sandy? And why would they? No, it was whatever that’s in that cave. It has to be.”

 

“Okay, then. Let’s say it is whatever that’s in the cave that’s doing it. What does that mean exactly? Last time I checked, none of us had a fucking clue what was in that damn cave.”

 

“Don’t yell at her, man. It’s not her fault.” Everett’s tone was softer, but I felt anger rushing through me.

 

“Don’t fucking tell me what to do, how about that?”

 

He held up his hands as though to ward me off. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything. We just have to all stay calm, right?” He looked down at the ground. “We just need to figure out what to do.”

 

“We should’ve never used the cave.” Sara paused before adding. “At least not without knowing what was inside.”

 

I almost laughed. “Oh really? Well that’s a brilliant fucking insight now, isn’t it? Where were you three years ago when we started doing it? Oh, that’s right. Right fucking beside us, leaving your own notes for the cave.”

 

“Dude, cool it, seriously. There’s no point in us blaming each other n…”

 

I pointed my finger at Everett like a dagger, stabbing it at the air as my voice grew louder. “So help me, if you don’t shut the fuck up defending your fucking girlfriend, I will…” Just then I heard Sara crying. I looked to see her cradling her face in her hands, her body shaking with every sob.

 

I couldn’t take anymore. Standing up, I started to walk away. I heard Everett stand up behind me, and I hoped that he would try to stop me so I could hit him. But then I heard him softly comforting Sara, and I walked on, quickening my pace until I couldn’t hear either of them any longer.

 

 

I spent most of the day in my room, trying to sleep and failing. I finally went outside to lay in the hammock, and it was there that they found me. I expected Everett to start in with some lame apology, but it was Sara that spoke, her face still puffy from crying.

 

“Dylan, we have to talk.” Her voice was steady and serious now, her face composed.

 

“Don’t see as how we have anything to talk about at the moment. Apparently, even though I’ve done nothing wrong, I’m getting painted the asshole in this little drama, so you’ll just have to count me out.”

 

Sara poked me hard in the side. “Damnit, you know it’s not like that. And if you don’t, then you’re an idiot. But I’m not talking about what’s going on between the three of us. We can deal with that later.”

 

“Later? Why not now? Why…”

 

Sara broke in. “Because if we don’t deal with the cave, we might all be dead before we have a chance to talk about anything. That getting through to you?”

 

I stopped, feeling the breath seep out of me. She was right. It was something that we’d all known, but none of us had been willing to really face it up to that point. We didn’t know what we were facing or how it would all turn out, and I was dragging us into a bunch of melodramatic bullshit that wouldn’t count for anything if we were all dead. I thought about apologizing, but instead I asked another question.

 

“What should we do then?”

 

Sara swallowed before answering, and I could tell by Everett’s expression that he knew what she was going to say. “We have to go to the cave and confront whatever lives there.”

 

I sat up in the hammock, nearly pitching myself to the ground in the process. “Confront it? What if it does to us what it did to that dog?”

 

Sara sighed. “I don’t know. But do you have a better idea? Maybe we can reason with whatever it is. Or maybe we can even kill it if it can’t or won’t listen to reason. Whatever the case, I don’t plan on sitting around looking over my shoulder until this thing decides to do to me what it did to Sandy.”

 

I nodded, my head feeling heavy, bobbing on a spring. “Yeah, I guess.”

 

“So we go confront it?”

 

I stood up, looking at both of them. “Yeah. We do what we can.”

 

 

We went in my car, making it to the edge of the trail in less than fifteen minutes. Everett had offered to drive, but I had insisted, and Sara agreed.

 

The conversation heading into the woods was bizarre in its normalcy. We told jokes, talked about a movie we all wanted to see the next weekend, and generally just chattered. Our voices were steady most of the time, even light, but anyone that knew us as well we knew each other could have heard the taut cord of tension buried in all of our words. Talking kept back the silence and helped us not to focus on where we were heading, but it also made it seem that we arrived far too soon.

 

The clearing was unchanged from when we had last left it, undisturbed by other message rocks or signs that anyone else had been there. I wasn’t surprised. As far as I knew, no one else had come there for years. We all looked around the clearing, as if expecting some monster to leap out from behind a bush and rush us. Standing in a tight, sweaty line with me in the middle, we gripped hands and walked towards the drop-off that led to the cave below.

 

As we grew nearer, I found myself wanting to look anywhere but the black pit that was Mystery Cave, my eyes roaming the trees and bushes before moving to the ground beneath us—grass slowly fading into granite as we neared the edge. It was then that I noticed something strange that meant nothing to me at the time. A series of small lines in the rock and dirt, cut hard and straight into the earth. They weren’t deep, but their precision made them stand out, and as we walked, I realized something else. The lines continued in alternating sets of diagonal lines, first one way and then the other, so that if they were long enough to connect, a set of four might make a large X in the dirt. I was about to mention them when Sara started screaming.

 

Later, Sara would swear that she had been looking right at the spot where the thing appeared. She said that it wasn’t that it had blended in or magically faded into view, but that it was more like it was suddenly just there. All I know is that everything happened fast. Even as I was turning to look at Sara, I felt Everett’s hand being ripped out of mine, and when I saw that Sara was looking in his direction, I looked back to see his head springing back up from where it had hit the side of the basin, his eyes rolling back in his head as he slid into the grasp of the thing that had yanked his feet out from under him.

 

The next moment, the next heartbeat in this nightmare we had stumbled into, I looked at the monster that had my best friend.

 

My descriptions won’t be accurate. Even now I can’t say what I saw then for sure, as ridiculous as that sounds to me. There are elements of it…there aren’t words, or if there are, I don’t know them. But this is as close as I can come.

 

Its head was skeletal, a human skull that was not human, its cheeks too protruding and its nostrils too long. The teeth were the most shocking feature at first—long and translucent, they jutted out at an impossible angle to intersect like the clasped jaws of an anglerfish. Again, I’m doing a poor job of describing it. It wasn’t a skeleton, that’s just what it reminded me of. It had skin, and tissue. Semi-clear and swimming with ever shifting blobs of black and blue color, it’s skin was the thin membrane of a jellyfish stretched taut across an unnatural skull before sliding down to mottled shoulders and arms that ended in powerful-looking hands whose nail-less fingertips were peppered with what looked to be tiny protruding bits of black rock or bone. Its torso was like that of a man, yet instead of trailing down to a waist and legs, it ended in tattered bits of pale, ragged meat. I saw a war movie years later that showed a soldier crawling toward a radio, oblivious to the fact that his lower half had been blown away. I was immediately reminded of this monster, yet this creature’s tattered flesh was not wet or wounded, but was instead coated in a thin rime of rock dust and old, dried mud.

 

All of this was the impression of an instant—a desperate glimpse as my hands sought and found Everett’s arms. Sara was making terrible squealing sounds beside me, but she had grabbed his left arm as well, so I let go of it to focus on his right. As we began working to pull him free, it felt as though he had been half-buried in a concrete wall, our efforts starting and ending with the flexibility of Everett’s own limbs as his lower half remained motionless in the thing’s grip.

 

Sara was crying softly now, desperately tugging at Everett’s arm as his eyes fluttered open. It only took a moment for him to look down. “Wha….oh Jesus oh God oh no, oh help help oh help….” I saw the dark stain spreading along the crotch of his shorts, and I was about to renew my efforts to pull him to safety when my eyes met those of the pale, ghastly thing below.

 

I had been wrong in thinking its eyes were empty sockets. Deep within their recesses, a small, cold blue light burned like twin distant stars, malevolence and dispassion living in those fires and terrifying me. Yet even then, staring into the face of the monster, I kept my grip on Everett. It turned to look at Sara and then back to me, back and forth as it began to speak.

 

Once, when we were around eight, Sara and I had been playing near a large ditch drain pipe when I heard a sound. We had gone to the edge of the cylinder of corrugated steel, curious as to what could be making the sound, getting swept up in the mystery of it. Peering into the darkness, we were captivated for several moments before I realized what it was. A hurt animal, far down in the dark pipe and wailing out in pain, its screams alien and hollow from where we stood. This was the voice we heard when the monster spoke. Inhuman and unintelligible, it was only one word spoken again and again, and yet we somehow understood it perfectly.

 

Mystery repeated it again, giving Everett another powerful tug. “Tribute.”

 

Sara’s eyes widened and she cried out as realization struck her, almost losing her grip on Everett’s left arm. For his part, Everett had come to enough to understand what was being said, but he did not scream or cry out. Instead, his cries cut off and he remained silent for the next several seconds aside from the regular raspy huff of his panicked breaths.

 

Those seconds stretched on forever, our desperate tugging doing little to dislodge Mystery’s grip on him. My arms and shoulders were already burning with the effort, but I pushed myself to not give up or let go. Then Everett spoke.

 

“Let me go.”

 

Sara sucked in a rasping breath. “What? No….We’re going to get….get you free…”

 

I found myself shaking my head. “No way.” I wanted to yell at Mystery, but I was too afraid, imagining the monster dropping Everett only to leap upon me. I turned back to Everett. “We’re going to get you out of this.”

 

Everett squinted his eyes as he looked at us, his teeth gritted. “No, you have to let…oh God, it hurts…you have to let me do this. Let me be the tribute. It’ll leave you alone then.”

 

Mystery had silenced its terrible voice as soon as Everett had first told us to let him go, its grip firm as it slowly and teasingly slid him further down a little at the time, pulling us closer to the ledge every time. Sara was silent as well, not even seeming to react when Everett let go of our arms, his dirty face lined with tear tracks as he screamed for us to let him go.

 

“No, man….”

 

“It’s the only way, Dylan. Do….just do it.”

 

I looked at Sara, expecting her to be crying or hysterical. To my surprise, she was looking back at me. A look passed between us, and then we let Everett go. We immediately turned and began running for the edge of the clearing and the trail beyond, the scrabble of rock and Everett’s screams growing distant as he was drug down into the cave. I looked back once for a second, just in time to see the last of Everett, his hand, disappear into the darkness. After that we kept running. 

---

Credits

 

Mystery (Part 3)

 

Banner Park used to have swarms of kids during the summer, or so I’ve heard. At one time it had the only baseball field in town, so I’m sure it was popular enough in its day. But since then the new pair of fields had been built closer into town at the recreation department, and most things on the north side of town had fallen away to varying degrees, fading as they were replaced by newer businesses and restaurants elsewhere. That being said, the park wasn’t too bad. Overgrown to be sure, and probably home to more snakes that any of us wanted to think about, but there were worst places to sit for a moment and gather our thoughts.

 

We had all read what was written on the paper, but as soon as Sara placed it and the accompanying rock back into the grass, we silently began making out way back out of the woods. We didn’t run, but we moved quick and steady, walking as if a wild dog stepped at our heels, waiting for us to make a break so he could take us to ground.

 

I breathed easier when we broke the tree line, and easier still when we settled onto the splintered wood bench in the dugout of Banner Park’s weed-choked field. Looking out at what I thought had probably once been the pitcher’s mound, I forced myself to start.

 

“So she asked when she was going to die.” I saw Everett nod out of the corner of my eye. “And the cave told her Thursday. Tomorrow.”

 

Sara spoke up, shaking her head. “We don’t know that. It could’ve been there for weeks.” I noticed that her first objection wasn’t that it wasn’t true, but only that it could have already happened. I let it pass and went on to state the obvious.

 

“It was pouring yesterday. That paper hadn’t been wet. So that means it was put out today. Had to have been.”

 

Everett broke in. “Do you think it’ll really happen?”

 

When I looked at him, his eyes had grown big as saucers, and I laughed in spite of myself. “Calm down, man. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a bunch of mean kids playing a joke…”

 

“It’s not just a joke!” Sara was yelling, halfway to standing before she caught herself and sat back down, her voice softer. “We all know there’s something to it, don’t we? Don’t you both feel like it’s not just a joke?”

 

We both nodded, all three of us falling silent for several minutes before Everett stood up and walked to the rusted pole that served as half the doorway into the dugout. He looked back at us, his face dark.

 

“We need to find out who it is. Help them.”

 

“How’re we going to find out who it is? It looked like a girl’s handwriting, and it was probably someone around our age, but maybe not even that. That’s a lot of people.”

 

“But…”

 

I raised my hand to continue. “And even if we did find them, what could we do? We don’t know how they’ll die anymore than they do. And what if they’re supposed to die? If that’s what is meant to happen?”

 

Sara gave my arm a shove. “You think some poor girl our age is just supposed to die?”

 

I frowned at her and shrugged. “Sure, maybe. I don’t know. But it doesn’t matter anyway, because we don’t know who it is, and don’t have any way of finding out. All we can do is wait and see.”

 

Everett started to say something else, but in the end he just nodded and looked away. We walked back to our side of town together, the conversation slowly picking up again as we went. We talked about what to do with our afternoon and with the rest of our fast fleeting summer days. We didn’t talk about the cave, or about the girl that we all believed was about to die.

 

 

---

Autumn Lester loved to dance. She had taken her first ballet lesson at four, and had fallen madly, passionately in love, though she didn’t realize it at the time. Some people danced for attention, or because they had some unrealistic dream of being rich and famous. She knew plenty of girls like that, and she could understand both motivations. But for Autumn, it only felt like she was really and truly her when she was moving from position to position, flowing from one movement to the next. That was the only time she felt real.

 

She would practice for hours during school, but during the summers she had the freedom to really make progress. She had a state dance competition in December, and she knew that she had a strong chance at coming in first this time. She didn’t care much about winning, but according to Ms. Echols it would give her chances of getting a scholarship for college a really big boost.

 

Ms. Echols had encouraged her since junior high, allowing her to use the high school’s gym every morning to practice her routines. She had even given the girl a key to let herself in and out, even though Autumn was pretty sure that had to be against the rules. Still, Autumn was responsible, and she was proud that Ms. Echols knew she could trust her.

 

This morning hadn’t gone well. She kept missing her changes, and her mind was too preoccupied for her to focus on really correcting the mistakes she kept making. Her father had been diagnosed with prostate cancer last week, and then yesterday happened...After three hours she gave up, heading to the locker room for a shower.

 

The girls shower consisted of opposing walls with five shower heads each and two “privacy showers” along the adjoining third wall. The privacy showers consisted of two seven foot steel walls and a floor length steel door with a bolt on the inside. It always reminded her of something from a prison movie, but she always went to them, even when she was the only one around.

 

She stripped and entered the shower, shutting the door and finally getting the bolt shot home after nearly a minute of tugging. Starting the shower up, she yelped as cold water hit her, dancing around on her tiptoes until it warmed. She was halfway through washing her hair when she learned that the boiler’s thermostat had shorted out.

 

Later the fire marshal would make the comment that even with the older boilers, the chances of a short out causing the water to heat instead of cool were a thousand to one, easy. But when the thermostat went two days earlier, the boiler’s temperature had started rising, and it had continued to do so until the fire department shut it off. The gym’s water ran off the main building, and there were nearly a hundred yards of warm and cold water between the boiler room and the shower where Autumn was singing a song she had been hearing on the radio all summer as she tried to keep her mind on cheerful things. It took nearly four minutes for the boiler’s water to hit her, but when it did, it was nearly three hundred degrees.

 

There was a moment of stunned confusion as she felt her scalp begin to tingle and blister. Then she began to scream. If it had hurt a little less, or if she had been slightly less scared, she might have gotten the door open and escaped with a few scars. As it was, she only tried to move the bolt for a handful of seconds before the pain eliminated all reason. Thirty seconds in, her screams had been replaced with raw, warbling cries that tried for words and failed. They didn’t find her until mid-afternoon, hours after her question had been answered.

 

 

---

Death isn’t real for a child. At least not for the lucky ones. Even at thirteen, even after seeing how close Sara’s mom had come to death, none of us really feared death in a tangible way. It was an abstract concept that failed to signify, and when we heard about Autumn, it didn’t really register.

 

Yes, we were scared. We were sad for her and her family as well, even though Everett and I had never met her and Sara had heard she was a stuck-up bitch. But in the end, those feelings were just window-dressing for what truly lay in our hearts.

 

Excitement. Because now we knew it was all real.

 

From that belief sprang an understanding between the three of us—a pact. We never spoke of it in those early days, but we all knew. We were going to keep using the cave. We would only go as a group, and we’d never tell anyone else, but we’d go back. And we did.

 

 

As fall came on we became caught up in the day to day routine of school and hanging out together. I tried out for junior varsity football and made the first-string, but I quit after a week of practices out of boredom.

 

While it didn’t seem strange at the time, in retrospect I wonder at the fact that we didn’t visit the cave more often in those first few months. Between that first time in mid-August and Thanksgiving vacation we only went three times. In the end I think the reason we didn’t go more is because we knew it wasn’t a joke, and it wasn’t a toy. We knew it was real, and that it was serious, so we only went when we all had serious questions to ask. We never talked about each others’ questions after that first time. We didn’t even talk about the cave itself during those first months. Anything can be accepted into your life given enough time. Our trips into the north woods every month or so seemed as natural as going downtown for a matinee on Saturday afternoon.

 

No. That’s another lie. We knew it was…off. We fucking knew, but we were too stupid or selfish to care.

 

It doesn’t matter now.

 

 

 

Back to those first months. My second through fourth questions were as follows:

 

Will I be successful when I’m grown? Answer: You will accomplish much.

 

Will the three of us always be friends? Answer: You’ll all be connected as long as you live.

 

And then, my face hot as I tied it to a heavy chunk of granite, Will Sara ever love me? Answer: Yes. In time she will.

 

 

That night I could barely sleep, my head spinning and my stomach churning. The next day was Thanksgiving, and it would be that afternoon before the three of us got together. I felt sure that I wouldn’t know what to do or how to act around her. Intellectually I knew that nothing had really changed. But it didn’t matter, not that night. I listened to the wind outside my window, shadows shifting across my ceiling as I thought about the cave, silently thanking and praising whoever had made me so happy.

 

That next day was uneventful, and after a few minutes of awkwardness I fell into my old routines with Sara and Everett. This strange and wonderful secret had grown up between the three of us, coiling its vines around our arms and legs, plunging its roots deep into our minds and our hearts. It grew bigger as the months passed and the seasons changed, binding us closer to each other and to itself. Yet, at the same time, it was invisible to us, or nearly so. Our lives weren’t so different now than they had been before, not really. On the surface, we were just like anyone else, and the cave and the questions were just something that happened in our lives.

 

That’s the way it was for nearly three years. We were all juniors in high school now, and it’s true what they say. The more things change, the more they stay the same. I was still the most outgoing of our group, the most popular. Sara was the smartest, well on her way to winning several state scholarships, including one for track. Everett was still the kindest, and thus the most easily preyed upon.

 

Yet at the same time, Everett had changed the most out of all of us. The physical changes were the most noticeable. He had shot up to well over six feet, and he had taken to working out every morning by himself, even though he had no interest in sports. Girls had started noticing him in spite of himself, but he still rarely dated. Not that I was surprised. He was in love with Sara, after all.

 

Who could blame him, really? It wasn’t anything that I hadn’t known or at least suspected for a long time. One afternoon during spring break he came to me, his idiotic cocker spaniel following behind him with a gleeful bounce as he walked up to where I was laying in the hammock, taking a break from cutting the grass. I raised my eyebrow as he approached, already knowing that something was wrong. We weren’t supposed to meet up for another three hours.

 

“Hey, what’s up man? Little early, aren’t you?”

 

He nodded, his eyes downcast and his hands jammed into his pockets as he told Sandy to quit jumping up on the side of the hammock.

 

“Nah, she’s fine. What’s up? Something wrong?”

 

I saw him swallow, stalling for time. I wanted to scream at him to get it out, whatever it was. Just stop being a coward and say it. Then he did.

 

“I love Sara.”

 

I almost laughed, but managed to resist just barely. “Yeah, me too. She’s the shit.”

 

He shook his head, his big mop of brown hair swishing from side to side like a sheepdog. It made him look stupid. “No, that’s not what I mean. I’m in love with her.”

 

I felt something crawl in my stomach, but I pushed it down. I had nothing to worry about. The cave had already told me all I needed to hear. I'd just humor him. Poor guy couldn’t help it.

 

“Well, I don’t know what to say about that, man. We’re all so close. I mean, she never dates anybody for too long, and I guess it makes sense that one of us might end up with her…but…” At that point, I should have left it alone. But I couldn’t help but twist the knife a little, giving in to morbid curiosity. “But did you ask her if she feels the same way?”

 

He nodded, and now he did look up, if only for a moment. I could see tears shining in his eyes and I felt as though I’d been hit in the chest. Next to Sara, Everett was my best friend. I should be making him feel better, not making it all worse. But now it was done. I had to bring the subject to a close and then never bring it up again.

 

Looking out into the yard, I asked. “So, what did she say?”

 

“Sh-she said she loves me too. In love, I mean. She said she’s in…in love with me too.”

 

I know I didn’t speak for at least thirty seconds. I couldn’t ask him to repeat it. It’d be too obvious, and I knew what he had said. But still, I had to have misheard it. Or he was wrong. Or this was all a nightmare. Or something.

 

Only I knew none of that was true. That was why he was so upset. Because he knew it was true, and he knew what it would mean to me. We had never talked about it, but he knew how I felt about her. And he was crying for me. Crying.

 

When I pulled it together enough, I turned back to him and gave him a smile that I knew had to look more like a grimace. Yet he bought it, or pretended to, and he smiled back at me through his tears.

 

“Well, what can I say? Big news, I guess. Congratulations. To both of you.”

 

There were a million questions I wanted to ask, knowing I didn’t want the answer to any of them. When had they fallen in love? Had they fucked yet? Did they lay together naked and laughing, making fun of me? Why was any of this happening in the first place? How? This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be! But I knew better than to ask anything, and I knew that none of it mattered. My anger was already being replaced by a confused numbness, washing out the world around me.

 

Everett looked worried but said nothing for several seconds before calling Sandy back over from where she was exploring the bushes at the edge of the back yard.

 

“Well, I’ll let you get back to stuff. Just wanted to let you know. You’re my best friend, so I wanted to share the good news.”

 

That was a damned lie. He was coming to give me his fucking condolences.

 

I nodded and grunted in response.

 

“We still on for this afternoon? Three of us fishing?”

 

I nodded again, forcing myself to speak. “Sure thing, man. Wouldn’t miss it. Later.”

 

 

We had been planning on going fishing since the previous weekend—one of those random things that you practically never do but that suddenly seems like the best idea in the world. And it had been at the time. When Sara had suggested it, Everett and I had both been excited, but that was a week before. A week ago, there weren’t awkward silences when the three of us were together. A week ago, I wasn’t constantly gritting my teeth to keep from screaming while Sara looked uncomfortable and Everett looked worried. A week ago, images of them together, laughing, fucking, hiding from me, weren’t flashing through my head like an obscene shutterstop light show.

 

We hung around, catching little and staring out at nothing, avoiding each others’ gazes. I knew that they had already talked about it. He had probably broken his neck running to tell her all about it. Then they had hugged, agreeing that they would give me the time that I needed to get used to it. Because they both knew how I felt. Because they wanted to spare my feelings. It made me want to vomit.

 

It was starting to get dark when we left the pond, only about a mile and a half southwest of Mystery Cave. The awkwardness of the whole thing becoming more apparent with each hour that passed in near silence. Both Everett and I had both gotten cars in the last few months, but Sara had suddenly decided that we should ride our bikes down anyway. As we trudged down the dirt road that led to where our bikes lay hidden in the bushes, I found myself hating both of them. Not just out of jealousy, but because they had ruined something so precious. I had a lot of friends at school, and I did fine with other girls, but none of it actually mattered to me. They were all just part of what I had to do to make it through the day—a means of social lubrication and passing the time that made the pill of daily life a little easier to swallow.

 

But this…What I had with Sara and Everett was different. As much as I picked on him at times, Everett was my best friend. And Sara…I loved her so goddamn much, even then. They were the only ones I felt safe to be myself around, without all the bullshit posturing and games of high school. They were what made my life real and gave it something approaching a meaning. And they had spoiled it all.

 

When we parted ways, Sara went with Everett even though her house was closer going my way. I saw him cast a guilty glance my way as they went off into the twilight. I decided right then and there what I would do. I’d refuse to see them or talk to either of them. I wouldn’t explain myself, and I wouldn’t get into any conversations about what was going on with them, but they’d know what it was all about. Then, they’d either prove themselves to be loyal, good friends and break off their stupid romance, or they’d stay together in spite of losing me, and show themselves to be the traitors they were.

 

It was a good plan, even if it was going to be hard to do. But I was determined, and I vowed that I wouldn’t see either of them again until they had fixed what they had done.

 

It didn’t work out that way. 

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Credits