Page 65 of Together We Rot

I’m this close to snapping back on impulse, but he isn’t wrong. I could’ve set my postal address for the bushes outside of the Clarke family house. Mom always thought something was up with the Clarkes and was always looking into their business, so I’m just carrying on family tradition.

I pull my phone from my back pocket and I force the group to crowd around my dismally small screen. With senior year halfway over, my photos should be a gallery of my youth: friends with matching grins, well-posed selfies where I actually attempt to not look like a troll, loitering with Ronnie in Marquette and freezing our asses off in Lake Superior.

Instead, my phone boasts a different sort of collection. Photo after photo of Ezekiel leaving his house, monotonous day-to-day scenes that I didn’t bother showing Vrees but couldn’t bring myself to delete, stills of Ezekiel bloodied in the Morguewood with a rabbit...

I didn’t think my sleep-addled brain was capable of a light-bulb moment.

But I linger on the image and then zoom in on the towering tree behind him. It’s a beast with a massive trunk and a gaping hollow. “I ran into Elwood here that first night. There’d been a rabbit skewered through one of the branches.”

I shudder, and it isn’t the hare I’m seeing in my mind but the distorted face of my mother. Mouth unhinged in a scream that will never fully end. Blood dripping off her skin and soaking into the roots.

Ronnie scrunches her nose. “I’ve seen that tree, too. It’s a mural in the church. The thing’s huge.”

“So,” Kevin asks, scratching a red path along his cheek. “The plan is to scour the woods looking for a spooky old tree?” He’s chuckling, but his nerves are more obvious than before. He can barely complete a full sentence without a telling hitch in his throat.

“Guess so,” I answer. I’ve already moved on to cataloging what we have: a crossbow (fine), a flashlight, a marker, a good knife to cut through rope, a doorbell...

Wait.

I stiffen at the chime, and the others are already frozen around me. Ezekiel and his merry band of murderers wouldn’t seriously ring the doorbell, would they? Do serial killers do that? Knock politely and ask, “Please, may I come in and stab you once?”

Kevin would know for sure, but I’m not going to ask him. He’d whisper an entire cataloged list at me. We could have our heads on a chopping block and if I asked, “Hey, how many sightings of Mothman were there again?” his last words would be “At least a hundred.”

I lock eyes with Lucas and an unspoken agreement hangs over us. Bring the crossbow and be quiet about it.

I never anticipated doing anything in tandem with Lucas, but I have to admit, we work well together. I follow his unspoken cues to the door and motion for him to get back and hand me the crossbow. He might hesitate, but I’m angry enough to know that I won’t. He clutches the hilt of a knife instead and goes flat against the wall.

One.

I lift a finger with my other hand resting on the knob.

Two.

Have I always been this sweaty? My body’s slick with fear and adrenaline.

Three.

The door swings open and I’ve got the crossbow in the intruder’s face. I will gladly pull the trigger—“Dad?”

Shit. Pointing a lethal weapon at a loved one might not be the best way to greet them at the door. It’s also going to be a tricky one to explain, seeing as how he’s gone sheet white and all. His eyes bulge at the razor-sharp arrow, and it’s only at that instant that I remember to lower it to my hip.

“Uh, hi,” I say blankly.

Dad shifts, his shoulders slumping now that he’s no longer in imminent danger.

“What are you doing here?”

He looks vaguely sheepish. I guess I would be too after staring down a crossbow. “I tracked your phone.” He waves his own phone to clarify and there’s the little GPS dot flashing. “After I saw what happened to half the motel, I was so worried something happened to you. I called Cherry. Texted your friends. And called you, as a matter of fact, more than fifty times. You nearly gave me a heart attack!”

“You what?” I don’t know how tracking me is more offensive than what I just did, but I’m still shocked. Dad’s never done anything like that. This town is embarrassingly small. He knows my typical haunts... or he thinks he does. And I haven’t been a blip on Dad’s radar in over a year. Grief made a stranger of him.

When did he become a father again?

He breaks the distance and envelopes me in a crushing hug. I don’t meet it. Can’t meet it. “She told me what you’re up to,” he says, his voice curdled and thick. He chokes, tears making a mess of his face. Dad hasn’t cried in front of me since Mom disappeared. Rather than feeling sadness, he opted to feel nothing. Nothing at all. But now all of the emotions he repressed are uncorked. They burst to the surface, returning with a vengeance.

“She was hysterical, Wil. Said you were going to go take on the Clarkes on your own.” His voice shakes. “And she told me the truth. About Elwood.”

Everything goes quiet. For one heavy moment, nothing else exists. All that’s real is my father’s grief-stricken face, his fingers clutching tight onto my skin, and the dark implication of his words.

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