Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 72
“Since when?” Lena calls across the room as she finally finds her voice. She whips around to Tate, “Did he tell you about this? What did Bowen say?”
Tate is quickly losing control of the room.
“Alright…Colson?” he asks as though he can’t remember my name. But that’s also fine, because he’ll remember it, soon enough. “What do you know about this?”
“Before Evie left, she told me they’d been together for a few weeks, but she didn’t want Hildy to know. She said Bowen wasn’t too happy she got into UCLA and started being a dick to her about it—”
“Wait, wait,” Lena cuts me off, “what you mean started being a dick to her? What does that mean?”
She probably has a pretty good idea what it means, and I’m not going to correct her in the slightest. “She said she was going to talk to Bowen at the skate park last night and break everything off because she’s leaving for school soon anyway,” I reply.
Scott swivels his head back around to Tate, the veins in his temple pulsing, “Was he the last person to see her? Have you talked to him yet?”
“Alright, alright,” Tate deflects, raising a hand to calm the situation quickly getting out of hand, “we’ll talk to Bowen and see what he has to say. Meantime, we need to get a location on Evie’s phone if we can.”
●●●
That’s about the last useful thing Tate Garrison does. Evie’s phone is still missing, but the last tower it pinged off of before it went dark is close to Palomino Park, which sparks a massive search two days later. It’s like we’re back on the soccer field, both teams, along with Canaan’s softball team and basically the rest of the town, shows up to search for Evie. Except, this time, we’re not throwing elbows or shit-talking after bad calls.
I’m not sure whether it started out as Bowen’s secret or Evie’s, but it’s out now. Rumors spread between the lines of comments in Facebook pages dedicated to finding Evie and trite posts about thoughts and prayers that never did anyone any good.
No one’s talking about it, but the menacing glares being exchanged across the parking lot as Tate Garrison explains how to conduct a search through the woods all but confirms the bad blood spilling out across the pavement. Everyone from Dire Ridge knows Bowen was the last one to see Evie, and everyone in Canaan is already on edge from one of their own going missing.
I can’t stand to even look at him, standing at Hildy’s side, leisurely smoking a cigarette while she’s on the brink of a meltdown. And she should be—fucking bitch. As soon as he catches sight of me and gives me a nod, I have to turn away before I charge through the crowd and grind his face into the gravel. It might help me, but it won’t help Evie. We have to find her.
I’m used to hiking through the woods for days on end, and so is Evie. We go hiking with Scott all the time and go on a week-long camping trip in August every year, which was why it doesn’t make sense for Evie to decide to walk into the woods in the middle of the night and vanish. These woods aren’t even that big. They aren’t vast like the Rockies or even Cuyahoga. But if you don’t know where you’re going—or someone lures you too far out—I guess it doesn’t matter.
Two miles in each direction and no one finds a goddamn thing. I go back every day for a week, walking the trails and trudging through the forest, until everyone is satisfied Evie’s not in the park. Everyone except me. I can’t find her, but nothing else makes sense. She didn’t run away, and it doesn’t make sense that she wouldn’t be around here, somewhere.
Besides that, I have terrible nightmares that only get worse by the day.
All I can hear is Evie’s voice. She’s crying and screaming my name. I scream back, calling out to her, begging her to tell me where she is, but she only responds with the same three phrases.
I’m here, Col!
Come get me!
Take me home!
It’s absolute hell.
Finally, six days later, I have a dream. Not a nightmare, but a dream.
I’m walking along the side of the road next to a dense forest. It’s early in the day, when the sun is just showing over the trees. When I look to my left, I realize Evie is walking next to me. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on the last time I saw her—neon yellow running shorts, grey tank top, Adidas sneakers, and her fiery red hair is pulled back in a long braid hanging from the crown of her head.
She keeps the same leisurely pace as me, with this peaceful, half-smile on her face while she enjoys the sounds of the birds and the wind rushing through the trees. She doesn’t say anything at first, only tilts her head back and closes her eyes to feel the wind on her face.
I keep trying to ask her the same question, over and over, but my mouth won’t open and my throat feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. All I can do is shout in my head. Evie keeps glancing over at me with the same shit-eating grin she used to get whenever I’d get in trouble, but not her.
Like she knows something I don’t.
Eventually, she slows and then comes to a stop. We’re still on the long stretch of road, and when I follow Evie’s gaze, I see Grumpy’s, the old motorcycle shop decaying into the cracked asphalt lot on Grisham Road. The same place I almost beat the shit out of Bowen and we all ran from the cops.
I’m still trying to speak and, finally, when it feels like my chest is about to split open, my voice bursts out of my mouth with a gasp, “Where are you?”
Evie turns to me and a relieved smile spreads across her face, “I’ll show you.”
Her blue eyes, deeply luminous now, lead me across the pavement to a wall of honeysuckle and birches just beyond the white line denoting the shoulder of the road. The longer I stare at the trees, a break in the brush materializes. There’s a clear path down into the forest, camouflaged from a distance. I follow Evie down the hill, through a carpet of dead leaves. I make it two steps from the bottom when something bright red catches my eye, standing out against the patchy dirt and grass like a flashing road cone.
When I glance back up, Evie’s giving me the same excited look as when we’d play Hot and Cold when we were kids.
Warmer…warmer…
I continue following her through the trees, the subtle path disappearing into nothing the further we go. Finally, the dense brush reveals a clearing where the trees are thinner and the terrain dips down into a shallow creek in the distance. She lets me pass her and as soon as I step out of the brambles and honeysuckle, I come to a halt, staring straight ahead.
For some reason, I know what I’m looking at carries great significance. This is why I’m here.
“Hotter!” Evie comes flying past my shoulder through the brush, “Burning up, Col!” she calls into the air as she bounds into the clearing ahead of me, her crimson braid swinging back and forth with each stride.
I wake up with a rush of adrenaline and bolt out of bed, so excited I’m about to bust out of my skin. But once I’m upright and I play the dream over in my head, I have to face a sobering realization; if Evie’s answering me somewhere in my subconscious, then she’s probably not here anymore.
But that part doesn’t seem real yet. I can’t process it because there are more important things to do.
My phone says it’s 7:06, and I call Mason, waking him up, “I had a dream. I know where Evie is.” I don’t bother waiting for a response before ending the call and driving straight to his house.
As soon as I stop my Civic in the middle of the crumbling lot at Grumpy’s, I feel a jolt run up my neck and my arms explode into goosebumps. I can see it in my mind’s eye, and I know we’re in the right spot. Mason follows me to the middle of the deserted lot and watches me search until I find the path hidden in plain sight.
“It’s over here.”
He follows me across the road to the woods, “Didn’t they already search over here?”
“No,” I sweep the wall of honeysuckle aside as we descend down the hill, past a NO TRESPASSING sign nailed to an ancient poplar, “This is private property. It’s not the park anymore.”
As soon as I get to the bottom of the hill, my eyes sweep across the moss-laden dirt and I see it—a bright red flash against the earth. It’s a shredded pair of red lace underwear. I crouch down and pick it up between my thumb and forefinger.
“Shit…” Mason murmurs with dread from behind my shoulder.
My heart starts pounding. But I’m not surprised because I’ve seen them before—before I knew what they were. I drop them where I found them and rise, continuing into the forest. After slogging through the thick brush, the trees finally thin out and we stumble into the clearing. Everything is the same, down to the patches of moss and grass undulating over the bare earth.
And then I see it. It’s a culvert, five feet across, rust running halfway up the inside walls, with the same shallow creek running through it. The water can’t be more than a foot deep. A surge of adrenaline tears through me and I take off running toward the creek.
“Col!” Mason’s voice echoes behind me, but it’s nothing more than the buzz of a gnat in my ear.
I fly off the edge of the ditch and land with a splash in the cold water. When I stand up, I realize the water only comes up to my shins. As soon as I turn, I see the pitch-black opening of a corrugated steel pipe staring back at me, like the maw of some ancient monster. Mason is right behind me, hopping into the murky water with a splash. Once I reach the opening of the pipe, I brace one arm on the top edge and duck inside, trying to make out anything in the dark.
“I need a light,” I say over my shoulder.
Crouching down, on my hands and knees, I start crawling into the pipe before Mason can even reach for his phone. Broken branches and clumps of soggy brush bump my arms and legs and my sneakers scrape through silt and pebbles the further I go. Finally, the light from his phone flickers over the metal wall and I can vaguely see where I’m going. Creek water soaks into my jeans, seeping up my legs until they’re plastered to my skin. I move to one side so Mason’s light can shine further into the darkness. And when it does, I find what I’m looking for.
I’m not sure what I’m seeing at first. There’s a jam on the left side of the pipe, choked with branches and debris. I reach for the biggest one, a thick, leaf-laden limb tangled halfway beneath the water, and rip it loose along with another clump of soggy leaves. And when I do, I see an elbow jutting out of the dam, Mason’s light dancing across its sickly greenish grey skin—Evie’s skin…
I let out a long guttural howl that echoes through the pipe and start frantically tearing at the jam. Clawing the brush loose, I wrap my arms around whatever I can and start pulling. It’s her body, hanging limp and wet over my arm as I thrash around, scrambling backward out of the pipe with a barrage of screams and curses. As soon as I’m close enough, Mason grabs the waist of my jeans and start dragging me the rest of the way out of the pipe.
As soon as daylight hits us, I hear Mason’s screams cut through the air along with my own.
When I jostle Evie to get a better grip with both arms, her head rolls back and I come face to face with the grisly mask permanently affixed to her face. It’s her, but it’s not her. Her vacant, milky eyes aren’t blue anymore, having turned a muddy shade of brown, and her swollen, waterlogged skin is stained a bloodless black, tinged with green and covered with a slime that slips through my fingers so I can barely hold onto her. In sick fucking irony, her radiant teeth still sparkle white against her decaying lips, her sagging jaw pulling them slightly ajar.
Her vibrant red hair is gone—most of it, anyway—the remaining strands turned black and plastered to her skull. Her clothes are gone, too, leaving her completely naked like a sickly alien creature birthed from the depths of a sewer. Her arms hang limp, reaching out into empty space, skin peeling away from her fingers and wrists like torn latex gloves. Some are missing, but I can still make out her pink and black acrylic nails.
My lungs burn as I scream her name, rocking back and forth, hovering over her face like I might be able to wake her up, only to throw my head back in nauseated hopelessness as I sob into the treetops. Mason lets go of me and stumbles backward in shock, erupting into another torrent of screams. He collapses onto his hands and knees in the water, shaking, screaming, and sobbing into his arm as he looks on in horror.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I knew the outcome wouldn’t be a good one, but I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready.
When I roll my head back in anguish, I catch sight of Mason on the bank, doubled over, red-faced and screaming into his phone. My own pathetic sounds drown out what he’s saying as I descend further into madness and despair.
All I can do is sit in the water with Evie’s body melting into mine, tears and snot leaking out of my face while I keep screaming. I’m holding her so tight that my fingertips sink into her slimy, ruined flesh and, even though I’m convulsing with coughs and retches, I can’t bring myself to let go of her.
I can’t let go of her.
By the time we leave the woods, I don’t know how much time has passed. The only sounds now are muted voices drifting under the crack of the door at the police station. After a wave of law enforcement and EMTs flooded into the clearing, they peeled Evie, quite literally, off of me, and took us all out of the woods. I don’t know where they took Mason. I don’t even remember how I got here.
All I know is that I’m sitting in an interrogation room, staring at the white cinderblock walls in a near catatonic state. Someone peeks through the window periodically, probably to make sure I don’t kill myself on their watch.
“They’re on their way down…” I hear Tate’s voice in the hallway, “he’s covered in…Jesus…get some clothes, take him back to the locker room, and shower him off before the parents get here.”
I glance down at the front of my grey t-shirt and jeans, streaked with the remnants of Evie. My skin is stained with a thin film of decay and I smell like I myself am dead, too.
Everything moves in slow, fluid motions—undressing, dropping my clothes into paper bags, robotically scrubbing my body with a nondescript bar of soap, rinsing the death from my skin under scalding water—until I’m back in the same room I started in, this time in grey sweatpants and a different grey t-shirt with the police department logo on the chest.
When the door finally opens, the first person I see when I look up is Lena. Her puffy blue eyes lock on mine and she breaks away from Dan, my parents, and Tate and rushes toward me. Her chin trembling, she collapses onto her knees in front of my chair and wraps her arms around my torso. As soon as her cheek hits my shirt, she lets out a shrill scream that breaks me into pieces all over again.
I clutch her around the neck while she shakes uncontrollably, covering my face with my other hand. She clings to me, her voice wrecking me from the inside out as she screams Evie’s name over and over, punctuated by curses and desperate pleas to God.
My mom is kneeling next to Scott on the floor, crying into her hand while she holds him around the shoulders with the other. He sits against the wall, having slid down to the floor as soon as he saw me.
He buries his face in his hands while his shoulders shake with sobs, “No, no, no…my Evie girl…please, no!”
I cry even harder when I hear his voice. It’s one I’ve never heard since I’ve known him. It’s too high-pitched and cracked for such a big man—the sound of a father’s heart breaking when he realizes his only child is dead. She’s dead, and he doesn’t know how she died or who did it. He doesn’t know who stole her away from him.
When Lena finally pulls back, she reaches up and grasps my contorted and swollen face, brushing my wet hair away from my forehead like only a mom would. She doesn’t say anything, just gazes sympathetically at me through the tears streaming down her face.
“Oh, Colson…” she sighs, “oh, God…I’m so sorry…” she shakes her head and pulls me close again.
She just found out her only child is dead and she feels sorry for me. But I know what she’s thinking. Who wants to thank their daughter’s brother for finding her dead body? Who wants to feel any kind of relief when Evie’s still dead and someone had to find her like that? I don’t want to let go of Lena, and she doesn’t seem to mind.
In an instant, time stops and loses all meaning. The rest of the world goes on, the sun sets, and another day starts. But, regardless, she and I are both left suspended in time, clinging to each other in the absence of the one we really want.
●●●
I used to wish that Evie and I went to the same school, but now I wonder if it’s better that we didn’t. On one hand, I don’t think I could deal with the endless conversations, condolences, memorials, tributes, and Evie’s face plastered all over the school. Not to mention the media coverage…she’s the first homicide in Canaan in 14 years. But, on the other hand, maybe if I was closer, Bowen would’ve left her alone.
That’s what I’m thinking about while I stare at him over her closed casket, draped in violets and tiger lilies. I sit motionless, my arm firmly around Dallas, holding her close while she sniffles into my shoulder. I hate this for Dallas, even more than for myself. Freshman year of high school is hard enough, and now her life’s been turned upside down. How can I leave for college next year? How can I leave her like this?
It doesn’t matter where we are, it’s always the same; Dire Ridge and Canaan split clean down the middle, a line drawn in the sand. Mason and his parents stand behind us with Alex and his older brother, Adrian, while Aiden and the rest of the Raffertys stand further to the side.
On the other side of Evie’s casket, Bowen stands with Hildy, Jay, and Hannah while Tate, Wells, Bowen’s parents, and Jay’s parents stand nearby. I can see Aiden’s face in my periphery, eyes burning a hole through Jay’s forehead, daring him to look in their direction. Although visibly uncomfortable, Jay comforts a sniveling Hildy while Hannah clings to her arm and sniffles right along with everyone else.
They all have a lot of nerve showing up here after everything that’s happened—after everything that happened before this…
Bowen knows I’m looking at him, ignoring everything else around us. I’m studying his face, trying to decipher what’s going on inside his head, and it’s fascinating. He stands next to Jay in a crisp, blue button-down rolled up to the elbow, looking like he’s dutifully waiting for this to end before moving on with his day. That is, until he thinks someone is watching.
Tate is quickly losing control of the room.
“Alright…Colson?” he asks as though he can’t remember my name. But that’s also fine, because he’ll remember it, soon enough. “What do you know about this?”
“Before Evie left, she told me they’d been together for a few weeks, but she didn’t want Hildy to know. She said Bowen wasn’t too happy she got into UCLA and started being a dick to her about it—”
“Wait, wait,” Lena cuts me off, “what you mean started being a dick to her? What does that mean?”
She probably has a pretty good idea what it means, and I’m not going to correct her in the slightest. “She said she was going to talk to Bowen at the skate park last night and break everything off because she’s leaving for school soon anyway,” I reply.
Scott swivels his head back around to Tate, the veins in his temple pulsing, “Was he the last person to see her? Have you talked to him yet?”
“Alright, alright,” Tate deflects, raising a hand to calm the situation quickly getting out of hand, “we’ll talk to Bowen and see what he has to say. Meantime, we need to get a location on Evie’s phone if we can.”
●●●
That’s about the last useful thing Tate Garrison does. Evie’s phone is still missing, but the last tower it pinged off of before it went dark is close to Palomino Park, which sparks a massive search two days later. It’s like we’re back on the soccer field, both teams, along with Canaan’s softball team and basically the rest of the town, shows up to search for Evie. Except, this time, we’re not throwing elbows or shit-talking after bad calls.
I’m not sure whether it started out as Bowen’s secret or Evie’s, but it’s out now. Rumors spread between the lines of comments in Facebook pages dedicated to finding Evie and trite posts about thoughts and prayers that never did anyone any good.
No one’s talking about it, but the menacing glares being exchanged across the parking lot as Tate Garrison explains how to conduct a search through the woods all but confirms the bad blood spilling out across the pavement. Everyone from Dire Ridge knows Bowen was the last one to see Evie, and everyone in Canaan is already on edge from one of their own going missing.
I can’t stand to even look at him, standing at Hildy’s side, leisurely smoking a cigarette while she’s on the brink of a meltdown. And she should be—fucking bitch. As soon as he catches sight of me and gives me a nod, I have to turn away before I charge through the crowd and grind his face into the gravel. It might help me, but it won’t help Evie. We have to find her.
I’m used to hiking through the woods for days on end, and so is Evie. We go hiking with Scott all the time and go on a week-long camping trip in August every year, which was why it doesn’t make sense for Evie to decide to walk into the woods in the middle of the night and vanish. These woods aren’t even that big. They aren’t vast like the Rockies or even Cuyahoga. But if you don’t know where you’re going—or someone lures you too far out—I guess it doesn’t matter.
Two miles in each direction and no one finds a goddamn thing. I go back every day for a week, walking the trails and trudging through the forest, until everyone is satisfied Evie’s not in the park. Everyone except me. I can’t find her, but nothing else makes sense. She didn’t run away, and it doesn’t make sense that she wouldn’t be around here, somewhere.
Besides that, I have terrible nightmares that only get worse by the day.
All I can hear is Evie’s voice. She’s crying and screaming my name. I scream back, calling out to her, begging her to tell me where she is, but she only responds with the same three phrases.
I’m here, Col!
Come get me!
Take me home!
It’s absolute hell.
Finally, six days later, I have a dream. Not a nightmare, but a dream.
I’m walking along the side of the road next to a dense forest. It’s early in the day, when the sun is just showing over the trees. When I look to my left, I realize Evie is walking next to me. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on the last time I saw her—neon yellow running shorts, grey tank top, Adidas sneakers, and her fiery red hair is pulled back in a long braid hanging from the crown of her head.
She keeps the same leisurely pace as me, with this peaceful, half-smile on her face while she enjoys the sounds of the birds and the wind rushing through the trees. She doesn’t say anything at first, only tilts her head back and closes her eyes to feel the wind on her face.
I keep trying to ask her the same question, over and over, but my mouth won’t open and my throat feels like it’s stuffed with cotton. All I can do is shout in my head. Evie keeps glancing over at me with the same shit-eating grin she used to get whenever I’d get in trouble, but not her.
Like she knows something I don’t.
Eventually, she slows and then comes to a stop. We’re still on the long stretch of road, and when I follow Evie’s gaze, I see Grumpy’s, the old motorcycle shop decaying into the cracked asphalt lot on Grisham Road. The same place I almost beat the shit out of Bowen and we all ran from the cops.
I’m still trying to speak and, finally, when it feels like my chest is about to split open, my voice bursts out of my mouth with a gasp, “Where are you?”
Evie turns to me and a relieved smile spreads across her face, “I’ll show you.”
Her blue eyes, deeply luminous now, lead me across the pavement to a wall of honeysuckle and birches just beyond the white line denoting the shoulder of the road. The longer I stare at the trees, a break in the brush materializes. There’s a clear path down into the forest, camouflaged from a distance. I follow Evie down the hill, through a carpet of dead leaves. I make it two steps from the bottom when something bright red catches my eye, standing out against the patchy dirt and grass like a flashing road cone.
When I glance back up, Evie’s giving me the same excited look as when we’d play Hot and Cold when we were kids.
Warmer…warmer…
I continue following her through the trees, the subtle path disappearing into nothing the further we go. Finally, the dense brush reveals a clearing where the trees are thinner and the terrain dips down into a shallow creek in the distance. She lets me pass her and as soon as I step out of the brambles and honeysuckle, I come to a halt, staring straight ahead.
For some reason, I know what I’m looking at carries great significance. This is why I’m here.
“Hotter!” Evie comes flying past my shoulder through the brush, “Burning up, Col!” she calls into the air as she bounds into the clearing ahead of me, her crimson braid swinging back and forth with each stride.
I wake up with a rush of adrenaline and bolt out of bed, so excited I’m about to bust out of my skin. But once I’m upright and I play the dream over in my head, I have to face a sobering realization; if Evie’s answering me somewhere in my subconscious, then she’s probably not here anymore.
But that part doesn’t seem real yet. I can’t process it because there are more important things to do.
My phone says it’s 7:06, and I call Mason, waking him up, “I had a dream. I know where Evie is.” I don’t bother waiting for a response before ending the call and driving straight to his house.
As soon as I stop my Civic in the middle of the crumbling lot at Grumpy’s, I feel a jolt run up my neck and my arms explode into goosebumps. I can see it in my mind’s eye, and I know we’re in the right spot. Mason follows me to the middle of the deserted lot and watches me search until I find the path hidden in plain sight.
“It’s over here.”
He follows me across the road to the woods, “Didn’t they already search over here?”
“No,” I sweep the wall of honeysuckle aside as we descend down the hill, past a NO TRESPASSING sign nailed to an ancient poplar, “This is private property. It’s not the park anymore.”
As soon as I get to the bottom of the hill, my eyes sweep across the moss-laden dirt and I see it—a bright red flash against the earth. It’s a shredded pair of red lace underwear. I crouch down and pick it up between my thumb and forefinger.
“Shit…” Mason murmurs with dread from behind my shoulder.
My heart starts pounding. But I’m not surprised because I’ve seen them before—before I knew what they were. I drop them where I found them and rise, continuing into the forest. After slogging through the thick brush, the trees finally thin out and we stumble into the clearing. Everything is the same, down to the patches of moss and grass undulating over the bare earth.
And then I see it. It’s a culvert, five feet across, rust running halfway up the inside walls, with the same shallow creek running through it. The water can’t be more than a foot deep. A surge of adrenaline tears through me and I take off running toward the creek.
“Col!” Mason’s voice echoes behind me, but it’s nothing more than the buzz of a gnat in my ear.
I fly off the edge of the ditch and land with a splash in the cold water. When I stand up, I realize the water only comes up to my shins. As soon as I turn, I see the pitch-black opening of a corrugated steel pipe staring back at me, like the maw of some ancient monster. Mason is right behind me, hopping into the murky water with a splash. Once I reach the opening of the pipe, I brace one arm on the top edge and duck inside, trying to make out anything in the dark.
“I need a light,” I say over my shoulder.
Crouching down, on my hands and knees, I start crawling into the pipe before Mason can even reach for his phone. Broken branches and clumps of soggy brush bump my arms and legs and my sneakers scrape through silt and pebbles the further I go. Finally, the light from his phone flickers over the metal wall and I can vaguely see where I’m going. Creek water soaks into my jeans, seeping up my legs until they’re plastered to my skin. I move to one side so Mason’s light can shine further into the darkness. And when it does, I find what I’m looking for.
I’m not sure what I’m seeing at first. There’s a jam on the left side of the pipe, choked with branches and debris. I reach for the biggest one, a thick, leaf-laden limb tangled halfway beneath the water, and rip it loose along with another clump of soggy leaves. And when I do, I see an elbow jutting out of the dam, Mason’s light dancing across its sickly greenish grey skin—Evie’s skin…
I let out a long guttural howl that echoes through the pipe and start frantically tearing at the jam. Clawing the brush loose, I wrap my arms around whatever I can and start pulling. It’s her body, hanging limp and wet over my arm as I thrash around, scrambling backward out of the pipe with a barrage of screams and curses. As soon as I’m close enough, Mason grabs the waist of my jeans and start dragging me the rest of the way out of the pipe.
As soon as daylight hits us, I hear Mason’s screams cut through the air along with my own.
When I jostle Evie to get a better grip with both arms, her head rolls back and I come face to face with the grisly mask permanently affixed to her face. It’s her, but it’s not her. Her vacant, milky eyes aren’t blue anymore, having turned a muddy shade of brown, and her swollen, waterlogged skin is stained a bloodless black, tinged with green and covered with a slime that slips through my fingers so I can barely hold onto her. In sick fucking irony, her radiant teeth still sparkle white against her decaying lips, her sagging jaw pulling them slightly ajar.
Her vibrant red hair is gone—most of it, anyway—the remaining strands turned black and plastered to her skull. Her clothes are gone, too, leaving her completely naked like a sickly alien creature birthed from the depths of a sewer. Her arms hang limp, reaching out into empty space, skin peeling away from her fingers and wrists like torn latex gloves. Some are missing, but I can still make out her pink and black acrylic nails.
My lungs burn as I scream her name, rocking back and forth, hovering over her face like I might be able to wake her up, only to throw my head back in nauseated hopelessness as I sob into the treetops. Mason lets go of me and stumbles backward in shock, erupting into another torrent of screams. He collapses onto his hands and knees in the water, shaking, screaming, and sobbing into his arm as he looks on in horror.
I don’t know what I was expecting. I knew the outcome wouldn’t be a good one, but I wasn’t ready. I would never be ready.
When I roll my head back in anguish, I catch sight of Mason on the bank, doubled over, red-faced and screaming into his phone. My own pathetic sounds drown out what he’s saying as I descend further into madness and despair.
All I can do is sit in the water with Evie’s body melting into mine, tears and snot leaking out of my face while I keep screaming. I’m holding her so tight that my fingertips sink into her slimy, ruined flesh and, even though I’m convulsing with coughs and retches, I can’t bring myself to let go of her.
I can’t let go of her.
By the time we leave the woods, I don’t know how much time has passed. The only sounds now are muted voices drifting under the crack of the door at the police station. After a wave of law enforcement and EMTs flooded into the clearing, they peeled Evie, quite literally, off of me, and took us all out of the woods. I don’t know where they took Mason. I don’t even remember how I got here.
All I know is that I’m sitting in an interrogation room, staring at the white cinderblock walls in a near catatonic state. Someone peeks through the window periodically, probably to make sure I don’t kill myself on their watch.
“They’re on their way down…” I hear Tate’s voice in the hallway, “he’s covered in…Jesus…get some clothes, take him back to the locker room, and shower him off before the parents get here.”
I glance down at the front of my grey t-shirt and jeans, streaked with the remnants of Evie. My skin is stained with a thin film of decay and I smell like I myself am dead, too.
Everything moves in slow, fluid motions—undressing, dropping my clothes into paper bags, robotically scrubbing my body with a nondescript bar of soap, rinsing the death from my skin under scalding water—until I’m back in the same room I started in, this time in grey sweatpants and a different grey t-shirt with the police department logo on the chest.
When the door finally opens, the first person I see when I look up is Lena. Her puffy blue eyes lock on mine and she breaks away from Dan, my parents, and Tate and rushes toward me. Her chin trembling, she collapses onto her knees in front of my chair and wraps her arms around my torso. As soon as her cheek hits my shirt, she lets out a shrill scream that breaks me into pieces all over again.
I clutch her around the neck while she shakes uncontrollably, covering my face with my other hand. She clings to me, her voice wrecking me from the inside out as she screams Evie’s name over and over, punctuated by curses and desperate pleas to God.
My mom is kneeling next to Scott on the floor, crying into her hand while she holds him around the shoulders with the other. He sits against the wall, having slid down to the floor as soon as he saw me.
He buries his face in his hands while his shoulders shake with sobs, “No, no, no…my Evie girl…please, no!”
I cry even harder when I hear his voice. It’s one I’ve never heard since I’ve known him. It’s too high-pitched and cracked for such a big man—the sound of a father’s heart breaking when he realizes his only child is dead. She’s dead, and he doesn’t know how she died or who did it. He doesn’t know who stole her away from him.
When Lena finally pulls back, she reaches up and grasps my contorted and swollen face, brushing my wet hair away from my forehead like only a mom would. She doesn’t say anything, just gazes sympathetically at me through the tears streaming down her face.
“Oh, Colson…” she sighs, “oh, God…I’m so sorry…” she shakes her head and pulls me close again.
She just found out her only child is dead and she feels sorry for me. But I know what she’s thinking. Who wants to thank their daughter’s brother for finding her dead body? Who wants to feel any kind of relief when Evie’s still dead and someone had to find her like that? I don’t want to let go of Lena, and she doesn’t seem to mind.
In an instant, time stops and loses all meaning. The rest of the world goes on, the sun sets, and another day starts. But, regardless, she and I are both left suspended in time, clinging to each other in the absence of the one we really want.
●●●
I used to wish that Evie and I went to the same school, but now I wonder if it’s better that we didn’t. On one hand, I don’t think I could deal with the endless conversations, condolences, memorials, tributes, and Evie’s face plastered all over the school. Not to mention the media coverage…she’s the first homicide in Canaan in 14 years. But, on the other hand, maybe if I was closer, Bowen would’ve left her alone.
That’s what I’m thinking about while I stare at him over her closed casket, draped in violets and tiger lilies. I sit motionless, my arm firmly around Dallas, holding her close while she sniffles into my shoulder. I hate this for Dallas, even more than for myself. Freshman year of high school is hard enough, and now her life’s been turned upside down. How can I leave for college next year? How can I leave her like this?
It doesn’t matter where we are, it’s always the same; Dire Ridge and Canaan split clean down the middle, a line drawn in the sand. Mason and his parents stand behind us with Alex and his older brother, Adrian, while Aiden and the rest of the Raffertys stand further to the side.
On the other side of Evie’s casket, Bowen stands with Hildy, Jay, and Hannah while Tate, Wells, Bowen’s parents, and Jay’s parents stand nearby. I can see Aiden’s face in my periphery, eyes burning a hole through Jay’s forehead, daring him to look in their direction. Although visibly uncomfortable, Jay comforts a sniveling Hildy while Hannah clings to her arm and sniffles right along with everyone else.
They all have a lot of nerve showing up here after everything that’s happened—after everything that happened before this…
Bowen knows I’m looking at him, ignoring everything else around us. I’m studying his face, trying to decipher what’s going on inside his head, and it’s fascinating. He stands next to Jay in a crisp, blue button-down rolled up to the elbow, looking like he’s dutifully waiting for this to end before moving on with his day. That is, until he thinks someone is watching.
